No doubt, even in the time of Edward and Eleanor, Windsor was rather a gloomy building for a palace, according to modern ideas, and utterly unlike the regal pile which now occupies the ground--recalling the shadowy past, with a host of memories gratifying to the national pride. For it carries the mind, through five eventful centuries, to that era of English chivalry which could boast of the Black Prince, and which was marked by the institution of the Order of the Garter, and rendered glorious not only by Cressy, and Poictiers, and Navaretta, but by great naval victories over France and Spain, which, even at that early period, made England mistress of the sea. Still, before the reign of John, Windsor, originally founded by the Conqueror as a hunting seat, had witnessed right royal marriages and high feudal ceremonies--especially the marriage of Henry Beauclerc to his second wife, Adelicia of Louvaine, and the homage of the King of Scots and of the Norman barons to the Empress Maude--and had been so enlarged by succeeding kings, that, among the royal fortresses, it was regarded as second in importance only to the Tower of London when the Plantagenets began to rule England, and was determinedly fought for by the various personages--whether prelates or princes--whose quarrels disturbed England during the crusade and captivity of Cœur-de-Lion--Prince John among the number. Imagine an old Norman stronghold on the brow of the hill, with towers, and turrets, and battlements, grey walls, penetrated by loopholes to admit the light, gloomy halls, with huge chimneys and oaken rafters, long, straggling chambers, a garden and a vineyard, a chapel dedicated to Edward the Confessor, and parks stretching away into the forest abounding with wild cattle and beasts of game, and you will have a notion of what Windsor was when King John removed thither from the great metropolitan stronghold before meeting the Anglo-Norman barons at Runnymede, with the intention of granting their demands.
It was not on this occasion John’s fortune to be very magnificently attended. In fact, he was every day becoming more unpopular; and many men who might otherwise have been inclined to arm in his behalf were awed into neutrality by the hostile bearing and the menacing attitude which the confederate barons assumed towards all who would not support their cause. Several men of consideration, however, were sufficiently under the influence of loyal memories to adhere steadfastly to the regal standard, though not much enamoured of a king who had brought his crown into such jeopardy; and the royal party, besides the Earls of Pembroke and Salisbury, and Warren, and Lord Hugh Neville, included eight bishops and about seventy knights. Besides, the papal legate accompanied John, and gave him the whole benefit of his influence, which, in spite of the counteracting influence of the primate, was not slight, nor to be lightly regarded, as both the primate and the barons well knew. Nevertheless, in spite of the presence of the legate and bishops, even the most steadfast of his partisans looked grave; and on the evening of Thursday, the 14th of June, John sat at supper in the gloomy great hall of Windsor with the expression of a man who saw the handwriting on the wall, and whose crown and sceptre were about to pass away.