The bower was also the “privy playing place,” and all care was taken to make its leafy screen grow close and thick. Perhaps one of the most interesting references to a green arbour--interesting because of the romance which was the cause of its mention--is in a poem by King James I. of Scotland, telling of sad years in prison, which ended in love and liberty. James, whilst still a young man, was imprisoned in Windsor Castle, and writing to solace himself with something more tangible than the mere contemplation of his beloved one, and to while away time, describes the garden with “herbere green,” which he saw through the barred window of his prison-house. Leaning his head against the cold stone wall, by night he gazed at the stars, by day at the garden. And weary and woe-begone as he was, he says, “to look, it did me good.”
Now there was made fast by the tower wall A garden fair, and in the corners set A herbere green, with wands so long and small Railed all about: and so with trees close set Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knit That no one though he were near walking by Might there within scarce any one espy.
So thick the branches and the leafage green. Beshaded all the alleys that there were, And ’midst of ev’ry herbere might be seen The sharp and green sweet-scented juniper, Growing so fair with branches here and there, That, as it seemed to any one without, The branches spread the herbere all about.
And on the slender green-leaved branches sat The little joyous nightingales, and sang So loud and clear, the carols consecrat To faithful love.[45]
This “garden fair” was the scene of the romance which solaced this royal prisoner, and helped him to bear his irksome lot, and to be able to exclaim, after nearly eighteen years’ captivity--a captivity since boyhood:
Thanks be to the massive castle wall, From which I eagerly looked forth and leant.
Looking from his window he espied, notwithstanding “hawthorne hedges” and “beshaded alleys,” Lady Johanna Beaumont (whom he wedded on his release) walking in the garden. Neither poet nor historian tells how they found means to communicate with one another, but tradition, which is sometimes twin-brother to truth, has handed down the story of a go-between who conveyed missives and tokens.