Oxford II

Don June 6th, 2008

Today went we to Windsor Castle.  The castle goes back to William the Conqueror, and has been added to by practically all
his successors. It is the Queen’s other residence, besides Buckingham and Balmoral. She did not deign to receive us personally for some strange reason.

I was struck by a portrait of Edward VI as a small boy, imitating, as small boys will, his father’s famous stance–though in fact it looked as if he might turn out very different from Henry VIII had he lived.  Across the fireplace therefrom was his sister Elizabeth at 13, with her fingers in a book to mark her place against the ending of the portrait session.  So young, so innocent, with no idea of what was coming, and now all turned to dust. ‘They weep for the way the world goes and our life that passes / touches their hearts,’ said Aeneas of the Carthaginians. We saw a special window that was built in St. George’s Chapel so Katherine of Aragon could attend mass without disturbing the service with all the pomp of her queenly presence. Was there ever woman with a sadder story? Rejected for no fault of her own and left to die alone in a cold castle in a strange land, with all her pitiful letters to Henry ignored. The story of our race is a sad one always; and yet we have also found joy in simple pleasures and in friendship, and the honey of peace in old poems.  Let us keep our hearts unjaded and alive to both joy and sorrow, for that is what it is to embrace life, until our Lord returns.

From the Dreaming Spires,

Don

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