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Windsor Castle

W >> William Harrison Ainsworth >> Windsor Castle



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"About, about!
Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out."

SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor



There is an old tale goes, that Herne the hunter,
Sometime a keeper here in Windsor forest,
Doth all the winter time, at still midnight,
Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;
And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,
And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain
In a most hideous and dreadful manner:
You have heard of such a spirit; and well you know,
The superstitious idle-headed eld
Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,
This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth." --ibid




WINDSOR CASTLE




Book I Anne Boleyn




I. Of the Earl of Surrey's solitary Ramble in the Home Park--Of the Vision
beheld by him in the Haunted Dell--And of his Meeting with Morgan
Fenwolf, the Keeper, beneath Herne's Oak.


In the twentieth year of the reign of the right high and puissant King
Henry the Eighth, namely, in 1529, on the 21st of April, and on one of
the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England,
a fair youth, having somewhat the appearance of a page, was leaning
over the terrace wall on the north side of Windsor Castle, and gazing at
the magnificent scene before him. On his right stretched the broad
green expanse forming the Home Park, studded with noble trees,
chiefly consisting of ancient oaks, of which England had already learnt
to be proud, thorns as old or older than the oaks, wide-spreading
beeches, tall elms, and hollies. The disposition of these trees was
picturesque and beautiful in the extreme. Here, at the end of a
sweeping vista, and in the midst of an open space covered with the
greenest sward, stood a mighty broad-armed oak, beneath whose
ample boughs, though as yet almost destitute of foliage, while the sod
beneath them could scarcely boast a head of fern, couched a herd of
deer. There lay a thicket of thorns skirting a sand-bank, burrowed by
rabbits, on this hand grew a dense and Druid-like grove, into whose
intricacies the slanting sunbeams pierced; on that extended a long
glade, formed by a natural avenue of oaks, across which, at intervals,
deer were passing. Nor were human figures wanting to give life and
interest to the scene. Adown the glade came two keepers of the forest,
having each a couple of buckhounds with them in leash, whose baying
sounded cheerily amid the woods. Nearer the castle, and bending their
way towards it, marched a party of falconers with their well-trained
birds, whose skill they had been approving upon their fists, their jesses
ringing as they moved along, while nearer still, and almost at the foot of
the terrace wall, was a minstrel playing on a rebec, to which a keeper,
in a dress of Lincoln green, with a bow over his shoulder, a quiver of
arrows at his back, and a comely damsel under his arm, was listening.

On the left, a view altogether different in character, though scarcely
less beautiful, was offered to the gaze. It was formed by the town of
Windsor, then not a third of its present size, but incomparably more
picturesque in appearance, consisting almost entirely of a long
straggling row of houses, chequered black and white, with tall gables,
and projecting storeys skirting the west and south sides of the castle,
by the silver windings of the river, traceable for miles, and reflecting the
glowing hues of the sky, by the venerable College of Eton, embowered
in a grove of trees, and by a vast tract of well-wooded and well-
cultivated country beyond it, interspersed with villages, churches, old
halls, monasteries, and abbeys.

Taking out his tablets, the youth, after some reflection, traced a few
lines upon them, and then, quitting the parapet, proceeded slowly, and
with a musing air, towards the north west angle of the terrace. He
could not be more than fifteen, perhaps not so much, but he was tall
and well-grown, with slight though remarkably well-proportioned limbs;
and it might have been safely predicted that, when arrived at years of
maturity, he would possess great personal vigour. His countenance
was full of thought and intelligence, and he had a broad lofty brow,
shaded by a profusion of light brown ringlets, a long, straight, and
finely-formed nose, a full, sensitive, and well-chiselled mouth, and a
pointed chin. His eyes were large, dark, and somewhat melancholy in
expression, and his complexion possessed that rich clear brown tint
constantly met with in Italy or Spain, though but seldom seen in a
native of our own colder clime. His dress was rich, but sombre,
consisting of a doublet of black satin, worked with threads of Venetian
gold; hose of the same material, and similarly embroidered; a shirt
curiously wrought with black silk, and fastened at the collar with black
enamelled clasps; a cloak of black velvet, passmented with gold, and
lined with crimson satin; a flat black velvet cap, set with pearls and
goldsmith's work, and adorned with a short white plume; and black
velvet buskins. His arms were rapier and dagger, both having gilt and
graven handles, and sheaths of black velvet.

As he moved along, the sound of voices chanting vespers arose from
Saint George's Chapel; and while he paused to listen to the solemn
strains, a door, in that part of the castle used as the king's privy
lodgings, opened, and a person advanced towards him. The new-comer
had broad, brown, martial-looking features, darkened still more by a
thick coal-black beard, clipped short in the fashion of the time, and a
pair of enormous moustachios. He was accoutred in a habergeon,
which gleamed from beneath the folds of a russet-coloured mantle, and
wore a steel cap in lieu of a bonnet on his head, while a long sword
dangled from beneath his cloak. When within a few paces of the youth,
whose back was towards him, and who did not hear his approach, he
announced himself by a loud cough, that proved the excellence of his
lungs, and made the old walls ring again, startling the jackdaws
roosting in the battlements.

"What! composing a vesper hymn, my lord of Surrey?" he cried with a
laugh, as the other hastily thrust the tablets, which he had hitherto held
in his hand, into his bosom. "You will rival Master Skelton, the poet
laureate, and your friend Sir Thomas Wyat, too, ere long. But will it
please your lord-ship to quit for a moment the society of the celestial
Nine, and descend to earth, while I inform you that, acting as your
representative, I have given all needful directions for his majesty's
reception to-morrow?,'

"You have not failed, I trust, to give orders to the groom of the
chambers for the lodging of my fair cousin, Mistress Anne Boleyn,
Captain Bouchier?" inquired the Earl of Surrey, with a significant smile.

"Assuredly not, my lord!" replied the other, smiling in his turn. "She will
be lodged as royally as if she were Queen of England. Indeed, the
queen's own apartments are assigned her."

"It is well," rejoined Surrey. "And you have also provided for the
reception of the Pope's legate, Cardinal Campeggio?"

Bouchier bowed.

"And for Cardinal Wolsey?" pursued the other.

The captain bowed again.

"To save your lordship the necessity of asking any further questions,"
he said, "I may state briefly that I have done all as if you had done it
yourself."

"Be a little more particular, captain, I pray you," said Surrey.

"Willingly, my lord," replied Bouchier. "In your lord ship's name, then, as
vice-chamberlain, in which character I presented myself, I summoned
together the dean and canons of the College of St. George, the usher of
the black rod, the governor of the alms-knights, and the whole of the
officers of the household, and acquainted them, in a set speech-which,
I flatter myself, was quite equal to any that your lordship, with all your
poetical talents, could have delivered--that the king's highness, being
at Hampton Court with the two cardinals, Wolsey and Campeggio,
debating the matter of divorce from his queen, Catherine of Arragon,
proposes to hold the grand feast of the most noble order of the Garter
at this his castle of Windsor, on Saint George's Day--that is to say, the
day after to-morrow--and that it is therefore his majesty's sovereign
pleasure that the Chapel of St. George, in the said castle, be set forth
and adorned with its richest furniture; that the high altar be hung with
arras representing the patron saint of the order on horseback, and
garnished with the costliest images and ornaments in gold and silver;
that the pulpit be covered with crimson damask, inwrought with
flowers-de-luces of gold, portcullises, and roses; that the royal stall be
canopied with a rich cloth of state, with a haut-pas beneath it of a foot
high; that the stalls of the knights companions be decked with cloth of
tissue, with their scutcheons set at the back; and that all be ready at
the hour of tierce-hora tertia vespertina, as appointed by his majesty's
own statute--at which time the eve of the feast shall be held to
commence."

"Take breath, captain," laughed the earl.

"I have no need," replied Bouchier. "Furthermore, I delivered your
lordship's warrant from the lord chamberlain to the usher of the black
rod, to make ready and furnish Saint George's Hall, both for the supper
to-morrow and the grand feast on the following day; and I enjoined the
dean and canons of the college, the alms-knights, and all the other
officers of the order) to be in readiness for the occasion. And now,
having fulfilled my devoir, or rather your lordship's, I am content to
resign my post as vice-chamberlain, to resume my ordinary one, that of
your simple gentleman, and to attend you back to Hampton Court
whenever it shall please you to set forth."

"And that will not be for an hour, at the least," replied the earl; "for I
intend to take a solitary ramble in the Home Park."

"What I to seek inspiration for a song--or to meditate upon the charms
of the fair Geraldine, eh, my lord? "rejoined Bouchier. "But I will not
question you too shrewdly. Only let me caution you against going near
Herne's Oak. It is said that the demon hunter walks at nightfall, and
scares, if he does not injure, all those who cross his path. At curfew toll
I must quit the castle, and will then, with your attendants proceed to
the Garter, in Thames Street, where I will await your arrival. If we reach
Hampton Court by midnight, it will be time enough, and as the moon will
rise in an hour, we shall have a pleasant ride."

"Commend me to Bryan Bowntance, the worthy host of the Garter," said
the earl; "and bid him provide you with a bottle of his best sack in which
to drink my health."

"Fear me not," replied the other. "And I pray your lordship not to
neglect my caution respecting Herne the Hunter. In sober sooth, I have
heard strange stories of his appearance of late, and should not care to
go near the tree after dark."

The earl laughed somewhat sceptically, and the captain reiterating his
caution, they separated--Bouchier returning the way he came, and
Surrey proceeding towards a small drawbridge crossing the ditch on
the eastern side of the castle, and forming a means of communication
with the Little Park. He was challenged by a sentinel at the
drawbridge, but on giving the password he was allowed to cross it, and
to pass through a gate on the farther side opening upon the park.

Brushing the soft and dewy turf with a footstep almost as light and
bounding as that of a fawn, he speeded on for more than a quarter of a
mile, when he reached a noble beech-tree standing at the end of a
clump of timber. A number of rabbits were feeding beneath it, but at his
approach they instantly plunged into their burrows.

Here he halted to look at the castle. The sun had sunk behind it,
dilating its massive keep to almost its present height and tinging the
summits of the whole line of ramparts and towers, since rebuilt and
known as the Brunswick Tower, the Chester Tower, the Clarence
Tower, and the Victoria Tower, with rosy lustre.

Flinging himself at the foot of the beech-tree, the youthful earl indulged
his poetical reveries for a short time, and then, rising, retraced his
steps, and in a few minutes the whole of the south side of the castle lay
before him. The view comprehended the two fortifications recently
removed to make way for the York and Lancaster Towers, between
which stood a gate approached by a drawbridge; the Earl Marshal's
Tower, now styled from the monarch in whose reign it was erected,
Edward the Third's Tower; the black rod's lodgings; the Lieutenant's--
now Henry the Third's Tower; the line of embattled walls, constituting
the lodgings of the alms-knights; the tower tenanted by the governor of
that body, and still allotted to the same officer; Henry the Eight's
Gateway, and the Chancellor of the Garter's Tower--the latter
terminating the line of building. A few rosy beams tipped the pinnacles
of Saint George's Chapel, seen behind the towers above-mentioned,
with fire; but, with this exception, the whole of the mighty fabric looked
cold and grey.

At this juncture the upper gate was opened, and Captain Bouchier and
his attendants issued from it, and passed over the drawbridge. The
curfew bell then tolled, the drawbridge was raised, the horsemen
disappeared, and no sound reached the listener's ear except the
measured tread of the sentinels on the ramparts, audible in the
profound stillness.

The youthful earl made no attempt to join his followers, but having
gazed on the ancient pile before him till its battlements and towers
grew dim in the twilight, he struck into a footpath leading across the
park towards Datchet, and pursued it until it brought him near a dell
filled with thorns, hollies, and underwood, and overhung by mighty
oaks, into which he unhesitatingly plunged, and soon gained the
deepest part of it. Here, owing to the thickness of the hollies and the
projecting arms of other large overhanging timber, added to the
uncertain light above, the gloom was almost impervious, and he could
scarcely see a yard before him. Still, he pressed on unhesitatingly, and
with a sort of pleasurable sensation at the difficulties he was
encountering. Suddenly, however, he was startled by a blue
phosphoric light streaming through the bushes on the left, and, looking
up, he beheld at the foot of an enormous oak, whose giant roots
protruded like twisted snakes from the bank, a wild spectral-looking
object, possessing some slight resemblance to humanity, and habited,
so far as it could be determined, in the skins of deer, strangely
disposed about its gaunt and tawny-coloured limbs. On its head was
seen a sort of helmet, formed of the skull of a stag, from which
branched a large pair of antlers; from its left arm hung a heavy and
rusty-looking chain, in the links of which burnt the phosphoric fire
before mentioned; while on its right wrist was perched a large horned
owl, with feathers erected, and red staring eyes.

Impressed with the superstitious feelings common to the age, the
young earl, fully believing he was in the presence of a supernatural
being, could scarcely, despite his courageous nature, which no
ordinary matter would have shaken, repress a cry. Crossing himself, he
repeated, with great fervency, a prayer, against evil spirits, and as he
uttered it the light was extinguished, and the spectral figure vanished.
The clanking of the chain was heard, succeeded by the hooting of the
owl; then came a horrible burst of laughter, then a fearful wail, and all
was silent.

Up to this moment the young earl had stood still, as if spell-bound; but
being now convinced that the spirit had fled, he pressed forward, and,
ere many seconds, emerged from the brake. The full moon was rising
as he issued forth, and illuminating the glades and vistas, and the
calmness and beauty of all around seemed at total variance with the
fearful vision he had just witnessed. Throwing a shuddering glance at
the haunted dell, he was about to hurry towards the castle, when a
large, lightning-scathed, and solitary oak, standing a little distance from
him, attracted his attention.

This was the very tree connected with the wild legend of Herne the
Hunter, which Captain Bouchier had warned him not to approach, and
he now forcibly recalled the caution. Beneath it he perceived a figure,
which he at first took for that of the spectral hunter; but his fears were
relieved by a shout from the person, who at the same moment appeared
to catch sight of him.

Satisfied that, in the present instance, he had to do with a being of this
world, Surrey ran towards the tree, and on approaching it perceived
that the object of his alarm was a young man of very athletic
proportions, and evidently, from his garb, a keeper of the forest.

He was habited in a jerkin of Lincoln green cloth, with the royal badge
woven in silver on the breast, and his head was protected by a flat
green cloth cap, ornamented with a pheasant's tail. Under his right arm
he carried a crossbow; a long silver-tipped horn was slung in his
baldric; and he was armed with a short hanger, or wood-knife. His
features were harsh and prominent; and he bad black beetling brows, a
large coarse mouth, and dark eyes, lighted up with a very sinister and
malignant expression.

He was attended by a large savage-looking staghound, whom he
addressed as Bawsey, and whose fierceness had to be restrained as
Surrey approached.

Have you seen anything?" he demanded of the earl.

"I have seen Herne the Hunter himself, or the fiend in his likeness,"
replied Surrey.

And he briefly related the vision he had beheld.

"Ay, ay, you have seen the demon hunter, no doubt," replied the keeper
at the close of the recital. "I neither saw the light, nor heard the
laughter, nor the wailing cry you speak of; but Bawsey crouched at my
feet and whined, and I knew some evil thing was at hand. Heaven
shield us!" he exclaimed, as the hound crouched at his feet, and
directed her gaze towards the oak, uttering a low ominous whine, "she
is at the same trick again."

The earl glanced in the same direction, and half expected to see the
knotted trunk of the tree burst open and disclose the figure of the
spectral hunter. But nothing was visible--at least, to him, though it
would seem from the shaking limbs, fixed eyes, and ghastly visage of
the keeper, that some appalling object was presented to his gaze.

"Do you not see him?" cried the latter at length, in thrilling accents; "he
is circling the tree, and blasting it. There! he passes us now--do you not
see him?"

"No," replied Surrey; "but do not let us tarry here longer."

So saying he laid his hand upon the keeper's arm. The touch seemed to
rouse him to exertion: He uttered a fearful cry, and set off at a quick
pace along the park, followed by Bawsey, with her tail between her
legs. The earl kept up with him, and neither halted till they had left the
wizard oak at a considerable distance behind them.

"And so you did not see him?" said the keeper, in a tone of exhaustion,
as he wiped the thick drops from his brow.

"I did not," replied Surrey.

"That is passing strange," rejoined the other. " I myself have seen him
before, but never as he appeared to-night."

"You are a keeper of the forest, I presume, friend?" said Surrey. "How
are you named?"

"I am called Morgan Fenwolf," replied the keeper; "and you?"

"I am the Earl of Surrey;' returned the young noble.

"What!" exclaimed Fenwolf, making a reverence, "the son to his grace
of Norfolk?"

The earl replied in the affirmative.

"Why, then, you must be the young nobleman whom I used to see so
often with the king's son, the Duke of Richmond, three or four years
ago, at the castle? " rejoined Fenwolf "You are altogether grown out of
my recollection."

Not unlikely," returned the earl. " I have been at Oxford, and have only
just completed my studies. This is the first time I have been at Windsor
since the period you mention."

"I have heard that the Duke of Richmond was at Oxford likewise,"
observed Fenwolf.

"We were at Cardinal College together," replied Surrey. "But the duke's
term was completed before mine. He is my senior by three years."

I suppose your lordship is returning to the castle? " said Fenwolf.

"No," replied Surrey. " My attendants are waiting for me at the Garter,
and if you will accompany me thither, I will bestow a cup of good ale
upon you to recruit you after the fright you have undergone."

Fenwolf signified his graceful acquiescence, and they walked on in
silence, for the earl could not help dwelling upon the vision he had
witnessed, and his companion appeared equally abstracted. In this
sort they descended the hill near Henry the Eighth's Gate, and entered
Thames Street.



II. Of Bryan Bowntance, the Host of the Garter--Of the Duke of
Shoreditch--Of the Bold Words uttered by Mark Fytton, the Butcher, and
how he was cast into the Vault of the Curfew Tower.


Turning off on the right, the earl and his companion continued to
descend the hill until they came in sight of the Garter--a snug little
hostel, situated immediately beneath the Curfew Tower.

Before the porch were grouped the earl's attendants, most of whom had
dismounted, and were holding their steeds by the bridles. At this
juncture the door of the hostel opened, and a fat jolly-looking
personage, with a bald head and bushy grey beard, and clad in a brown
serge doublet, and hose to match, issued forth, bearing a foaming jug of
ale and a horn cup. His appearance was welcomed by a joyful shout
from the attendants.

"Come, my masters!" he cried, filling the horn, "here is a cup of stout
Windsor ale in which to drink the health of our jolly monarch, bluff King
Hal; and there's no harm, I trust, in calling him so."

"Marry, is there not, mine host;" cried the foremost attendant. "I spoke
of him as such in his own hearing not long ago, and he laughed at me in
right merry sort. I love the royal bully, and will drink his health gladly,
and Mistress Anne Boleyn's to boot."

And he emptied the horn.

"They tell me Mistress Anne Boleyn is coming to Windsor with the king
and the knights-companions to-morrow--is it so?" asked the host, again
filling the horn, and handing it to another attendant.

The person addressed nodded, but he was too much engrossed by the
horn to speak.

"Then there will be rare doings in the castle," chuckled the host; "and
many a lusty pot will be drained at the Garter. Alack-a-day! how times
are changed since I, Bryan Bowntance, first stepped into my father's
shoes, and became host of the Garter. It was in 1501--twenty-eight
years ago--when King Henry the Seventh, of blessed memory, ruled the
land, and when his elder son, Prince Arthur, was alive likewise. In that
year the young prince espoused Catherine of Arragon, our present
queen, and soon afterwards died; whereupon the old king, not liking--for
he loved his treasure better than his own flesh--to part with her dowry,
gave her to his second son, Henry, our gracious sovereign, whom God
preserve! Folks said then the match wouldn't come to good; and now
we find they spoke the truth, for it is likely to end in a divorce."

"Not so loud, mine host!" cried the foremost attendant; "here comes our
young master, the Earl of Surrey."

"Well, I care not," replied the host bluffly. "I've spoken no treason. I
love my king; and if he wishes to have a divorce, I hope his holiness the
Pope will grant him one, that's all."

As he said this, a loud noise was heard within the hostel, and a man
was suddenly and so forcibly driven forth, that he almost knocked down
Bryan Bowntance, who was rushing in to see what was the matter. The
person thus ejected, who was a powerfully-built young man, in a
leathern doublet, with his muscular arms bared to the shoulder, turned
his rage upon the host, and seized him by the throat with a grip that
threatened him with strangulation. Indeed, but for the intervention of
the earl's attendants, who rushed to his assistance, such might have
been his fate. As soon as he was liberated, Bryan cried in a voice of
mingled rage and surprise to his assailant, "Why, what's the matter,
Mark Fytton?--are you gone mad, or do you mistake me for a sheep or a
bullock, that you attack me in this fashion? My strong ale must have
got into your addle pate with a vengeance.

"The knave has been speaking treason of the king's highness," said the
tall man, whose doublet and hose of the finest green cloth, as well as
the how and quiverful of arrows at his back, proclaimed him an archer--"
and therefore we turned him out!"

"And you did well, Captain Barlow," cried the host.

"Call me rather the Duke of Shoreditch," rejoined the tall archer; "for
since his majesty conferred the title upon me, though it were but in jest,
when I won this silver bugle, I shall ever claim it. I am always
designated by my neighbours in Shoreditch as his grace; and I require
the same attention at your hands. To-morrow I shall have my
comrades, the Marquises of Clerkenwell, Islington, Hogsden, Pancras,
and Paddington, with me, and then you will see the gallant figure we
shall cut."

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