82 



ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



Queen 

 Eleanor's 

 garden at 

 Woodstock. 



the rudeness of many of their habits, and their fondness 

 for the brutal excitement of war and the chase, lives of 

 adventure had highly developed the imaginations of 



the upper classes, and given 

 them a taste for living 

 amidst beautiful surround- 

 ings'. Then, both by art and 

 nature, people seemed made 

 for gardens, and gardens for 

 people to an extent which 

 we can hardly appreciate 

 nowadays. 



The Hardener. 



Above all, the pleasaunce 



was intended for the diversion of the chatelaine. As 

 early as 1250 we learn from a contemporary record that 

 Henry III, to gratify Eleanor of Provence, ordered his 

 bailiff at Woodstock " to make round about the garden 

 of our Queen two walls good and high so that no one 

 can enter, with a well-ordered herbary befitting her posi- 

 tion, near our fish-pond, where the said Queen may 

 roam about freely." Here she might have meditated 

 in solitude under a leafy bower, have enjoyed a tete-a-tete 

 with a bosom friend enthroned on a turfed seat, or in 

 pleasant company have paced up and down the sanded 

 alleys. 



As an agreeable alternative from the smoky castle 

 hall, 'the pleasaunce was evidently the favourite place for 



