We come to it for the castle in which a king was a captive and in which his daughter died, but Carisbrooke has something older than our English dynasties. The ruins of the castle are young compared with the ruin under the vicarage garden, where is a Roman bath, the central heating arrangement of a Roman village, and the remains of a tessellated pavement with a pattern of flowers. We can see the outline of the villa in the grass.

Halfway up one of the lofty hills stands the church with its 15th century tower, and a spire rising 100 feet. The tower has a beautiful stone turret, battlements, and crocketed pinnacles, and is decorated with rows of gargoyles and queer animals. Halfway up are two figures holding a book on which is carved the date 1471. Its eastern buttresses grow up in the nave, and between them rises a majestic arch. The beautiful south doorway and its stone porch are 600 years old, and most of the 12th century arcade was refashioned by the builders of that time.

The elegant pulpit, with a doorway over it, is mid 17th century; the font cover is about the same age. The big chest with a slot for coins is Elizabethan. The oldest of three ancient gravestones has on it a quaint portrait of a prior, like a drawing of a child on a slate; it was done about 800 years ago. The other two stones are i3th century. On the wall is a canopied recess with an angel carrying a shield; it shelters Lady Margaret Wadham, aunt of Jane Seymour, Queen of England. Lady Margaret, a solitary figure on her fine tomb, was a great friend of cripples, and is kneeling before a group of beggars and cripples, each one in a lovely little panel. A picture painted on wood hangs on a wall in the nave in memory of William Keeling, an East India Adventurer who discovered the Gocos Islands and attended James I. The picture shows a ship with Death at the prow, a beautiful woman at the stern, and William Keeling in armour in a gay attitude by the mast. The frame of the picture is painted with gruesome devices, and we read:

Forty-two years with vessel frail,
On the rough seas of life did Keeling sail.

One of the treasures of the church is the finely wrought silver processional cross, 500 years old, made in Venice and carried by pilgrims of the Middle Ages to the Holy Land. It was brought back to Italy and given by Princess Beatrice to the church. It is in a glass case where all can admire the exquisite delicacy of the 13 Bible scenes on it, each in a separate compartment with many perfect figures. Another lovely cross on the altar was given in memory of his brother, a young soldier of the Great War, by Sir Victor Corkran, the buttons of the hero's uniform being set in the cross as jewels. A little way from the church there stood in ancient days a priory of which nothing now is seen save what is in this church, and a few scribblings by some of its impish scholars. They are precious scribblings now, preserved in one of two recesses on the outer wall of the nave, one 12th century and one 13th. There are drawings of a woman's head, a few unreadable sentences, and something like a ship and Prince of Wales Feathers. The monks had the teaching of boys fortunate enough to get schooling in those days, and it is believed that the scribblings are the work of these young scholars in their idle moments. They are all that is left of the priory built by William Fitzosbern, a kinsman of the Conqueror.

He laid the foundations of the castle, too, on the site of a Roman fort, and this famous ruin stands on his earthworks. The flagstaff from which its flag flies is interesting because it was the boom of the Spinnaker sail on King George V's yacht Britannia. It is a 52-foot Norway pine. Keats wrote part of Endymion while staying here, and of this noble mass of masonry he said that he did not think he would ever see a ruin to surpass it. It is believed to have been on this spot that the Conqueror with his own hands arrested his brother Odo as he was leaving for Rome in the hope of obtaining the Papacy. The castle's outer gateway is Elizabethan and has the queen's initials; but it opens on to a stone bridge crossing the dry moat and leading to the splendid twin towers of a 14th century gatehouse. The towers were raised higher by Anthony Woodville, whose sister married Edward IV but whose chief distinction is that he translated the first book printed in English. The gatehouse has three portcullis grooves,500-year-old gates with ancient hinges, and a knocker which has worn a hole through the wood. Facing the gatehouse across the neat lawns of the courtyard are the Constable's lodgings, refashioned in the 14th century, with a hall and staircase built by Anthony Woodville and a bigger hall older still, having a 12th century window. Keeping it company in the ground, just through the entrance doors through which the king would walk, is a mountain ash from his birthplace, Dunfermline Abbey.

In an upper room of the Constable's lodgings Charles I had his Presence Chamber, and leading off from it is a wing with a little room in which his daughter Elizabeth died. Here also her brother, the little Duke of Gloucester, described by Clarendon as a prince of extraordinary hopes, was captive till Cromwell set him free. Beyond the stately Governor's house is a 16th century well-house, sheltering the shaft sunk probably 800 years ago when the old well failed. A mighty wheel about 50 feet round was made in 1587; its frame is oak and its shaft is chestnut. It was used for hauling the bucket by means of a donkey.

A long flight of steps leads us to the top of the outer wall, where we can look across the valley stream with its nesting swans, and see the village with its noble tower, the grey castle buildings, cedars, and many blossoming trees. The path brings us to the ruined keep in which is still the ancient well which failed Baldwin de Redvers when he held the castle against King Stephen, so that he built the new well. We can still see the water glistening faintly through the ferns lining this old well.

We may walk across the grassy square where Charles I used to walk, and through the ruins of the rooms he lived in. We may sit and meditate in the chapel of St Nicholas which stands where there has been a chapel since the Conquest, though the place we see is a beautiful reconstruction in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the execution of the King. The tracery of the windows is beautiful, and the carving of the reredos clear and fine. In a vestibule is Bernini's bronze bust of Charles with the starry crown of martyrdom below it, and his last word on the scaffold - Remember.

The Isle of Wight County Museum in the governor's house has much to attract us with its memory of the past. It has some extra- ordinarily delicate jewellery work of the Bronze Age, one fragment truly enchanting, showing a running hare inlaid with enamels. It is from the burial mounds on the hills, where there was also found a necklace made from animal claws. Yet it is the Stuart relics that thrill us most. There is a small red and gold Bible given by the king to his valet, the ivory top of the walking stick he used here; a crystal locket with a lock of his hair, the lace cap he wore on his last night; and a fragment of the lace cravat he wore on the scaffold. There is an outer ring of fortifications built by the Italian Gianibelli late in the 16th century.