U. S. Grant and Admiral George Dewey; and Captain John Mason (1600–1672), the friend of Miles Standish, was one of its early citizens. It was the birthplace of Roger Wolcott, of the older Oliver Wolcott (1726–1797), of Oliver Ellsworth (whose home is now a historical museum), and of Edward Rowland Sill. Windsor has been called “The Mother of Towns”; it originally included the territory now constituting the present township, and the townships of East Windsor (1768), Ellington (1786), South Windsor (1845), Simsbury (1670), Granby (1786), East Granby (1858), Bloomfield (1835) and Windsor Locks (1854).
See H. R. Stiles, Ancient Windsor (2 vols., New York, 1891; revised edition).
WINDSOR (properly New Windsor), a municipal borough of Berkshire, England, and a parliamentary borough extending into Buckinghamshire. Pop. (1901) 14,130. The town, which is famous for its royal castle, lies on the west (right) bank of the Thames, 21¼ m. W. of London by the Great Western railway, which serves it with a branch line from Slough. It is also the terminus of a branch of the London & South-Western railway. Here the Thames, from an easterly course, sweeps first nearly northward and then south-eastward.
The castle lies at the north-eastern edge of the town, on a
slight but commanding eminence, while the massive round
tower in the centre, on its artificial mound, is conspicuous
Windsor
Castle.
from far over the flat land to the east, north and
west. The site of the castle is an irregular parallelogram
measuring about 630 yds. by 180. On the west the walls
enclosing the “lower ward,” with the Clewer, Garter, Salisbury
and Henry III. towers, overlook Thames Street and High Street,
from which the “hundred steps” give access to the ward on the
north, and the Henry VIII. gateway, opening from Castle Hill,
on the south. This ward contains St George's Chapel in the
centre, with the Albert Memorial Chapel on the east and the
Horseshoe Cloisters on the west. To the north are the deanery
and the canon's residences, for the foundation attached to the
royal chapel has the privileges of a “royal peculiar,” the dean
being exempt from episcopal jurisdiction. To the south are the
guard-room and the houses of the military knights, or pensioners.
The round tower occupies the “middle ward”; on its flag turret
the Union Jack or the Royal Standard is hoisted according
as the sovereign is absent or present. The buildings in
the “upper ward,” east of this, form three sides of a square;
the State apartments on the north, the private apartments on the
east and the visitors' apartments on the south. Along the
north side of the castle extends the north terrace, commanding,
from its position above a steep slope, splendid views across the
river to Eton on the Buckinghamshire side, and far over the
valley. The east terrace, continuing the north, overlooks the
gardens in front of the private apartments, and the south terrace
continues farther, as far as the George IV. gateway. The Home
Park lies adjacent to the castle on the south, east and north.
The Great Park extends south of Windsor, where the land,
rising gently, is magnificently timbered with the remnant of
the old royal forest. The village of Old Windsor (in distinction
from which the name of New Windsor is given to the borough)
lies by the river, south of the Home Park. To the west of
Windsor itself the village of Clewer has become a suburb of the
town.
As early as the time of the Heptarchy a stronghold of some importance existed at Windsor, the great mound, which is moated, circular and about 125 ft. in diameter, being a remnant of this period. William the Conqueror was attracted by the forest as a hunting preserve, and obtained the land by exchange from Westminster Abbey, to which Edward the Confessor had given it. Thereafter the castle became what it remains, the chief residence of the English sovereigns. The Conqueror replaced the primitive wooden enclosure by a stone circuit-wall, and the first complete round tower was built by Henry III. about 1272, but Edward III. wholly reconstructed it on a more massive scale, about 1344, to form a meeting-place for his newly established order of Knights of the Garter. He selected this spot because, according to a legend quoted by the chronicler Froissart, it was on the summit of the mound that King Arthur used to sit surrounded by his Knights of the Round Table. The bulk of the existing round tower is of Edward's time, but its walls were heightened and the tall flag-turret added by the court architect, Sir Jeffrey Wyatville, in the reign of George IV. In addition to the Round Tower, Henry III. had constructed long lines of circuit-walls, crowned at intervals with smaller towers. He also built a great hall (the present chapter library) and other apartments, together with a chapel, which was afterwards pulled down to make room for the chapel of St George. The beautiful little dean's cloister preserves a portion of Henry's work in the south wall, a contemporary portrait of the king appearing in distemper on one of the arches. Another chapel was built by him and dedicated to his favourite saint, Edward the Confessor. This graceful building, with an eastern apse, is now called the Albert Memorial Chapel, some of Henry III.'s work still exists in the lower part of its walls, but the upper part was rebuilt in 1501–1503 by Henry VII., who intended it as a burial-place for himself and his line, before he began the chapel which bears his name and contains his tomb at Westminster Abbey. Some years later the unfinished chapel was given by Henry VIII. to Cardinal Wolsey, and for long after it was known as “Wolsey's tomb-house.” Wolsey engaged a Florentine sculptor named Benedetto, probably a son or nephew of Benedetto da Maiano (d. 1497), also a Florentine artist, to make him a costly tomb of marble and gilt bronze, with a recumbent effigy at the top, no doubt similar in design to Torrigiano's tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The rich bronze work of Wolsey's tomb was torn off and melted by order of the Commonwealth in 1642, and the metal was sold for the then large sum of £600. In 1805 the black marble sarcophagus, stripped of its bronze ornaments, was moved from Windsor and used as a monument over Nelson's grave in the crypt of St Paul's. Though Wolsey's tomb-house was roofed in and used for mass by James II., the stone vaulting was not completed until the whole chapel was fitted by Sir Gilbert Scott as a memorial to Albert, Prince Consort. Its internal walls were then lined with rich marbles, and decorated with reliefs by Baron Triqueti. The cenotaph of the Prince Consort stands before the altar, with the tombs of Prince Leopold, duke of Albany, and the duke of Clarence, the last erected by King Edward VII., who was himself buried here in May 1910. In a vault beneath the chapel George III. and members of his family are buried.
The chapel of St George is one of the finest examples of Perpendicular architecture in England, comparable with two other royal chapels, that of King's College at Cambridge and that of Henry VII. at Westminster, which are a little later in date. The building was begun by Edward IV, who in 1473 pulled down almost the whole of the earlier chapel, which had been completed and filled with stained glass by Edward III. in 1363. The nave of St George's was vaulted about the year 1490, but the choir groining was not finished till 1507; the hanging pendants from the fan vaulting of the choir mark a later development of style, which contrasts strongly with the simpler lines of the earlier nave vault. In 1516 the lantern and the rood-screen were completed, but the stalls and other fittings were not finished till after 1519. The chapel ranks next to Westminster Abbey as a royal mausoleum, though no king was buried there before Edward IV., who left directions in his will that a splendid tomb was to be erected with an effigy of himself in silver. Nothing remains of this except part of the wrought iron grille which surrounded the tomb, one of the most elaborate and skilfully wrought pieces of ironwork in the world, said to be the work of Quintin Matsys. The next sovereign buried here was Henry VIII., who directed that his body should be laid beside that of Jane Seymour, in a magnificent bronze and marble tomb. The tomb was never completed, and what existed of its metal-work was probably melted down by the Commonwealth. No trace of it remains. Charles I. was buried here without service in 1649. Above the dark oak stalls hang the historic insignia of the Knights of the Garter, their swords, helmets and banners. On the stalls themselves appear a remarkable series of enamelled brass plates commemorating knights of the order. Many tombs and memorials are seen in the chantry chapels.
