rounded the name of his country with a lustre which produced strength and safety; which perhaps also gave a loftier tone to the feelings of England, and a more vigorous activity to her faculties.' ('History of England,' i. 311.) And in the arts of peace the achievements were no less glorious, while the consequences have been far more abiding. Chaucer gave dignity and lustre to our language, equal and more than equal to what had been won for our arms. He struck the English lyre to a bolder and better note than had yet been heard; and though nearly five centuries have rolled away, his poems still live to excite alike our delight and admiration. In architecture, works of marvellous skill in design and beauty of execution were produced. The law, it has been said, was improved to its greatest height. And as if to mark the workings of men's minds, the struggling for mental advancement and freedom, Wiclif stood forth to do battle against spiritual despotism, and gave the first shock to the power that had bound in fetters, as of adamant, the souls of the civilized world.

The age grew in splendour as in genius. The meaner houses of a former generation would no longer satisfy the proud monarch of England. Here, in his birth-place, he resolved to build a new and more magnificent edifice, and he intrusted the working out of his plan to a master worthy of the task. William of Wykeham was appointed Surveyor of the Works, and Windsor Castle was designed in nearly its present magnitude and arrangement. But the splendour of these feudal times must not blind us to their real evil. The country at this time probably was in a state of considerable suffering; and even the steps taken to complete

this building show the oppressed condition of the labourers. Wykeham was appointed to be Surveyor of the Works in 1356, with a salary of one shilling a day, and sixpence a day for his clerk; but for the workmen, warrants were issued to the sheriffs of the surrounding counties to impress all that they could find, and in one year three hundred and sixty were so seized and employed "at the King's wages." Pestilence swept many away; better wages, and the desire of seeking employment where they pleased, tempted others. To fill up the ranks new writs were issued; such as were caught in attempting to escape were committed to prison, and, to prevent others from eloping, heavy penalties were denounced against any one who should employ such as had quitted the service of the king. Records still exist which show that the impressment went on until 1374, when, as they cease entirely, the works are supposed to have been completed.

Thus, then, had the monarch who had won for himself so glorious a name, now built for himself what was then, as it still is in many respects, the noblest palace in Europe. And well might the designer look with pride and pleasure on the pile he had fashioned, and even have set his mark upon the whole of it, as, with more of humility, he did on the Winchester tower-" This made Wykeham."

During the progress of the works the walls witnessed many a splendid ceremonial. Edward had already established the "Order of the Garter." The meetings of the order were held in the Castle, and, to render them as gorgeous as possible, the monarch lavished his wealth with unrestrained munificence. Whatever device could be thought of, he

called into requisition. The most splendid jousts and tournaments were held. Knights were invited from all parts of the world to be present at the festivals, and free passes were provided for all who came. At this time, too, John, King of France, his son Philip, and David, King of Scotland, were prisoners here, and Edward increased the splendour of the entertainments in order to do honour to them. The old chroniclers have exerted their best skill to describe these feasts, and probably the feudal state was never adorned with more of external pomp and glory than when the royal conqueror of Crecy presided in the Castle of Windsor, with his brave bride, and his son, the hero of Poitiers, beside him, and surrounded by the captive kings, and his own brave knights, and the flower of foreign chivalry; and alļ the pride and beauty of the land gracing the spectacle.

In the reign of Henry IV. the Round Tower was made the prison of another king, James I. of Scotland. He had been seized by a trick when a child, but never was prisoner more nobly treated. The education he received was the best that could be procured, and far better than he could possibly have obtained in his own country; and he was trained in all manly exercises, His residence in this round tower he has rendered romantic by the account he has given of it in his poem of The King's Quair' (or book). He was about twenty when he was brought here, and naturally was grieved at being deprived of freedom; and so he would day and night bewail his fortune, in that he, a man, lacked liberty, while "bird, and beast, and fish eke in the sea" lived without restraint. To relieve the tedium of the thoughts which haunted

him, his "custom was to rise early as day;" and having done so one May morning, he tells us, he

was

"Bewailing in my chamber thus alone,
Despaired of all joy and remedy,
Fortiret* of my thought, and woe-begone,
And to the window gan I walk in hyt
To see the world and folk that went forby ;
As, for the time though I of mirthés food
Might have no more, to look it did me good."

Now under his window was a fair garden and green arbour, set about with trees and hawthorn hedges

"So thick the bewes and the leaves green

Beshaded all the alleys that there were,
And middest every harber might be seen
The sharpe, greene, sweete juniper,

Growing so fair with branches here and there,
That, as it seemed to a life without,

The bewes spread the harber all about."

"And the little sweet nightingales" sat on the small green branches and sang so loud and clear that all the gardens and the walls rang with their melody. And listening to the nightingales' song, he found it was "all of love :"

"And therewith cast I down mine eye again,
Where as I saw walking under the tower,
Full secretly new comyn her to pleyne,
The fairest or the freshest younge flower
That ever I saw methought before that hour."

Our "

sage and serious Milton has told us how a grave citizen " forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe among the pleasant villages and farms,"

* Tired.

† Haste.
|| Boughs.

+ Thereby, past.

and who has from each rural sight and sound con'ceived delight,-how even he,

"If chance with nymph-like step fair virgin pass,"

will find a pleasure in her looks far above that he drew

"From smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine

Or dairy ;"

and no wonder, therefore, that our young prince, who had been lately studying Gower and Chaucer, and just now listening to a nightingale whose song was all of love,—no wonder that he, on seeing such a beauteous lady, should suddenly "feel start the blood of all his body to his heart," as he says he did. How fair the lady was, and how he sighed and mourned when she departed from his sight, may be seen in the poem: here there is only room to add that this lady was Jane Beaufort, the daughter of the Duke of Somerset, and that she became afterwards the wife of the royal poet, and lived to mourn his miserable death.

From the time of its erection by Edward III. Windsor Castle remained for nearly a century without any important alteration or addition; when Edward IV. erected St. George's Chapel, perhaps the most exquisite specimen of the architecture of that period in existence. It was designed by Richard Beauchamp, bishop of Salisbury, and on his death, in 1481, its completion was superintended by Sir Reginald Bray, who afterwards built the beautiful chapel of Henry VII. at Westminster. In the reign of Henry VII. was constructed the building near the public entrance to the state apartments which bears his name. Henry VIII. rebuilt the principal gate