Windsor Castle

In the twentieth year of the reign of the right high and puissant King Henry the Eighth namely in 1529 on the 21st of April and on one of the loveliest evenings that ever fell on the loveliest district in England a fair youth having somewhat the appearance of a page was leaning over the terrace wall on the north side of Windsor Castle and gazing at the magnificent scene before him. On his right stretched the broad green expanse forming the Home Park studded with noble trees chiefly consisting of ancient oaks of which England had already learnt to be proud thorns as old or older than the oaks wide-spreading beeches tall elms and hollies. The disposition of these trees was picturesque and beautiful in the extreme. Here at the end of a sweeping vista and in the midst of an open space covered with the greenest sward stood a mighty broad-armed oak beneath whose ample boughs though as yet almost destitute of foliage while the sod beneath them could scarcely boast a head of fern couched a herd of deer.