Windsor

Guinesores, Videsores, Vindesores, Windeskore

1. Windsor

   A city in Berkshire, England, near London, on the Thames River. Malory tosses in the name in XVIII. Windsor Castle was founded by William I on the site of an earlier fortress.

   According to Chrétien de Troyes, Windsor was the city of Count Angrs, who, serving Arthur as regent (probably fairly early in the latter's reign), executed a major rebellion, for which he was eventually executed in his turn. Preparing for his revolt, Angrs fortified his castle of Windsor well, on its high hill with the Thames flowing beneath: he gave it triple walls and moats, palisades and ditches, until Arthur might have had the devil's own time capturing it, had Sir Alexander not defeated Angrs with a bold ruse.

   Arthur's knight Brastias became a hermit near Windsor in his old age. It was also the home of the knight Sinados.

   In Le Chevalier du Papegau, the city is Arthur's chief court. In the Livre d'Artus, warriors from Windsor join Arthur's battles against the Saxons.

   
   

2. Windsor, Count of
   Earl of Windsor

   He rebelled against Arthur, but was defeated and then executed.

   
   

3. Windsor Forest

   Windsor Forest is around Windsor Castle. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare preserves for facetious purposes the tradition of Herne the Hunter, who haunts this woods; Ainsworth, in Windsor Castle, one of his better historical romances, uses Herne for more genuinely ghostly effects.

   Malory relates a story in which Lancelot, while hunting in Windsor forest, is shot in the buttocks by a misguided arrow from a female hunter's bow.