we deduct the eminence on which it
stands, yet enough, in this level country, to give it a prospect of
a score or two of miles in all directions. The Conqueror fell in love
with the situation at first sight, and gave a stolen monastery in
exchange for it. The home so won has provided a shelter--at times very
imperfect, indeed--to British sovereigns for eight centuries. From
the modest erection of William it has been steadily growing--with the
growth of the empire, we were near saying, but its chief enlargements
occurred before the empire entered upon the expansion of the past
three centuries. It is more closely associated with Edward III. than
with any other of the ancient line. He was born at Windsor, and
almost entirely rebuilt it, William of Wykeham being superintending
architect, with "a fee of one shilling a day whilst at Windsor, and
two shillings when he went elsewhere on the duties of his office,"
three shillings a week being the pay of his clerk. It becomes at once
obvious that the margin for "rings" was but slender in those days.
The labor question gave not the least trouble. The law of supply
and demand was not consulted. "Three hundred and sixty workmen were
impressed, to be employed on the building at the king's wages; some
of whom having clandestinely left Windsor and engaged in other
employments to greater advantage, writs were issued prohibiting all
persons from employing them on pain of forfeiting all their goods and
chattels." In presence of so simple and effective a definition of the
rights of the workingman, strikes sink into nothingness. And Magna
Charta had been signed a hundred and fifty years before! That
document, however, in honor of which the free and enlightened Briton
of to-day is wont to elevate his hat and his voice, was only in the
name and on behalf of the barons. The English people derived under it
neither name, place nor right. English liberty is only incidental, a
foundling of untraced parentage, a _filius nullius_. True, its
growth was indirectly fostered by aught that checked the power of the
monarch, and the nobles builded more wisely than they knew or intended
when they brought Lackland to book, or to parchment, at Runnymede,
not far down the river and close to the edge of the royal park. The
memorable plain is still a meadow, kept ever green and inviolate of
the plough. A pleasant row it is for the Eton youngsters to this spot.
On Magna Charta island, opposite, they may take their