In the short campaign that followed, during which John so very nearly recovered his power, the capital importance of Windsor reappears.  Louis of France, to whom the Barons were willing to hand over what was left of order in England, had occupied all the south and west, including even Worcester, and, of course, London.  In this occupation the exception of Dover, which the French were actively besieging, must be regarded as an isolated point, but Windsor, which John’s men held against the allies, threw an angle of defence right down into the midst of the territory lost to the Crown.  Windsor was, of course, besieged; but John’s garrison, holding out as it did, saved the position.  The King was at Wallingford at one moment during the siege; his proximity tempted the enemy to raise the siege, to leave Windsor in the hands of the royal garrison, and to advance against him, or rather to cut him off in his advance eastward.  They marched with the utmost rapidity to Cambridge, but John was ahead of them:  and before they could return to the capture of Windsor he was rapidly confirming his power in the north and the east.

It must not be forgotten in all this description that Windsor was helped in its development as a fortress by the presence to the south of the hill of a great space of waste lands.

These waste lands of Western Europe, which it was impossible or unprofitable to cultivate, were, by a sound political tradition, vested in the common authority, which was the Crown.

Indeed they still remain so vested in most European countries.  The Cantons of Switzerland, the Communes and the National Governments of France, Italy, and Spain remain in possession of the waste.  It is only with us that wealthy private owners have been permitted to rob the Commonwealth of so obvious an inheritance, a piece of theft which they have accomplished with complete cynicism, and by specific acts whose particular dates can be quoted, though historians are very naturally careful to leave the process but vaguely analysed.  Indeed, the last and most valuable of these waste spaces, the New Forest itself, might have entirely disappeared had not Charles I. (the last king in England to attempt a repression of the landed class) so forcibly urged the local engrosser to disgorge as to compel him, with Hampden and the rest, to a burning zeal for political liberty.

This great waste space to the south of Windsor Hill became, after the Conquest, the Forest, and apart from the hunting which it afforded to the Royal palace, served a certain purpose on the military side as well.