spot between Henry and Roderic O'Connor, King of Connaught, by which the coast of Ireland, from Dublin to Waterford, was ceded to the English monarch. In the same reign, expenses were incurred in repairing or improving the royal buildings, of which there are several curious entries in the records of that period. In the nineteenth year of Henry II.'s reign, the expenditure on the castle was estimated at £73 7s. 6d. ; and in following years different sums are mentioned as paid by Master Geoffry, who, from the frequent occurrence of his name, seems to have been master of the works. Among the appendages to the royal palace at that time was a vineyard, and the expense of the vintage is specified in the annual charges relating to Windsor.

Every one knows that Henry II. was an unhappy father, and the Chronicler Fabyan relates that the king ordered to be painted on the walls of his apartment at Windsor, an old eagle with four young ones pecking at it. "What means such a picture?" it was asked. "I am the old eagle," said the poor monarch, "and the eaglets are my sons. John, whom I love best, imagines my death." John was represented picking out the old man's eyes.

In the reign of Richard I., Windsor was involved in the troubles of the period. Hugh de Pudsey, the martial Bishop of Durham, occupied it, as regent, during the absence of the chivalrous monarch; but he was compelled to surrender it to Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, a brother prelate, of similar warlike propensities. He retained it for awhile, and then delivered it to the Earl of Arundel; it was afterwards yielded into the hands of Prince John. Subsequently it was besieged and taken by the barons who remained faithful to the interest of their absent sovereign.

It is recorded that John, after his accession, imprisoned in the castle of Windsor the Lord of Bramber and his wife

and children, and starved them to death, because, when the imperious monarch sent for the baron's eldest son to be his page, the mother heroically exclaimed, that she would not surrender her children to a king who had murdered his nephew. Within the walls of Windsor Castle the same monarch afterwards sought security during his perilous struggle with the barons; and thither he repaired, after the charter of England's freedom had been extorted from him on the neighbouring plain of Runnymede, to brood over plans of revenge, and to lament, with the fury of a maniac, over the concessions he had been forced to make.* Attempting again to invade the rights of his subjects, he was once more assailed by his powerful barons, who invested the castle, but were obliged by the garrison to raise the siege.

* "It is probable that John and his attendants went to the conference (at Magna Charta Island, Ankerwyke) from Windsor in the morning of each day, and returned to the castle at night.”—“ Annals of Windsor," vol. i. p. 53.

CHAPTER II.

FROM HENRY III. TO EDWARD III.

ENRY III., a munificent patron of architecture, soon after his accession to the throne, made very considerable additions to the castle. In the eighth year of his reign, it appears, from existing records, that the sheriffs of London were commanded to deliver one hundred of fir to Master Thomas, for the purpose of making doors and windows, an order which probably relates to some new and stately edifice. In the twenty-third year of the same reign an order was given to the bailiffs of Windsor to paint the queen's chamber, to line or plaster the chamber of the prince, to make a private room contiguous, to put iron bars in the windows, and to form a floor in the turret of the gate, so as to divide it into two stories, and to cover it with lead; entries which, though trivial in themselves, become interesting as indications of the state of domestic architecture at that early age. In the twenty-fourth year, Walter de Burgh was commanded to make a certain apartment for the king's use in the castle of Windsor, near the wall of the said castle, sixty feet in length and twenty-eight feet wide; and another apartment for the queen's use, which should be contiguous to the king's, and under the same roof; and a chapel, seventy feet long and twenty-eight feet wide, along the same wall, so that a sufficient space should

be left between the apartments and the chapel to make a grass-plot. Respecting the royal habitation, nothing further can be ascertained than the dimensions. Of the chapel there are other notices, which prove it to have had the appendages of a galilee or porch, a cloister, and a belltower. In three years the walls of the chapel were ready for the roof, and a pressing order was addressed to the Archbishop of York to see the works completed. The roof is described as a lofty wooden one, after the manner of that which was then being built at Lichfield; and directions are given that it should be lined and painted, so as to appear like stone; and, also, that it should be covered with lead. The same order directs a bell-tower to be erected in front of the chapel, to be built of stone, and of a size to hold three or four bells. Four gilt images were also to be provided, and placed where the king had previously determined. The cloisters seem to have been partially completed about this time, but some portion was not carried up to the roof until five years later, when six carrates of lead for covering it are mentioned, to be provided by the sheriffs of London. An order was also given to enclose the space from the door of the great hall to the galilee with a wall, ten feet high, with a small door near the wardrobe ; and, also, to make a wooden barrier round the galilee, to prevent horses from approaching it. While these alterations were going on, the king must have been hard pressed for money, since Madox, in his "History of the Exchequer," relates that in the twenty-ninth of Henry's reign, not having enough to pay the officers of the chapel, he was driven actually to pawn a valuable image of the Virgin, which stood within its precincts.

"Many entries and particulars," observes Mr. Britton, "respecting towers, a new kitchen, an oriel, a private chapel, an oratory, accommodation for the queen, colours, boards,

laths, lead, crenellation of towers and walls; a saltinghouse, and other offices; a wardrobe for the queen's clothes, and a chamber for nurses, are specified in the items of accounts and works for this reign. A fountain, a conduit, a drawbridge, iron chains, a portcullis, a lavatory, a barbican, and many other domestic essentials, as well as military objects, were made and provided."*

In those days, the natural soil rammed down and strewed with litter or rushes, was the only floor of which even the baron's home could boast; but as a special piece of regal luxury, Henry III. ordered a room on the ground floor at Windsor to be "boarded like a ship."

To entertain the poor at certain seasons was deemed in those times no mean virtue; and in the twenty-fourth year of this reign an order was given to the bailiffs to fill the great hall of the castle, on the Nativity of our Lord, with poor people, and the lesser hall likewise on the days of St. Stephen and St. John, and the Epiphany. Similar directions are given to fill the hall with poor chaplains and clerks on the day of St. Thomas, and with poor boys on St. Innocents' Day. Carpenters were maintained in the royal establishment, and minute items of domestic expenditure are preserved, down to one of 15s. to Matilda, the wife of Master Thomas, carpenter, to buy a new gown.t The lesser hall was in the upper bailey, the large hall in the lower. A description is preserved of a throne, painted and gilt, which stood in the large hall, with the figure of a king in his regalia on either side. Mention is further made of stained glass windows, which were not completed till some

*"Architectural Illustrations of Windsor Castle."-By Britton. + Among the writs issued from Windsor during this reign, is a curious one relating to a white bear, which was kept in the Tower of London, for the purpose of catching fish in the river Thames for the royal table.