Hills.

Other poets who refer to the Thames are Denham, Cowley, Milton, and Pope. In modern times Matthew Arnold’s tender descriptions of the river about and below Oxford have been many times quoted. Gray wrote an Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, in which he refers to the “hoary Thames”, but the lines apostrophizing the “little victims” at play are more often quoted than those regarding the river.

The influence of the Thames on the countless sons of England who have passed through Eton and Oxford must be incalculable. It is impossible to mention Eton without thinking of Windsor, the one royal castle which really impresses foreigners in England. Buckingham Palace is a palace in name only, its ugly, stiff, stuccoed walls might belong to a gigantic box, but Windsor, with its massive towers and its splendid situation, is castle and palace both. Well may the German Emperor envy it! It carries in it something of the character of that other William, the first of the Norman Kings of England, who saw the possibilities of the situation, though little of the castle as we see it is due to him. The mass of it is of the time of Edward III, and much of it was altered in that worst era of taste, the reign of George IV. Windsor has come scatheless out of the ordeal; the fine masses of masonry already existing have carried off the alterations in their own grandeur, and the result is harmonious.

Many and many a tale might be quoted of Windsor, but these are amply told in Windsor Castle by Edward Thomas, the volume which follows this in the same series. Here we must be content with quoting only four lines from The Kingis Quhair, the great poem of King James I of Scotland, who spent part of his long captivity at Windsor. By reason of this poem James I ranks as high among poets as among kings; in it he speaks of the Thames as—

A river pleasant to behold,
Embroidered all with fresh flowers gay,
Where, through the gravel, bright as any gold,
The crystal water ran so clear and cold.

Windsor is the only royal palace, still used as such, which remains out of the seven once standing on the banks of the Thames. Few people indeed would be able to recite offhand the names of the others. They are all below Windsor. The nearest to it is Hampton Court, chiefly associated with William III, though it was originally founded by the tactless Wolsey, who dared so to adorn it that it attracted the unenviable notice of Henry VIII. Little was it to be wondered at, since the Court was described by Skelton as—

With turrettes and with toures,
With halls and with boures,
Stretching to the starres,
With glass windows and barres;
Hanginge about their walles,
Clothes of gold and palles
Fresh as floures in May.

Skelton also wrote a satire beginning:—

Why come ye not to court?
To whyche court?
To the Kynge’s Court
Or Hampton Court?
The Kynge’s Court
Should have the excellence,
But Hampton Court
Hath the pre-eminence
And Yorkes Place,

which was like pouring vitriol into the mind of such a man as Henry. When Wolsey entertained the French ambassadors at Hampton, “every chamber had a bason and a ewer of silver, some gilt and some parcel gilt, and some two great pots of silver, in like manner, and one pot at the least with wine or beer, a bowl or goblet, and a silver pot to drink beer in; a silver candlestick or two, with both white lights and yellow lights of three sizes of wax; and a staff torch; a fine manchet, and a cheat loaf of bread”. No wonder the King’s cupidity was aroused. It was not long before the great Cardinal was forced to make a “voluntary” gift of his beloved toy, as he had also to do with another noble mansion which he “made” by Thames side—Whitehall, formerly known as York Place, because held by the Archbishops of York. When Wolsey was told the King required this, he said with truth: “I know that the King of his own nature is of a royal stomach!”

On leaving Hampton the great prelate was allowed to go to the palace at Richmond. One wonders if he rode from Hampton to Richmond, only a mile or two by the river bank, on that “mule trapped altogether in crimson velvet and gilt stirrups”. Of the thousands who use that popular towpath does one ever give a thought to the Cardinal thus setting his first step on his tremendous downward descent?

It was while he was at Hampton that the news was brought to Henry of the death of his old favourite at Leicester Abbey. Henry, standing in a “nightgown of russet velvet furred with sables”, heard the news callously, and only demanded an account of some money paid to the cardinal before his death; not a qualm disturbed his self-satisfaction. Such is the most picturesque reminiscence of Hampton, and others must stand aside with a mere reference; such events as the birth of Edward VI, which occurred here; the “honeymoon” of bitter, loveless Mary and her Spanish husband; the imprisonment of Charles I for three months. Melancholy ghosts these; but they do not haunt the main part of the palace, for that was built later by Wren, acting under orders from William III, to imitate Versailles. This incongruity of style must have sorely puzzled the much-tried architect, who has, however, succeeded admirably in his bizarre task.

But of all the picturesque and romantic associations with palaces, those connected with Richmond are the most interesting. Only a fragment of the building now remains. After many vicissitudes, including destruction by fire at the hands of Richard II—who, like a child rending a toy which has hurt him, had it destroyed because the death of his wife occurred here—it was rebuilt by Henry VII, the first to call it Richmond, whereas before it had been Sheen. It is much associated with the eccentric and forceful Tudors, who, whatever their faults, had plenty of ability, and of that most valuable of all nature’s gifts, originality. It is said that in a room over the gateway took place the death of the miserable Countess of Nottingham, who confessed at last that she had failed to give to Elizabeth the ring which the Earl of Essex had sent to her in his extremity; whereupon the miserable queen exclaimed: “May God forgive you, for I never can”. The unhappy Katherine of Aragon, and still more unhappy Queen Mary, spent bitter days at Richmond.

How different is Kew, a palace in name only, a snug red-brick villa in appearance, where the most homely of the Hanoverian kings played at being a private gentleman! The other royal palaces—Westminster, Whitehall and the Tower—belong to the London zone, a thing apart, just as London is now itself a county, an entity, and not merely a city overflowing into neighbouring counties.

Not only for its palaces is the Thames famous, the monks made excuse that Friday’s fish necessitated the vicinity of a river, but in reality they knew better than their neighbours how to choose the most desirable localities. Note any exceptionally beautiful situation, any celebrated house, and ten times to one you will find its origin in a monastery. The monasteries which dotted the shores of Thames were frequent and lordly. To mention a few of the most important, we have Reading, Dorchester, Chertsey, Abingdon, and an incomparable relic remaining in the magnificent abbey church at Dorchester, with its “Jesse” window, which draws strangers from all parts to see the tree of David arising from Jesse and culminating in the Christ.