Chapter 3: Kenilworth.


The chief seat of the noble Earl of Leicester, as of a far less
worthy earl of that name, three centuries later, was the Castle of
Kenilworth. It had been erected in the time of Henry the First by
one Geoffrey de Clinton, but speedily forfeited to the Crown, by
treason, real or supposed. The present Henry, third of that name,
once lived there with his fair queen, and beautified it in every
way, specially adorning the chapel, but also strengthening the
defences, until men thought the castle impregnable.

Well they might, for our Martin and Hubert beheld on their arrival
a double row of ramparts, looking over a moat half a mile round,
and sometimes a quarter of that distance broad: and the old
servitors still told how the sad and feeble king had built a
fragile bark, with silken hangings and painted sides, wherein he
and his newly-married bride oft took the air on the moat. The
buildings of the castle were most extensive; the space within the
moat contained seven acres; the great hall could seat two hundred
guests. The park extended without a break from the walls of
Coventry on the northeast to the far borders of the park of the
great Earl of Warwick on the southwest--a distance of several
miles.

And here, in the society of a score of other boys of their own age,
our Hubert and Martin were to receive their early education as
pages.