THE GOVERNOR OF THE CASTLE.

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England often now, and I have seen great bunches grown against a brick wall in a garden in the town of Eton; but it is long since the ditch in the chalk at the Castle gave the vintner its fruit. Perhaps it was the perquisite of the Governor of the Castle.

It was in the room above the gateway that this officer held his court, to try all offences committed within his jurisdiction, which extended for many miles around. It is a commodious chamber, and the power formerly exercised over the citizens has even now its counterpart, in the court held by the Warden of the Stannaries, by the courts of the Duchy of Cornwall and of Lancaster, and by the Lord Mayor within the precincts of the City of London. When the last sitting was held in that place of justice over the doorway is not clear. But the dignity of justice was enforced by the condemned being placed in a gloomy little vault which was lit by a window looking into the Lower Ward. This prison was apparently humiliated afterwards by receiving other "rough diamonds" in the shape of coals, for it was called the "coal-hole." But in Henry's time it was chiefly used for the punishment of poachers caught in the park and forest. The Governor was also ranger of the royal game preserves, and was responsible for all men sent to gaol for breaking the laws that kept good "venerie" for the king. In keeping those sentenced in his prison at the gate, he followed ancient ways, for the dungeon was commonly in

such a place where, a guard being in any case always at hand, no extra watch was needed.

It was by this road that Anne Boleyn came when Henry had gone out to meet her. "The king entered Windsor with great horses," says the chronicler, "that is to say, nine coursers with nine children of honour upon them, and the master of the king's horses on another great courser's back, following them, having and leading the king's horse of estate in his hand, a rich courser with a rich saddle, and trapped and garnished, and so entered the Castle." Through that doorway the queen rode the poor queen, brought from her pretty old house of Hever, in peaceful Kent, to share for a short space the crown, and then to be beheaded on Tower Hill by the command of her hardhearted master, who watched from a mound at Richmond for the signal given at the distant Tower that his wife was dead. Truly that river that flows by Windsor and Richmond and the Tower has seen many changes; but none sadder than this! And Henry, where is he? His body is in a vault under the church over against us, and when last seen the lid of the coffin was off, leaving the bones exposed, and the great shoulder-blades and heavy bones lay white beneath the yellow light of the lanterns of the searchers.

ST. GEORGE'S STORY.

When within Henry's Gate, we see before us the whole of the Lower Ward, the ancient grass plots still

carpeting its area where the ground slopes upwards on the right, and spreading the English daisies to

shall examine later; and now, when we have the oldest ward of the fortress spread before us, and are

inside the defences, and can see their lines sweeping round on our left and hiding the town from us, as they encircle the brick and timber-built residences at the west end of the stately church, we may pause and ask why was all this " dedicated" to St. George?

Well, Ashmole says briefly that the father of the king who finished the chapel doubted, when he commenced it, to whom to give the dedication. He thought more of the Order of the Garter than of the chapel; but his chapel was to be under the same heavenly patronage as his order of chivalry, and so first for his order and then for his chapel he is said to have reasoned as follows: "The first and chiefest patron that he elected for this end was the Holy Trinity; nor was it accounted any derogation to God, but rather the contrary, that by their means, through whom He is well-pleased to be sought unto. Upon which consideration this religious and pious king, being singularly affected to the blessed Virgin Mary, though she was accounted the mediatrix to all men, yet did he more particularly entitle her to the patronage of the said order "—and chapel-" and no less was King Edward IV. in a special manner devoted to the same blessed Virgin. Thirdly, St. George of Cappadocia, a most choice champion of Christ, and famous martyr, was also chosen. And that not so much because in his life he was a candidate of the Christian faith, a real professor, and a sincere dependent thereof; or for that