castle, and once, bidding the
Duke of Norfolk dine with her there, spoke to him of his intrigue to
marry Mary Queen of Scots. According to one story she warned him "to be
careful on what pillow he laid his head"; according to another, the Duke
assured the Queen that the intrigue was none of his making, and that "he
meant never to marry with such a person where he could not be sure of
his pillow." He was thinking of Darnley, and that dark February morning
with the King stretched dead on the garden grass.

James I hunted at Farnham regularly, and actually took a lease from
Bishop Bilson of the castle, which he found a convenient centre for
hunting in the Surrey bailiwick of Windsor Forest. But James was the
last of the kings to hunt from Farnham. George III and Queen Charlotte
visited the castle because Bishop Thomas had been the King's tutor, but
Farnham's entertaining of royalty was nearly at an end. Once, in the
last century, Queen Victoria rode there from Aldershot with the Prince
Consort, inspected the Bible on which she had taken her oath at the
Coronation, admired the castle, and rode back again.

[Illustration: _Farnham Castle from the High Street._]

A castle with a keep and a moat, or rather a deep dry ditch, ought to
have memories of fighting, and Farnham Castle has seen some sharp
skirmishing. It has the distinction of having been twice held by a poet,
once for the Parliament and once for the King. George Wither was its
first commander, and his command did not increase his reputation either
as a man of letters or a man of war. Probably the castle was never worth
defending. It was isolated, and its possession, as it turned out, would
have helped neither side to control the movements of the other. But
Wither thought otherwise. He had made his name as a pastoral poet,
author of _Fidelia_ and _The Shepherd's Hunting_ and he now proposed to
make another name as a brilliant soldier. He saw all sorts of
possibilities in Farnham Castle and when the war broke out and he was
made Governor, he began at once building a drawbridge and a sallyport,
digging a well, and storing provisions. Unfortunately he had no
artillery, without which no self-respecting soldier could be expected to
hold a fort, even where, as at Farnham, there was no enemy within shot.
Riding up to London, he poured a perfect shower of requests into the
unwilling ears of Sir Richard Onslow, who was the chief pillar of the
Parliamentary party in Surrey,