The Cathedral — Early History — Dagon — St. Swithun — Æthelwold — The Vocal Cross — Ordeal of Fire — Walkelin — Renovation of the Cathedral — Civil War — Architecture — Nave — Isaak Walton — Relics and Monuments — De la Roche — Frescoes — Ethelmar — Crypt.

Fifteen years ago I visited Winchester, and attended service in the Cathedral. A verger, with the usual courtesy of his kind, showed me into one of the “misery” stalls, and I found myself very happy therein. The music was delightful. The boys’ voices seemed to waft me up to heaven, and the bass sent me down below the earth. The latter performance by one of commanding stature, who possessed something worthy of being called an “organ,” greatly impressed me. As I was passing out I observed to the verger, “That bass man is very grand.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” he replied; “if you were to hear him hollow out, ‘Judge me,’ you would say it was the finest thing in the world.”

“That is a somewhat modern experience,” observed Mr. Hertford. “Let us hear something about the early history of the Cathedral.”

“As early as you please,” I replied. “Warton tells us that ‘many reputable historians report that this city was founded by Ludor Rous Hudibras 892 years before Christ.’”

“The name Hudibras,” returned Mr. Hertford, “suggests that they belonged to the comic school.”

“Or poetic,” I continued, “Warton was poet-laureate, and his brother was head-master here. But there is no doubt that the site on which this Cathedral stands was of prehistoric sanctity. Hard by at the southern gate of the Close we find in the road two Druidical monoliths. Was not this a place where the long-haired, skin-clad Britons came to lay their offerings? Did not some mighty chieftain repose here beneath a rude dolmen? Below the crypt there is a well which reminds us of the holy wells—such as that of Madron in Cornwall—changed by the early Church from pagan to Christian veneration.

“A wave of the wand of the great magician, Time, brings us to Roman days. On the south and west are red-roofed villas, with spreading courts. Close to us, on the east, stand the old temple of Concord, and the new one to Apollo—low buildings, but large, and girdled by pillars, with acanthus-leaved capitals, such as those we see to-day lying on the grass at Silchester. Here pass the stately processions of white-robed “flamens,” who here placed their principal British college. But side by side with these time-honoured and worn-out institutions grew up the Christian Church. King Lucius on his conversion gave to it the possessions of these old priests, extending 2,000 paces on every side of the city. He built a little house, with an oratory, dormitory, and refectory, and placed in it monks of the order of St. Mark the Evangelist. But his greatest work here was the construction of the Church of St. Amphibalus, two hundred and nine paces long, eighty wide and ninety high.[62]”

“Paces?” interrupted Mr. Hertford, “what a stupendous structure! and very ‘airy’ I should think. Are you sure that it was not built for the marines?”

“Large as it was,” I continued, “Lucius’s voice would have filled it. We are told that when he became Bishop of Coire, in Switzerland, he chose a rock for his pulpit—his finger-marks remain there to prove it—and held forth so vehemently that he was heard twelve miles off—about as far as thunder would be audible.”

“You have evidently been among some of those jesting monks,” he said.

“Oh, no; what I have narrated about Winchester is from no goliard, but from Rudborne, a Benedictine of the place; a ‘sad’ fellow truly, but in the older and better sense.”

After a great destruction of monks and buildings during the Diocletian persecution, the brethren rebuilt and re-entered their church—of which Constans, son of Constantine, and afterwards Emperor, was then high-priest—and had peace for two hundred and ten years. Then came, in 500, the terrible Cerdic, against whom King Arthur fought so valiantly. He defeated the natives in a great battle where is now the New Forest, and entered the city. The monks were slaughtered, and an image of Dagon set up in the Christian church. We can scarcely picture the barbaric scenes when this prince of the Saxons was crowned, and buried, in this heathen temple.

Why does Rudborne call this the temple of the Philistine god Dagon? Perhaps it was merely a term of contempt, to signify an outlandish deity. But we know that Dagon had a fish’s tail, and might it be that the Saxons arriving by sea, invested their figure of Woden here with some of the merman’s attributes? It is a curious coincidence—nothing more—that the Roman pavement in the Museum, found in Minster Lane, about a hundred yards from the west entrance of the Cathedral, is ornamented with representations of dolphins.[63]

“I am glad we have come to the Saxons,” said Mr. Hertford, “there is something interesting about them. They lived in a fitful light. The sun of civilization was struggling through the clouds of primitive darkness. Literature was springing into life, with that centralization which begets great achievements.”

“A hundred and forty-two years after Cerdic we reach the light,” I continued. “Cynegils destroyed this heathen temple and began to refound Winchester Church, which his successor, Cenwalh, finished about the middle of the seventh century. He dedicated it to St. Birinus, who had been sent over by Pope Honorius. Hedda translated the bishopric of the West Saxons from Dorchester to Winchester, and brought hither the bones of Birinus, by means of which the neighbourhood soon began to be blessed or cursed with miracles.”

We now reach the days of St. Swithun, who in his lifetime came down upon the Church in showers not of water, but of gold. He induced Athelwolf, Alfred’s father, to give tithes of the Crown lands, and the grant was confirmed here by the King, in a grand ceremony before the high altar of “St. Peter’s.” Swithun (a native of the place) was first Prior and then Bishop of Winchester, and well deserved remembrance. He moulded the mind of Alfred, and persuaded Ethelbald to put away his mother-in-law, whom, by some eccentricity, he had married. From feelings of humility, or fearing that his body would be utilized after his death, Swithun ordered that he should be buried outside the church on the west; where, writes Rudborne, “a little chapel can be seen on the north of the Cathedral.” (This chapel, which has disappeared, was probably not built until many years after the interment.)

Æthelwold was a pillar of the Church. He repaired the nunnery founded here by Alfred’s queen, and purchased the sites of Ely, Peterborough, and the “Thorney” isle, on which the “Minster of the West” stands. He rebuilt the Cathedral of St. Swithun—upon plans apparently of that saint—assisting in the good work not only as an architect, but also as a manual labourer. Great opposition was made to him by the “adversary,” but he was supported by power from above. One day a great post fell upon him breaking nearly all the ribs on one side of his body, and but for his falling into a pit he would have been crushed altogether. Another day one of the monks who were working on the highest part of the church fell from the top to the bottom, but as soon as he touched the earth and made the sign of the cross, he ascended in the sight of all up to the place where he had stood, took up his trowel, and continued his work as if nothing had happened!

The church thus miraculously raised is represented by Wolstan, who saw it, as a wondrous edifice. It was built with “DÆdalion” ingenuity. There were so many buildings with altars round the nave that the visitor would become confused, and not be able to find his way about. A tower was added, detached, and so lofty that its golden beaks (gargoyles) caught the rays of the rising sun and, with a little stretch of imagination, “made perpetual day.” The crypts were like the church, so large and intricate, that “a man in them could not find his way out and did not know where he was.” The latter statement was true in one sense, as the occupants were mostly kings and bishops, who were brought in to be buried.

Wolstan is grand upon the organ; indeed, he works it a little too hard. He says that it sometimes sounded like thunder, and was heard all over the city. Whatever its modulations may have been, it must have been powerful, for there were twelve pairs of bellows, worked by “the arms of seventy men with great labour and perspiration.” This instrument had forty “musÆ,” notes, I suppose, and was played by two of the brethren.

The tower was surmounted by a rod with golden balls, which shone in the moonbeams as if they were “stars upon earth.” On the top of all was a splendid weather-cock. It was fitting that such a building should be presided over by a brave bird.

“The Winchester monk himself seems to have crowed pretty loudly over it,” observed Mr. Hertford.

Æthelwold had the body of Birinus, which Hedda had buried simply and respectably, taken up and wrapped in sheets of silver and gold. He was also conveniently admonished by a dream to move the body of St. Swithun, and a curious Saxon account of this direction is extant.[64] The saint, in shining light and full canonicals, appeared to an old smith, and told him to send to Æthelwold to remove his bones.

“Oh! sire,” replied the smith, “he will not believe my word.”

“Then,” quoth the saint, “let him go to my burial-place and draw up a ring out of the coffin, and if the ring yields at the first tug then wot he of a truth that I sent thee to him.”

The smith was still afraid, but when the saint had appeared three times to him he went to the tomb and took hold of the ring, which came out of the stone at once. But it was some years after this, before the cures wrought led to Æthelwold’s translating the body. The bishop took it out of the “poor tomb,” where it had rested for 110 years, and had it placed in a sheet of gold. He made this translation the occasion for a great demonstration, by which a vast crowd of people was collected; and the relics which had produced nothing in the days of the secular canons, now, under the care of the monks became the source of countless miracles—not much to the credit of the latter custodians. Within the ten days succeeding its removal, two hundred persons were healed, and afterwards sometimes eighteen a day. The graveyard was so covered with the diseased lying about that it was almost impossible to reach the church.

“I should not have attempted it,” interposed Mr. Hertford.

“Well; it would have been worth seeing,” I replied, “for it was hung round from one end to the other with crutches and cripples’ stools, and even so they could not put half of them up.”

“It is difficult to suppose,” said Mr. Hertford, thoughtfully, “that all the money that was given for pretended miracles was paid for nothing. Persons whose constitutions or disorders were of a nervous character probably received some benefit. Their spirits would be raised by their anticipations and the brilliance of the scene. Some recovered from natural causes, and those who grew worse soon died, or were not inclined to be profane in their sufferings. You remember the remark of Diogenes?”

“I have read some things he said,” I returned, “and some attributed to him which he did not say.”

“He was visiting a temple,” continued Mr. Hertford, “and was shown the offerings made by those who had been cured. ‘Yes,’ he replied to the priest; ‘but if those who had not been cured had offered gifts, they would have been far more numerous.’”

It is said that the transference of St. Swithun’s body, which had lain between the old wooden tower and the church, was delayed by forty days’ rain—and hence the proverb. The postponement may seem strange, as the tomb was but a few feet from the church; but it was a main object to have a great concourse of people.

And let me here notice a coincidence. We know that in the early centuries sun worship was much intermingled with Christianity; we have traces of it in our “Sunday,” in the orientation of churches, and several observances.

It has been maintained that the Elias of Scripture—the great herald and harbinger—in some way represented the sun, Helios, and in modern Greece that luminary is personified, and St. Elias is supposed to preside over the rainfall. The churches to this saint stand on the sites of ancient temples to Apollo, and here at Winchester we have a cathedral close to the site of a temple of Apollo, dedicated to St. Swithun, who regulates the weather.

Æthelwold acquired the reputation of being a prophet, in a manner which does not reflect much credit upon some of his friends. During Lent he preached a powerful sermon on mortification, telling the people to abstain from meat, courtship, and other pleasant things. On hearing this, some wild fellow among the crowd made a profane jest, and the bishop, in reply, said that he foresaw his approaching death. Next morning the offender was found really dead, “his throat cut by the devil.”

Many bodies of the great were moved by this bishop, and, in turn, after he himself had been buried, he was taken up and made to work.

In these days of Dunstan there was great activity in ecclesiastical affairs, a great conflict between the priests and monks. The authority of the Pope, which had not been hitherto fully recognized by the English Church, was now established. We are told that the canons of Winchester shirked the trouble of chanting, consumed in country residences the goods of the Church, and deputed their duties to poorly-paid vicars. “The Golden History” states that the canons were in the habit of turning off the wives they had illicitly taken, and taking others, and were guilty of gluttony and drunkenness. Such were the charges made against them by the monks, and the King turned out the canons of the old and new monasteries (St. Swithun’s and Hyde); but it may be observed that in the early English Church marriage of priests was not forbidden. We read that at the New Monastery all the canons were in 968 called on to take the Benedictine habit, “and robes and cowls were brought into the choir,” Dunstan having established the Benedictines in England. But the old clergy were not without friends, and determined not to yield without a struggle. A great meeting was held in the refectory of the old monastery. All the magnates of the country came to support the dispossessed canons; on the other side were Oswald, Archbishop of York, Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, and the monks. Dunstan sat next to King Edgar, who had his back to the wall, whereon was a cross, placed there it is remarked, in the days of Ethelred, when the canons first succeeded the slaughtered monks. The temporal lords now promised that the canons would reform their manners, and begged for their restitution. Edgar was moved by their “sighs and tears,” and was about to consent, when Dunstan’s genius, heaven-born or not, came to the assistance of the monks. A voice suddenly came from an image on the cross behind Edgar, “Let this not be; ye have judged well. Ye may not change for the better.” Edgar and Dunstan alone heard the voice. They were struck dumb, and fell to the ground. The voice was then heard a second time: “Arise, fear not, for justice and peace have kissed each other in the monks.”

“It is evident that the speaker, whoever he was, had no sense of the ludicrous,” said Mr. Hertford.

“We are led,” I added, “to think of the peculiar orifice there is in the Castle Hall just behind the daÏs.”

When the Danes obtained the sovereignty the butter-boat of the monks was still safe. Cnut enriched the Cathedral with a mass of gold and silver and of jewels, the brilliance of which “frightened strangers.” His own crown, either in his lifetime, or more probably after his body had lain in State before the high altar, was placed on the head of the Saviour, on the Cross which stood here. He gave a splendid shrine for Birinus, and a silver candelabrum with six branches. A magnificent golden cross, two large images of gold and silver, and shrines for relics were also bestowed.[65] Much of this munificence was suggested by his queen, Emma, who was a devotee.[66] She had Alwyn, a relation of her own, made Bishop of Winchester. Perhaps her partiality for this monastery caused some jealousy, for after her son, Edward the Confessor, had been crowned here in 1042, she was accused of being improperly familiar with the bishop, of consenting to the death of her son, Alfred and of opposing Edward’s accession. The King himself came down here in disguise to watch her, and soon her treasury in Winchester was seized, and she was compelled to retire to the convent of Wherwell. We are told that she felt greatly her reduced circumstances, “because the worst part of poverty was that it made people contemptible.” A memorable, if not legendary, scene is now recorded by Rudborne. “Emma the Lady,” once the “Flower of Normandy,” demands to have her innocence tried by walking over red-hot ploughshares. The day draws near. She spends the night in prayers and tears, and in visiting the tomb of St. Swithun: the saint bids her be of good courage. Next morning a crowd of clergy and laity collect in the Cathedral; the King is in his State robes. Nine dreadful red-hot ploughshares are brought forth. The Queen advances and addresses the King. “My lord and son, I, Emma, that bore you, accused before you of crimes against you and Alfred, my son, and of base conduct with Alwyn the bishop, call God to witness in my person whether I have had in my mind any of these things attributed to me.” She then throws off her outer robe and takes off her shoes. A tremor of terror passes through the vast multitude, and the cry rends the air, “St. Swithun, save her!” Rudborne does not minimize it; he says that it was so loud that the saint must have come then or never. “Heaven suffers violence, and St. Swithun is dragged down by force”—such are his words. Thus encouraged, the Queen advances between two bishops, and walks over the ploughshares, with her eyes turned towards heaven, exclaiming, “God, who delivered Susannah from the wicked old men, and the boys from the furnace, deliver me, for the sake of St. Swithun.” She seemed to be walking “on roses,” and so little did she feel the fire that when all was over she asked when the trial was to begin!

We cannot spoil the prettiest picture in Winchester’s history by a suggestion of falsehood or over-colouring. One of the ploughshares is said to have been afterwards found; and, as to the feat, there was no difficulty, for was she not treading on ground radiant with miracles?

Under the Conqueror and Rufus the Cathedral was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, by his kinsman, Walkelin. This bishop was an estimable man, and possessed such an unusual disposition that, although ascetic himself, he was tolerant to others. Never was he known to speak a harsh word, and, it is said, that he loved the monks “as if they were divinities.” The man who built this great edifice, and much of whose work still remains, neither ate fish nor flesh.

“The vegetarians ought to be proud of him,” observed Mr. Hertford.

“And the teetotalers,” I continued, “will be glad to hear that he very seldom touched wine or beer. His end was sad. Rufus demanded £200 from him, and he knowing that he could not obtain that sum without oppressing the poor or despoiling the Church, prayed that he might die; and we are told that ten days afterwards his prayer was granted, but we hear no details about it. His brother Simeon, at one time prior here, was of an equally genial disposition. Being shocked at the sight of the monks devouring meat on the fast days, he ordered some fish to be exquisitely cooked and set before them. The brethren relished the dish so much that they said they never wished to eat meat any more, and by this savoury device the worthy prior enabled them to indulge their appetites without endangering their souls.”

How it must have grieved the soul of Walkelin to be associated with such a creature as Ralph Flambard, who was a contrast to him in everything! When the King went abroad the entire government of the country was committed to these two opposing spirits. Flambard was unscrupulous and ingenious, and but for the injury done to religion there would seem to have been something almost comic in his career. Rufus, whose chaplain he was, never tired of heaping promotion upon one as unprincipled as himself. He was made Abbot of Hyde at Winchester, Bishop of Chichester, and Bishop of Lincoln. Many of the churches under his supervision were without priests or ministrations, and such were his exactions from rich and poor that they “did not care whether they were dead or alive.” This genius was thrown into prison by Henry I. when he came to the throne, but was too slippery for him: soon made his escape, and was over in Normandy abetting Duke Robert, who had a right to the English crown, and managing affairs so skilfully that upon a temporary reconciliation between the brothers, Flambard was received back and made Bishop of Durham.

A few years later the bishop’s misdoings became so notorious that reports of them reached Rome, and the Pope’s legate, John de Crema, was directed to visit the diocese and make inquiries. Flambard was equal to the occasion. He received the legate with great ceremony, and entertained him at a sumptuous banquet. While the bowl was flowing, he introduced him to his niece, whom he instructed to do her best to captivate him. John, who it seems had not the gifts of St. Anthony, was soon “with love and wine at once oppressed,” fell into the trap, and finally arranged with the fair deceiver to come to his room. She kept her promise only too faithfully. But scarcely had she entered when in rushed the bishop with a crowd of priests and acolytes carrying lamps and goblets, and calling out “Benedicite, benedicite! we congratulate you on your marriage—drink—we drink your health!” The legate was overwhelmed with confusion. Before daybreak he was up and off on his way to Rome leaving the gay bishop and his peccadilloes to take care of themselves.[67]

The history of this Cathedral has not been entirely one of peace. In 1188 armed men were brought into it, who, at the instigation of certain nobles, “not afraid to lift their hands against God’s anointed, dragged forth some of God’s servants.” In 1274, Andrew, Prior of Winchester, came here with a body of armed men. Sentinels were placed by the bishop to prevent their entering, and the prior made an attack on the third day. The bishop called his adherents together, barricaded the Cathedral, and excommunicated the prior. The King hearing of this immediately sent down justiciaries, and cooled by terms of imprisonment the “anger in celestial minds.”

By the time two hundred and fifty years had elapsed, Walkelin’s nave had become somewhat dilapidated, and Bishop Edington undertook its renovation. He built the west porch and one of the westernmost windows in the south aisle and two in the north. Wykeham carried on the good work for ten years, till his death in 1404, having commenced it as a septuagenarian. He finished the south aisle and began the north, and left 500 marks to glaze the windows. His work was that of adaptation—pulling down the triforium and casing the pillars. Portions of the old Norman pillars, then concealed by chapels, can still be seen near the stairs to the choir.

The work of construction was finished by Cardinal Beaufort and Bishop Wayneflete. We now come to a less pleasing subject for consideration—the work of demolition.

“Thomas did us more harm than Oliver”—such is the saying at Winchester. Among the spoils which the creatures of the former catalogued here for Henry VIII., we find:—

Bishop Horne, who died in 1580, and was buried near Bishop Edington’s chantry, was a detrimental reformer. To make himself conspicuous in taking what appeared to be the winning side he did a great amount of damage to the Cathedral, not only removing crucifix, images, and paintings, but actually knocking down the cloisters and chapter-house. A few arches on the back of the Deanery still remain sad memorials of these buildings, and of his misdirected zeal.

Much damage, but of a more petty character, was done here by the Roundhead soldiery during the Civil War. In the middle of December, 1642, the city, having been taken by Waller, was pillaged and the Cathedral doors burst open. “As if they meant to invade God Himself as well as His profession,” writes Mercurius, “they enter the Church with colours flying, drums beating, matches fired; and that all might have their part in so horrid an attempt, some of their troops of horse also accompanied them in their march, and rode up through the body of the church and choir until they came to the altar: there they begin their work, they rudely plucked down the table and break the rail, and afterwards carried it to an alehouse; they set it on fire, and in that fire burnt the books of Common Prayer, and all the singing books belonging to the choir; they throw down the organ and break the stones of the Old and New Testament, curiously cut out in carved work, beautified with colours, and set round about the top of the stalls of the choir; from hence they turn to the monuments of the dead, some they utterly demolish, others they deface. They begin with Bishop Fox’s chapel which they utterly deface, they break all the glass windows of this chapel not because they had any pictures in them, but because they were of coloured glass, they demolished and overturned the monuments of Cardinal Beaufort, they deface the monument of William of Wayneflet, Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor of England, and founder of Magdalen College, Oxford. From thence they go into Queen Mary’s Chapel, so called because in it she was married to King Philip of Spain; here they break the communion table in pieces, and the velvet chair whereon she sat when she was married.” After speaking of the chests containing the bones of kings and others, the narrative proceeds: “But these monsters of men to whom nothing is holy, nothing sacred, did not stick to profane and violate these cabinets of the dead, and to scatter their bones all over the pavement of the church; for on the north side of the choir they threw down the chests wherein were deposited the bones of the bishops; the like they did to the bones of William Rufus, of Queen Emma, of Harthacnut, and of Edward the Confessor, and were going on to practise the same impiety on the bones of all the rest of the West Saxon kings. But the outcry of the people detesting so great inhumanity, caused some of their commanders to come in amongst them and to restrain their madness. Those windows which they could not reach with their weapons they broke by throwing at them the bones of kings and saints. They broke off the swords from the brass statues of James I. and Charles I., which then stood at the entrance to the choir, breaking also the cross on the globe in the hand of Charles I., and hacked and hewed the crown on the head of it, swearing they would bring him back to his Parliament.... After all this, as if what they had already done were all too little, they go on in their horrible wickedness, they seize upon all the communion plate, the Bibles and service books, rich hangings, large cushions of velvet, all the pulpit cloths, some whereof were of cloth of silver, some of cloth of gold. And now, having ransacked the church, and defied God in His own house and the king in his own statue, having violated the urns of the dead, having abused the bones and scattered the ashes of deceased monarchs, bishops, saints, and confessors, they return in triumph bearing their spoils with them. The troopers (because they were the most conspicuous) ride through the streets in surplices with such hoods and tippets as they found, and that they might boast to the world how glorious a victory they had achieved they hold out their trophies to all spectators, for the troopers thus clad in the priests’ vestments, rode carrying Common Prayer books in one hand and some broken organ pipes, together with the mangled pieces of carved work in the other.”[69]

“The last part of your narrative makes me feel melancholy,” said Miss Hertford. “Let us go into the fresh air and see the Cathedral which has survived these Goths and Vandals.”

We accordingly made our way down the High Street, and proceeded through the passage by the Butter Cross. Passing through the Square, we stopped before entering the graveyard to visit Mr. Chalkley’s, the taxidermist’s—which may be regarded as a kind of “dead-alive” place. Here are the beautiful remains of natives of many sunny climes. Can we suppose that such little beings with cherub wings and voices are—

Opposite we observed the Mechanics Institute, on the site of which—then at the south side of the Market—there was, until 1790, an anomalous building—a butchery below, a theatre above. There were plenty of stalls here, containing, not cushions, but meat, and along them and at the corners stood strong oaken columns, while hooks for joints were fastened into the rafters which supported the floor of the theatre. Warton humorously describes this strange combination—

The fashionable patrons of the drama must have been shocked not only at the sight of the butchers’ business, but also at that of the iron fastenings of various heights and sizes to hold the hands and feet of vagrants during flogging, all of which were placed close to the entrance of the theatre. The cries of suffering culprits would have formed a discordant accompaniment to the harmonies of the orchestra.[70]

We now approach the Cathedral, through the avenue of tall lime trees. Enthusiasts say they were planted by Charles II., and let us hope that was the case, for he is the last monarch around whom there is any halo of romance. He had certainly a design to connect the Palace with the Cathedral by means of an avenue. But the tradition which points to one of the larger elms on the south side of the Cathedral as having been planted by his hand, appears to me more credible.

“What an immense west window,” exclaimed Mr. Hertford. “It seems to monopolize all the faÇade and to be out of proportion to the stone-work around it—a very large picture in a very narrow frame.”

“This was the work of Bishop Edington,” I observed, “begun about 1345. He did not like the ‘dim religious light’ of the Middle Ages.”

What a different front did the Norman knights here behold; something as stern and cold as their own iron armour. A vast blank face of masonry rose before them, broken only by a few plain, round-headed windows, without even a pane of glass to reflect the setting sun.[71] There is proof from excavations, and some remains in the wall of the garden on the south, that some kind of portico was commenced in front of the present faÇade, with a tower forty feet square at either end, but that the work was abandoned a few feet above ground. The interior was also severe. The pillars indeed were about the same size and height as those we now see—their Norman terminations still remain under the roof—and the eight westernmost on the south side have not been even re-cased, but only slightly chiselled into rounder form. But they did not originally break into graceful fans upon the vaulting, nor were there between them lofty arches crowned with ornamental windows. No; the spaces were occupied by three tiers of low, round arches, producing a monotonous effect, such as we still see in the transepts. The vaulting of the side aisles was also low and heavy, supporting the deep triforium gallery. The whole structure had a Spartan simplicity and strength characteristic of a rude age. It terminated eastward in an apse under the place where now glows the stained-glass window of Bishop Fox.[72]

Such was the building to which the body of Rufus “dropping blood” was brought by night in a peasant’s cart, and where it was buried with little lamentation. Seven years afterwards the great tower fell, because, as the monks thought, it could not bear to have such a wicked man buried under it.

On entering, the full effect of the great length and height is felt.[73] We seem to be looking down a lofty avenue in some primeval forest. This is the most beautiful nave in England or in the world, 250 feet long and 77 feet high. Truly this pile was not raised by the

but by men—

High in front of us under the eastern gable stands the glorious window erected by Bishop Fox, in the reign of Henry VII., when the staining of glass reached a supreme excellence never before or afterwards attained. It would appear from the fragments in the aisle windows that they were all at one time coloured, but the Roundheads smashed them, and the pieces collected were placed in the west window, where they form a sort of farrago or confusion—an edifying emblem of the destructive results of revolution.[74]

On either side just within the main entrance stands the figure of a king. They have a somewhat Ethiopian appearance and I took them for the sovereigns of Arabia and Saba. But they really represent the First James and Charles. They seem to be handling their sceptres in a very formidable manner, as if they had still Waller’s rabble in front of them; and we read that they had swords, which were broken off by the rebels. These figures have a family likeness to that at Charing Cross, which was by the same man, Le Soeur. They were placed by Charles I. in front of the rood screen of Inigo Jones. That monarch “of blessed memory” also moved the organ to the side, so that an uninterrupted view could be obtained up the Cathedral.

On the right-hand side stands the celebrated font—a heavy mass of black basalt, supposed to be Byzantine, and of the same character as that at East Meon. The figures on it have a little the appearance of marionettes, and there is, in truth, some unreality about the representation which records the miracles of St. Nicholas. A monk has written an account of the events here brought before us—how St. Nicholas saved three virgins from disgrace, stilled a storm, restored a sailor to life, healed the sick, and saved three condemned men. Death itself could not stop the saint’s beneficence, for after his decease he restored a child who had fallen overboard with a golden cup. Behind the font on the wall of the north aisle are memorials to two remarkable women. Miss Austen is still thought by some of the old school to be the queen of novelists, and the fact that her works are still published proves their merit.

“I like ‘Pride and Prejudice’ very much,” said Miss Hertford.

The other lady here commemorated, Mrs. Montagu, was a Shakspearian, lived among the learned and eminent, and founded the Blue Stocking Club.

“I remember well the house she built,” replied Mr. Hertford; “it stood like a respectable old country house in its garden in Portman Square, and has been enlarged into Lord Portman’s mansion. She covered her drawing-room walls with feathers, as Cowper writes:—

What a gay May-day the sweeps had with their ribbons, flowers, and feasting in the good lady’s time! We read on this tablet that she had ‘the united advantages of beauty, wit, judgment, reputation, and riches.’”

“What a happy woman!” exclaimed Miss Hertford. “I once heard a girl asked which she would rather be—handsome, clever, or rich. The questioner never imagined that any one could be all three.”

Higher up on the same side, near the stairs, is a memorial to Boles, the Royalist “Collonell of a Ridgment of Foot who did wounders at the Battle of Edgehill.” No doubt he did, for when finally he was, with eighty men, surrounded by five thousand rebels in the church at Alton, he held out for six hours, and after killing six or seven with his own sword was himself slain with sixty of his men.

“Winchester is rich in monuments,” I said. “It preceded Westminster as the burial-place of the great and has, with that exception, more human interest than any other sacred edifice in England.”

On the opposite side of the Nave stands the Chantry of Wykeham, of great height and beautiful elaboration.[75] It happens by design or accident that if we supposed our Lord’s body to be lying on the cross of the original Cathedral, the site of this monument would correspond with the wound in His side. This was the favourite spot at which Wykeham prayed when a boy, before an altar to the Virgin; and here he built his tomb, on which his figure has reposed for nearly five hundred years, and where it may remain for five hundred more. The good he did was not destined to be “interred with his bones,” and the line on the resting-place of Wren, whose truth impresses the reader, might without impropriety have been also engraved here—

“Si monumentum quÆras, circumspice.”

It is the rare privilege of Winchester to have here, face to face in the Palace and Cathedral, two of the most important works of these great master builders.

Higher up the nave is the Chantry of Bishop Edington, earlier and less ornamental than that of Wykeham. He is the prelate who was offered the Archbishopric of Canterbury and made the shrewd and sportive reply, “If Canterbury is the higher rank, Winchester is the better manger.” The date is placed in a fanciful way at the end of the inscription “M thrice C with LXV and I.”

On the bishop’s vestment there is a curious emblem of a cruciform shape, called a Fylfot or Suastika. It is stated to signify submission to the will of God, and to have been a symbol prior to Christianity.

From this point we wander into the Choir, and admire the tall carved spires of oak, blackened by the airs of six centuries. A verger turns up the seats to show us the quaint carvings of an age when humour did not seem distasteful in churches—here is a pig playing the fiddle, another chanting, and a third blowing the trumpet. In the centre of the pavement lies the sphinx of the Cathedral—rude, archaic, enigmatical. It has been surmised to be the tomb of some royal Saxon, or of Bishop de Blois. Winchester men continue to swear it is that of Rufus, who was “buried in the choir,” but that king’s bones seem, from an inscription on one of the neighbouring coffers, to have been chested and perched up by Fox. Everything about it is a puzzle. The rebels in the Civil War broke it open and found a silver chalice, a gold ring, and pieces of cloth of gold, within it. This has led to the supposition that De Blois rested here. In 1868 it was again opened, and one of the vergers told me he had handled the bones, had seen beside them the arrow-head with which the king was killed, and had remarked what an excellent set of teeth he possessed. Remains of cloth of gold and other tissues were discovered, and seven gold Norman braids finely worked, as we can see in the library, where they are preserved.[76]

The altar screen must have been most effective when the figures remained. Dean Kitchin has given a tantalizing account of it, and during the Civil War a wall was built before it. But throughout the last century, the niches were filled with modern vases, the gift of an excellent prebendary, Master Harris, whose zeal was greater than his taste.

Leaving the learned to fight the dusty battle of Rufus and De Blois, we make our way to the iron gate, and each deposit the silver obolus to admit us to the realms of the departed. Here a group of visitors is waiting, and we look up at the interesting Norman work in the south transept. There are good reasons for supposing that the transepts were not built continuously—a change of plan can be traced—and it would seem that there was at one time an intention of placing a couple of towers at the end of each transept. The great central tower also was erected later—after Walkelin’s death.

Just before me stands an old oak settle, perhaps nearly coeval with the transept. How many generations of monks have sat on it and warmed their withered hands over a pan of charcoal! I could almost imagine that on certain days their ghosts may perambulate their old haunts, and seat themselves here again. In the centre of the transept lies Bishop Wilberforce. On the east side is Prior Silkstede’s Chapel, as it is called. It is now a vestry, and here Isaak Walton is literally trodden under foot. In answer to my inquiries, the verger pulled up the matting and showed his slab inscribed with Bishop Ken’s[77] verses. They are not worthy of the author of the morning and evening hymns. They inform us that he lived—

Isaak was an erect, hale old man to the last. He was a theologian, and we hear that to atone for long neglect, a statue to him is about to be placed on the screen, beside the saintly Fishermen.

“I wish that Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, had been buried here,” said Mr. Hertford, “and that we had an epitaph on him by Milton. The elegiacs he wrote on his death were as beautiful as ‘Lycidas.’”

And now all are ready, and we advance along the aisle behind the choir, and come in sight of the “presbytery screen,” some arches surmounted by coffers, which look like small locomotives on a railway viaduct. All this was the work of Fox, who was bishop in the reigns of the Henrys (VII. and VIII.). He built the clerestory and vaulting of this part. We look up at the roof and remark the bosses exhibiting the Tudor arms and other heraldic emblems dear to Fox; while beyond, in the vaulting of Bishop Lucy, the devices are more scriptural, including not only the instruments of the Passion, but the faces of Pilate and his better half, and Peter’s sword with Malchus’ ear upon it.

The bones of the Saxon kings and bishops buried in the Cathedral, had been well dried and preserved, having been placed in stone coffins pierced with holes. Fox piously collected them into these chests, on which he inscribed the venerated names of their owners.[78] He hoisted them up, having great confidence in the safety gained by elevation, and his trust was justified, with regard to his window in the gable and his statue above it, but in respect of these chests, he did not rightly measure the height to which mob violence might attain. After the storm had passed away, the bones were collected and replaced, but no one knew what remains were stored in any particular chest. A small set of bones has been thought to have belonged to Queen Emma. There are twelve names, and as late as 1845, the confused contents were all safe; but by 1873, one of the twelve skulls was gone.

“Purloined, perchance, by some over-zealous phrenologist, whose principles were not more sound than his theories,” said Mr. Hertford.

We now come to Fox’s Chantry, and admire the diversified stone carving of the exterior. It is most refined and in the best taste, while the figure of Death stretched beneath it is in the worst, and reminds us of the skull and cross-bones, with which headstones were formerly adorned. We enter, and think we can see the dark ascetic bishop kneeling in his little stone study, for hither when blind, in his old age, he was led daily for prayer. His memory will ever be cherished lovingly here, and in Oxford, where he founded Corpus Christi College. Through this chantry, we reach the Feretory (from feretra, biers). Here, in ancient times, the gold and silver shrines of Birinus, Swithun, and other saints, the head of St. Just, and one of the feet of St. Philip, stood upon a platform higher than the present one, and reflected a holy light upon the worshippers in the choir. The contents of the feretory are now not so brilliant, though interesting. Here lies a prostrate giant—a figure of Bishop Edington—which was once perched up over the west front, but becoming dilapidated, was replaced by that of Wykeham. Here is the lid, or side of a reliquary chest (1309) with sacred subjects painted on its panels. The other remains are melancholy to behold, heads and portions of the bodies of statues found about the Cathedral.

“It looks like an old curiosity shop, or a sculptor’s studio,” observed Miss Hertford.

“And it reminds me,” chimed in her father, “of a story I heard about some country labourers, who had been visiting the British Museum. When asked how they liked it, they said, ‘Very much, but some had no arms, some had no legs, and some had no heads. The butler, however, was very kind, and told us it was intended to represent a railway accident.’”

On the other side of this feretory is Gardiner’s Chantry. He is generally associated in our minds with fire and faggot, but when we first read of him, he was a young man at Paris, chiefly remarkable for his skill in mixing salads. How unfortunate that he did not confine himself to this cooler occupation!—he would at least have received the blessings of epicures. Why should we recall the ghastly past? Gardiner’s violent Catholicism was partly from jealousy of Cranmer. Had he been made archbishop, he might have been a reformer; for there was a time when he was in Rome brow-beating the Pope, on behalf of Anne Boleyn.

The only good act the rebels did in the Cathedral was done here; they knocked the head off the wretched figure of Death, which had been placed, I suppose, as a companion in misery for that in Fox’s Chantry opposite. Perhaps the poet Young, had these scarecrows, which he knew well, in his mind, when he wrote—

The mob would, doubtless, have turned out Gardiner’s remains had not some pious Catholics put a skull and bones above them, which were mistaken for the bishop’s. They would have been glad to have put him again to destructive work, not indeed, destroying heretics, but breaking to pieces the saints in the stained-glass windows. In this chantry there is still to be seen a portion of one of the round pillars of the Norman apse.

Returning through Fox’s Chantry, and proceeding eastward, we enter the large retro-choir built in the beautiful Early English style by Bishop de Lucy about seventy years after Walkelin’s time. It is erected on piles, so we may be thankful it has stood so long. Immediately at the back of the feretory, we see an arch leading to “the holy hole”—or, as some of our companions called it, “the ’oly ’ole”—in which interments formerly took place. An attempt was made to enter it in 1789, but the masonry had fallen down and the enterprise was relinquished. The Edwardian canopies over it are charming. The area in which we stand is studded with tombs. There are two splendid chantries here—one of Bishop Wayneflete, the founder of Magdalen College, Oxford; and the other, of Cardinal Beaufort. Wayneflete is represented as grasping his heart.[79] Both monuments have suffered. Wayneflete’s head was so much damaged that a new one was lately given him. Beaufort’s figure is supposed not to be original, and “a horse-load of pinnacles” had by Milner’s time[80] fallen or been knocked off this canopy of “bewildering” embellishment.

An old gentleman of our company inquired whether Cardinal Beaufort was a Roman Catholic, and I could see by his countenance that the affirmative answer he received greatly altered his opinion of that eminent man.

The other monuments are “altar tombs,” comparatively insignificant, being only two or three feet above the pavement. But to our eyes they seemed a promising array, and proved disappointing. We had read that among others Prior William of Basynge, Sir Arnald de Gaveston, Prior Silkstede and Bishop Courtenay were lying here. On the first we came to, that of Basynge, I deciphered the pleasant announcement that whoever prays for him shall obtain a hundred and forty-five days’ indulgence.

“That seems,” observed Mr. Hertford, “as if he was not so anxious about the souls of others as about his own.”

The ledger-stone which bears this inscription is the only genuine part of the tomb.

Then we come to the line of four tombs extending from the Edwardian Arcade to the Lady Chapel. First, there is the goodly figure of Bishop Sumner, whose snow-white marble looks out of place among the dark tones of distant centuries; he is not buried here. Next to this is a tomb of some bishop of the fifteenth century, not that of Silkstede—a nearly perfect skeleton in black serge and funeral boots was found in it. Then we come to the only ancient knight who makes a figure in the Cathedral. He is in armour, with his legs crossed, which denotes some rank. Surely this is Sir Arnald de Gaveston, the Gascon knight who saved Edward I.’s life. When he died the King sent cloth of gold for his funeral.

But no, he was buried in the north transept. This is supposed to represent William de Foix.

“Whoever he is Time has pulled him by the nose a little,” said Mr. Hertford; “but he always loves to deride the greatness of man.”

“He would have had a better excuse,” I returned, “had he treated the delightful ‘Piers’ in this unhandsome manner.”[81]

“Why, not one of these tombs has the ring of truth about it,” said Mr. Hertford, discontentedly.

“Well this last one next the Lady Chapel is genuine,” I replied. “It is that of Bishop de Lucy, but was long asserted by an easy and patriotic error to be that of Lucius, the British king. The occupant of the tomb immediately to the north of Bishop Sumner is unknown, but to the north-east lies Petrus de Rupibus. Few would understand without a teacher that this meant Peter de la Roche, but in that age the manner in which names were Latinized raises a suspicion that some jesters were engaged in the work. Thus we find Montagu rendered ‘de Monte acuto;’ and in this Cathedral we have the grave of ‘Johannes de Pontissara,’ i.e., John Sawbridge.”[82]

“Much more mellifluous,” observed Mr. Hertford. “But one might almost say to them as Quince said to Bottom in the ass’s head, ‘Bless me! thou art translated.’”

“Peter de la Roche,” I continued, “was a native of Poictiers, and had served in youth under Richard Coeur de Lion. He became Henry III.’s guardian and tutor, and seemed at one time to have all the kingly power at his command. As a bishop he supported the Papal authority against the national party, which was represented by Hubert de Burgh. When unsuccessful he ‘took the cross’—went to the Crusades. Afterwards he returned, presented the monastery with one of the feet of St. Philip, and was able to entertain Henry sumptuously at Wolvesey Castle. He became the head of the Government, founded the Dominican Convent at the Eastgate, and built (or suggested)[83] Netley Abbey, and the great North ‘Solomon’s’ porch at Westminster. On the southern wall of this area is a monument to Sir John Cloberry—representing him as a kind of ‘fat boy,’ with a long curly wig. He was an officer under Monk, and contributed to bring about the Restoration. His house was in Parchment Street.”

Further on, at the extreme east, we come to Bishop Langton’s Chantry (he died in 1500). This and the next chapel is beautifully enriched with oak carving. Next to this we enter the Lady Chapel, by building which Priors Hunton and Silkstede made this the longest cathedral in England.

A gleam of gold and jewellery comes to us here from 1554. We were told that in this Lady Chapel Mary and Philip were married, but there is no doubt that the ceremony was performed before the high altar, which seemed the proper place. The chair in which Mary sat is here, and has originated the claim of the chapel. It is small, with a low back—a faldistorium—of a form not then uncommon, but was brave with brass nails, gilding, and velvet. It has now a shabby and melancholy appearance, like the performances of the sovereign who sat in it; the horse-hair is coming out, and no wonder, for nearly every second lady visitor poses in it as the queen of the moment.

But let us look at something better. The light of love is in the eyes of the gloomy bride, and is even slightly reflected from the dark, underhung visage of the king. All the nobility are gathered from the whole of England. The Queen in cloth of gold, with the sword borne before her, sweeps up with a long retinue from the west entrance, and takes her place on the “Mount,” beneath the rood loft. On her left is Philip, also in cloth of gold, having beside him a large number of nobles of Spain. Golden hangings glow in the choir, and at the altar stand six bishops with their crosiers. But with all this brilliancy none could fail to see the dark cloud of popular discontent lowering in the sky, and alas! the golden apparel concealed a sad and a false heart.

In this Lady Chapel, which has such high pretensions, the remains of some old frescoes (Silkstede’s) long covered with paint and plaster, are still visible. There are twenty-four separate designs, all in honour of the Virgin. In one place a young man puts a gold ring on the Virgin’s finger to keep it till he sees his lady-love. When he returns for it he finds it will not come off. He does not attribute this to the trickery of the monks, but to the intervention of the Virgin, and forthwith jilts his sweetheart and takes the cowl. In another design a painter accustomed to represent the devil “as ugly as he knew him to be,” is executing on a high wall, a figure of Our Lady, with the devil under her feet. His artistic work is stopped by a dragon-like fiend pulling down his scaffolding, when lo! the Virgin he has just painted holds out her hand to him and supports him till assistance arrives. Here also we have John Damascen, a celebrated writer of the eighth century, condemned by Saracen Caliph to lose his right hand. The peccant member is cut off, and hung up in the market-place, but on its being taken down and applied to the wrist with prayers to the Virgin, it is reunited.

“What absurd stories,” said Miss Hertford. “I wonder how even a child could have believed them.”

“I did not credit them,” I replied, “but now that I see framed on the wall that wonderful restoration of these indistinct outlines, I may think that the miraculous power of the Virgin is still present in her chapel.”

Those who deem that a person guilty of a pun should suffer imprisonment will not look with much appreciation on the humour attempted on the vaulting of this and the last-named chapels. All that can be said in its behalf is that it has the flavour of a bygone age. These rebuses seem to us puerile. There might be a temptation to represent Silkstede by a skein and a horse; and as Winchester was often called Winton, and famous for its wine, there might be something juicy in symbolizing it by a vine issuing from a tun. But here we have a musical note termed “long,” coming out of a tun for Langton, and some can see a hen making a similar egress for Hunton. The dragon issuing from a tun refers to Proverbs xxiii. 31, 32: “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup.... At last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.”

We might be surprised that, when Fox put up the panelling here, he did not insert his own name in a similarly humorous manner. Reynard was a known ecclesiastical emblem, but not a complimentary one—in a church carving we find him preaching to a flock of geese. Our austere bishop would have been shocked at such a representative; he chose the self-sacrificing pelican.[84]

“Playing with words was much in fashion even at a later epoch,” said Mr. Hertford. “Not a few of our great families have punning mottoes as ‘Ver non semper viret’ for Vernon, ‘Cavendo tutus’ for Cavendish, and so on.”

“I do not dislike the little conceits here,” I replied; “it shows that the ascetic monks had something fresh and green left in them. Perhaps that fine Chantrey monument is not so much out of place here as some suppose. Bishop North was a good Christian and a good cricketer. It is said that sometimes while he was in the field hitting away, his chaplain was in the tent bowling hard questions at the candidates for ordination.”

Our guide now took us into the next or northernmost chapel, dedicated to the “Guardian Angels.”

“There is nothing of much interest here?” I observed, looking around.

“No, sir,” he replied, “except the window.”

“There is nothing remarkable in that?”

“No; except that it was put up by a remarkable man,” he returned, warmly; “the best dean we could possibly have—generous to rich and poor; and yet,” he added, with a twinkle, “he left a good bit, £50,000.”

The dean of whom the verger spoke so enthusiastically lived to be ninety-six. His son became a dean, lived to be seventy, and died before his father. Expectant heirs, take note.

Passing westward to the north presbytery aisle we find an old-fashioned dumpy ship carved over the grave of Harthacnut.[85] Hard by lies the heart of Ethelmar, the half-brother of Henry III. When the bishop, after landing at Dover, came to Winchester, the King, who was much at this city, went out to meet him with a grand procession. Ethelmar seems to have been an avaricious young man;[86] he was scarcely elected when he had a conflict with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and also with the monks of St. Swithun. He deposed the prior here because he refused to give an account of some property, and the lawsuit between him and the monks was so serious that they mortgaged the church of Winchester for 7,000 marks—about £5,000. Afterwards Ethelmar paid off a part of this, and the monks gave him the Isle of Portland and other property as compensation. When the Barons held a parliament here in 1258, Ethelmar was obliged to fly from the country. He died in Paris when only thirty-four, and sent over his heart, which perhaps the monks did not much appreciate. But it proved a “golden heart” to them in producing miracles. When the steps of the altar were being lowered it was found beneath them in a golden cup by a workman, who kept the cup and placed the heart in this north aisle.

We now dive down into the crypt, and find it of grand dimensions, propped with pillars such as we have just seen a specimen of in Gardiner’s Chantry. There is still a controversy as to whether this is Saxon or Norman work. It seems strange that Walkelin should have made no use of the extensive excavations and foundations of the previous building, but history asserts that the old high altar remained after the new Cathedral was finished, and the best authority considers that this edifice was entirely new. The well in the crypt is thought to have existed previously, as it is not symmetrically placed with regard to the pillars. There is still water in it, I was told. Until lately the floor was much obstructed by earth—sixteen loads have been lately removed. When James Ellis paid his visit about the middle of the last century, he found “at the end of the crypt a chapel, but the extent of it I could not examine, as it was locked up and used as a wine vault.”[87]

In the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, just under the organ, there are some fine frescoes of the thirteenth century in fair preservation, and in the north transept, especially in the north-east corner, there are traces of colour and patterns, and a large but somewhat faint fresco apparently representing some monarch. On the ancient rood screen there were carved and painted figures, and the spires of the stalls were gilt until the last century.

As we passed down the Cathedral the sun was setting, and the effect of the rays falling through the vast west window was magnificent.

Near the entrance on the north side there is a remarkable door of grille work, thought to be of the eleventh or twelfth century, perhaps the oldest specimen in England. It was formerly near the choir, and the object was, it is said, to keep unsavoury and diseased pilgrims at a safe distance.

“Perhaps some of them were like the pilgrims in the East at the present day,” said Mr. Hertford; “it was not always easy to determine ‘where the dirt ended and the saint began.’”