Several parks are marked in the forest. Of these the Little Park is
now the Home Park, Windsor, and the Great Park and Moat Park are in
the present Windsor Great Park. Sunninghill Park, Foliejon Park,
Easthampstead Park, and Bagshot Park, the last mostly in Surrey,
still remain.
Besides the Parks there were certain enclosed places called
Rails. Cranbourne Rails is in Windsor Park. Swinley Rails was until
recently the place where the deer for the Royal Hunt were kept,
and Bigshot Rails is apparently the place now named Ravenswood,
near Wellington College.
In the early part of the nineteenth century there was a great deal
of discussion as to the rights of the Crown over Windsor Forest,
and in 1813 an Act of Parliament was passed dealing with the matter,
and the Forest is now enclosed either as Crown land or as the property
of private persons. Ascot Race Course is in the old Swinley Walk.
Walter Fitz Other was appointed by William the Conqueror Castellan,
or Governor of Windsor Castle, and Warden of the Forest; and the
office, which has become known as that of Constable of the Castle,
has existed from his appointment to the present day.
25. ROLL OF HONOUR.
King Alfred was born at Wantage in the year 849, and his statue by
Count Gleichen stands in the market place. The exact site of the
palace of the Kings of Wessex, in which he was born, is not known,
probably it was a wooden building. Edward III and Henry VI were both
born at Windsor; Henry I was buried at Reading; Henry VI, Edward IV,
Henry VIII, Charles I, George III, George IV, and William IV were
buried at Windsor; and Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort lie
in the mausoleum at Frogmore, in Windsor Park. King Edward VII was
buried at Windsor May 20, 1910.
The Marshals of Hampstead Marshall were a family of warriors. The most
distinguished of them was William, first Earl of Pembroke. When he
was a child his father, John Marshal, was besieged at Newbury by King
Stephen, 1152, and William was given as a hostage for a truce and the
surrender of Newbury Castle. The father did not keep his terms, and the
child would have been killed had not Stephen taken a liking to him and
saved his life. He became a great soldier and served Henry II, Richard
I, John, and Henry III with the utmost fidelity, becoming Regent of
England during the early part of the reign of Henry III. He died in
1219 at Caversham, and is buried in the Temple Church in London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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