nd installed in
the chapel of St. George.
The great gateway to the lower ward was built in the commencement of
the reign of Henry the Eighth; it is decorated with his arms and
devices--the rose, portcullis, and fleur-de-lis, and with the bearings
of Catherine of Arragon. In 1522 Charles the Fifth visited Windsor, and
was installed I knight of the Garter.
During a period of dissension in the council, Edward the Sixth was
removed for safety to Windsor by the Lord Protector Somerset, and here,
at a later period, the youthful monarch received a letter from the
council urging the dismissal of Somerset, with which, by the advice of
the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, he complied.
In this reign an undertaking to convey water to the castle from
Blackmore Park, near Wingfield, a distance of five miles, was commenced,
though it was not till 1555, in the time of Mary, that the plan was
accomplished, when a pipe was brought into the upper ward, "and there
the water plenteously did rise thirteen feet high." In the middle of the
court was erected a magnificent fountain, consisting of a canopy
raised upon columns, gorgeously decorated with heraldic ornaments, and
surmounted by a great vane, with the arms of Philip and Mary impaled
upon it, and supported by a lion and an eagle, gilt and painted. The
water was discharged by a great dragon, one of the supporters of the
Tudor arms, into the cistern beneath, whence it was conveyed by pipes to
every part of the castle.
Mary held her court at Windsor soon after her union with Philip of
Spain. About this period the old habitations of the alms-knights on the
south side of the lower quadrangle were taken down, and others erected
in their stead.
Fewer additions were made to Windsor Castle by Elizabeth than might have
been expected from her predilection for it as a place of residence. She
extended and widened the north terrace, where, when lodging within the
castle, she daily took exercise, whatever might be the weather. The
terrace at this time, as it is described by Paul Hentzner, and as it
appears in Norden's view, was a sort of balcony projecting beyond the
scarp of the hill, and supported by great cantilevers of wood.
In 1576 the gallery still bearing her name, and lying between Henry the
Seventh's buildings and the Norman Tower, was erected by Elizabeth. This
portion of the castle had the good fortune to escape the alterations and
modifications made in almost every other part of the
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