A VILLAGE BY THE SEA 199 



and with her splendid retinue passed to the Priory 

 of Titchfield, where in the chapel, now in ruins, she 

 was married by the Prior to King Henry VI. It is 

 possible, as tradition asserts, that on one of her royal 

 progresses Queen Elizabeth honoured the Castle with 

 her presence, and feasted with her courtiers in the 

 stately banqueting hall, while minstrels played in the 

 gallery, as in the old days when the good Philippa 

 was queen. 



But with the last strains of the minstrels' music 

 a silence falls upon the Castle for many a year, broken 

 again in the days of the great war by the arrival of 

 hundreds of Dutch and French prisoners. At one 

 time several thousand prisoners of war were confined 

 there. The village was full of soldiers; and the 

 monotony of country life was broken. Attempts at 

 escape on the part of the prisoners were frequent, 

 and now and then a public execution took place. 

 With the declaration of peace after the battle of 

 Waterloo, the prisoners returned to their own country, 

 and owls and jackdaws visited the deserted ruin. 



As the great town enlarges its borders it draws 

 nearer and nearer to our parish. In another fifty 

 years it will probably have reached us. And then 

 much of the interest of the old place will be gone. 

 The walls of Roman masonry will doubtless be left 

 standing, and the Norman keep will tower for perhaps 

 another century or two above the mud flats and the 

 flowing tide. But the glory of the parish will have 

 departed. The wild-fowl will no more visit the har- 

 bour-shore. In very hard winters when the ponds 

 and lakes are ice-bound they will again seek, as their 

 ancestors have done for centuries, the open salt water 

 of the harbour, but they will only look and pass on. 



