The next day we went as far as the royal palace. of Woodstock, where king Ethelred formerly held a parliament, and enacted certain laws. This palace abounding in magnificence was built by Henry I. to which he joined a very large park, enclofed with a wall, according to John Roffe the first park in England. In this very palace the present reigning queen Elizabeth, before she was confined to the tower, was kept prisoner by her sister Mary; while fhe was detained here in the utmoft peril of her life, the wrote with a piece of charcoal the following verses, composed by herself, upon a window fhutter:

O Fortune! how thy restless wavering state

Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit!
Witness this present prison whither fate

Hath born me, and the joys I quit.
Thou caufedeft the guilty to be loofed
From bands, wherewith are innocents enclosed;
Caufing the guiltless to be ftrait referved,
And freeing those that death had well deferved:
But by her envy can be nothing wrought,
So God fend to my foes all they have thought.
ELIZABETH PRISONER.

A. D. M.D.LV.

Not far from this palace are to be seen near a fpring of the brightest water the ruins of the habitation of Rofamond Clifford, whose exquisite beauty fo entirely captivated the heart of King Henry II.

that he loft the thought of all other women; fhe is faid to have been poisoned at last by the queen. All that remains of her tomb of ftone, the letters of which are almost worn out, is the following:

** Adorent,

Utque tibi detur requies Rofamunda precamur.

The rhiming epitaph following, was probably the performance of fome monk :

Hic jacet in tumbâ Rofamundi non Rofamunda,
Non redolet fed olet, quæ redolere folet.

Returning from hence to Oxford, after dinner we proceeded on our journey, and passed through Ewhelme, a royal palace, in which fome almspeople are supported by an allowance from the

crown.

Nettlebed, a village.

We went through the little town of Henley; from hence the Chiltern hills bear north in a continued ridge, and divide the counties of Oxford and Buckingham.

We paffed Maidenhead.

Windfor, a royal caftle, fupposed to have been begun by king Arthur, its buildings much increased

by Edward III. The fituation is entirely worthy of being a royal refidence, a more beautiful being fcarce to be found: for, from the brow of a gentle rifing, it enjoys the prospect of an even and green country; its front commands a valley extended every way, and chequered with arable lands and pafturage, clothed up and down with groves, and watered by that gentleft of rivers the Thames; behind rife feveral hills, but neither fteep, nor very high, crowned with woods, and feeming defigned by Nature herself for the purpose of hunting.

The kings of England, invited by the delicioufnefs of the place, very often retire hither; and here was born the conqueror of France, the glorious king Edward III., who built the Castle new from the ground, and thoroughly fortified it with trenches, and towers of fquare ftone, and having foon after fubdued in battle John king of France, and David king of Scotland, he detained them both prisoners here at the fame time. This Caftle, befides being the royal palace, and having some magnificent tombs of the kings of England, is famous for the ceremonies belonging to the Knights of the Garter : this Order was instituted by Edward III., the fame who triumphed fo illuftriously over John king of France. The Knights of the Garter are strictly chofen for their military virtues, and antiquity of family: They are bound by folemn oath and vow to mutual and perpetual friendship among themselves, and to the not avoiding any danger whatever,