Thus I alone, where all my freedom grew, In prison pine, with bondage and restraint: And with remembrance of the greater grief, To banish the less, I find my chief relief. The critics, I believe, regard this poem as a conventional poetical exaggeration of some unimportant or wholly imaginary event in Surrey's life, because he was then married, and because the lady who is conjectured to have been the subject of his "Description and Praise of Geraldine" was then only twelve years old. Queen Elizabeth built the North Terrace of the Castle in 1576, a gallery to the west of it now used as a library, and an octagon banqueting hall, at the east end, which Charles I pulled down to substitute a gateway and drawbridge leading into the Home Park. He also demolished the fountain of Queen Mary Tudor in the Upper Ward. He thought, but in vain, to build another banqueting hall, and to construct a fountain, where Hercules was to have been seen strangling Antæus, so as to make it appear that "by squeezing of him the water came out of his mouth". Charles often held his Court at Windsor, and was at the Castle in January when the Civil War was at hand; there was a garrison of forty officers and four hundred horse, and wagons of ammunition were arriving. But in October, 1642, appeared a pamphlet, entitled "Exceeding true and happy news from the Castle of Windsor declaring how several troops of Dragoons have taken possession of the said Castle to keep it for the use of the King and Parliament". "For King and Parliament" was a euphemism. Windsor was esteemed one of the strongest places in the kingdom, and could the Cavaliers have retained and fortified it, they might have descended upon London. And so "several well-affected Gentlemen and valiant Religious Commanders have gone to raise several troops of Dragooners and Volunteers, some of which are already arrived at Windsor, and have taken possession of the Castle". The intruders took the chapel plate of St. George's and coined it into money for the Parliament; they despoiled Wolsey's tomb; and they carried off Edward IV's embroidered surcoat of crimson velvet, wrought with gold and pearls and decorated with rubies, which had hung over his tomb since the opulent funeral of 1483. [Illustration: NORTH TERRACE AND WINCHESTER TOWER]