[Illustration:  NORMAN GATE AND ROUND TOWER, WINDSOR.]

The fine exterior of St. George’s is more than matched by the carving and blazonry of the interior.  The groined roof bears the devices of half a dozen early kings, beginning with Edward the Confessor.  Along the choir stretch the stalls of the sovereign and knights-companions of the order of the Garter, each hung with banner, mantle, sword and helmet.  Better than these is the hammered steel tomb of Edward IV., by Quentin Matsys, the Flemish blacksmith.  In the vaults beneath rest the victim of Edward, Henry VI., Henry VIII., Jane Seymour and Charles I. The account of the appearance of Charles’ remains when his tomb was examined in 1813 by Sir Henry Halford, accompanied by several of the royal family, is worth quoting.  “The complexion of the face was dark and discolored.  The forehead and temples had lost little or nothing of their muscular substance.  The cartilage of the nose was gone; but the left eye, in the moment of first exposure, was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately, and the pointed beard so characteristic of the reign of King Charles was perfect.  The shape of the face was a long oval; many of the teeth remained; and the left ear, in consequence of the interposition of some unctuous matter between it and the cere-cloth, was found entire.  The hair was thick at the back part of the head, and in appearance nearly black.  A portion of it, which has since been cleaned and dried, is of a beautiful dark-brown color.  That of the beard was a reddish-brown.  On the back part of the head it was not more than an inch in length, and had probably been cut so short for the convenience of the executioner, or perhaps by the piety of friends after death in order to furnish memorials of the unhappy king.  On holding up the head to determine the place of separation from the body, the muscles of the neck had evidently contracted themselves considerably, and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut through its substance transversely, leaving the face of the divided portions perfectly smooth and even—­an appearance which could have been produced only by a heavy blow inflicted with a very sharp instrument, and which furnished the last proof wanting to identify Charles I.”

[Illustration:  HERNE’S OAK.]

A highly-edifying spectacle this must have been to the prince regent and his brother Cumberland.  The certainties of the past and the possibilities of the future were calculated to be highly suggestive.  A French sovereign had but a few years before shared the fate of Charles, and a cloud of other kings were drifting about Europe with no very flattering prospect of coming soon to anchor.  Napoleon was showing his banded foes a good double front in Germany and Spain.  His dethronement and the restoration of the Bourbons were not as yet contemplated.  The Spanish succession was whittled down to a girl—­that is, by Salic law, to nothing at all.  The Hanoverian