56 A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND 
of the showy annuals and biennials of our gardens of to-day. 
But many indigenous plants would make no mean show, such as 
cowslips, daffodils, primroses, foxglove, mullein, St. John’s worts, 
gentian, oxalis, mallow, corncockle, yarrow, campion, knap¬ 
weed, or honeysuckle, all of which areknown to have been grown. 
There were corners, too, where a peony or tall hollyhock or 
monkshood flowered, or shaded nook filled with the glossy 
leaves of the harts tongue, or a portion of the long bed was 
made bright with pinks and columbines, or sweetly scented 
with lavender, rosemary, or thyme. In describing the flowers 
of a garden in Chaucer’s time, the one which he called 
“ The daysie or elles the eye of day 
The emperise and flour of floures alle ” 
must not be overlooked. It found its way into the trimmest 
gardens ; the greenswards and arbours were “ powdered ” with 
daisies. To quote Chaucer again : 
“ Home to my house full swiftly I me sped 
To gone to rest, and early for to rise 
To seene this floure to sprede, as I devise 
And in a little herber that I have 
That benched was on turves fresh y grave 
I bad me shoulde me my couche make.” 
Though a daisy plant is supposed to spoil the most velvety turf, 
yet none would see it banished from our gardens, and all agree 
in loving the little flower with the poet who said, 
“ Si douce est la Marguerite.” 
The gardens that were described by Chaucer, although in¬ 
tended for ideal ones, were no doubt but faithful pictures of 
the gardens of his day, seen through his poet’s eye. The 
garden, “ ful of braunches grene,” in which Emely was walking 
when she was watched by the imprisoned knights, was such 
as might be seen beneath many a feudal castle wall. 
“ The grete tour, that was so thikke and strong, 
Which of the castel was the cheef dongeoun 
* * * * * 
Was evene joynant to the gardyn wal.” 
There is in history a counterpart of this garden of romance, 
that of Windsor Castle. When James I. of Scotland was there, 
