Winchester(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

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WINCHESTER

Beautiful England

Volumes ReadyOXFORDTHE HEART OF WESSEXTHE ENGLISH THE PEAK DISTRICTLAKESCANTERBURYTHE CORNISH RIVIERASHAKESPEARE-DICKENS-LANDLANDTHE THAMESWINCHESTERWINDSOR CASTLETHE ISLE OF WIGHTCAMBRIDGECHESTER AND THE DEENORWICH AND YORKTHE BROADS

Uniform with this Series

Beautiful Ireland

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

WINCHESTER

Few of our English cities are more strikingly situated than the once royal city of Winchester, which lies on the slopes and along the bed of a chalk valley watered by the River Itchen. The greater part of the present city is situated on the right bank of the river, while the best general view of it is justly considered to be that obtained by looking across the Vale of Chilcomb, from the road to Portsmouth. Of the Itchen valley, with its rich meadows and tranquil stream, William Cobbett was an enthusiastic admirer. "There are few spots in England", he exclaims, "more fertile, or more pleasant, none, I believe, more healthy. The fertility of this vale and of the surrounding country is best proved by the fact that, besides the town of Alresford, and that of Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its parish church, upon its borders. When we consider these things, we are not surprised that a spot situated about halfway down this vale should have been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should have been for a great number of years the place of residence for the kings of England."

To-day the beautiful river winds in and out of the ancient streets, and among the meadow lands, much as it did when Cobbett penned his Rural Rides, although many charming examples of domestic architecture, which then graced what was probably the most attractive High Street in England, have been demolished or restored beyond recognition. As it flows through the city proper, the river is divided up into a number of small streams abounding in trout; but after a brief course these rivulets unite just below the city, from whence the waterway is said to be navigable all the way to Southampton. The bridge at the foot of the High Street marks the former limit of the navigability of the river, and is the reputed site of the legend concerning St. Swithun and the old woman to whom the saint restored her eggs.

Before the advent of the railway, that great destroyer of our ancient waterways, the Itchen was crowded with barges making their way from the maritime port to the inland city; for, like so many of our old British settlements, the site of Winchester was determined by the natural conditions of the land which could be utilized for the purposes of defence. Although every lock on the Itchen is now in ruins or choked by weeds, and the last of its fleet of brown-sailed barges is derelict, this is essentially a city whose origin goes back to the days when those who, coming cautiously up from Southampton Water, reached at length the practical part of the valley, where they built their stronghold under the shelter of the downs, yet within easy reach of the sea. It was by means of barges that much of the stone was brought for the building of the numerous churches and monastic buildings. This was brought from the Binstead Quarries in the Isle of Wight, from the Purbeck Quarries in Dorset, and possibly from Portland as well.

There is ample evidence that Winchester was a British city (Caer-Gwent), and the Venta Belgarum of Roman days, when it was connected by roads with the other Roman cities of Andover, Silchester, Porchester, and Salisbury. With the taking of the town by the Saxons in 495 it became known as Wintanceastre, and here, after the final subjection of the Britons, the capital of Wessex was established. If the claim of Canterbury to be the "Mother City" of the Anglo-Saxon race be granted, few will deny to Winchester the honour of being her eldest and her fairest daughter. A royal city was this when Birinus, the apostle of Wessex, came hither in 634, on his way to the Oxfordshire Dorchester, to baptize the King of the West Saxons; and in 679 the episcopal see was established, a cathedral built, and a monastic house attached to it. It was from Wintanceastre that Egbert sent forth the decree which gave the name of Anglia to his kingdom; and here, by the tranquil waters of the Itchen, Alfred (with his friend, adviser, and tutor, St. Swithun), Athelstan, and Canute held their Courts, and directed their policies.

It was during the reign of Athelstan that the redoubtable Guy, Earl of Warwick, returning to England in the garb of a palmer from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, found the Danes besieging Winchester in great force, and King Athelstan unable to find a champion willing to meet the Danish giant, Colbrand, in order to decide the issue by single combat. The Earl, retaining his disguise as a palmer, begged the king to let him appear as the English champion.THE CITY BRIDGE

This singular combat, which was to decide the fate of the city, commenced by Guy breaking his spear on the giant's shield, and the Dane cutting the head off the Earl's horse. Guy then fought on foot, and, beating the club out of his opponent's hand, cut off his arm. So the duel waged until night, when the Dane, faint from loss of blood, fell to the ground, and his head was cut off by the English champion. Having settled the affair to the honour of his country and his own satisfaction, the Earl made himself known to the King, under an oath of secrecy, and returned thanks in the cathedral for his victory. He then retired to a hermitage beside the Avon, and passed the remainder of his life in the cave which still bears his name, and probably contains his bones.

Several modern antiquaries are very sceptical about the whole story, and labour hard to prove that Guy was a mythical figure, and his deeds nothing but legendary lore. There is always some truth in these old legends, in spite of the frills and embellishments added by the later chroniclers, and the history of our land would be poor reading indeed if we banished the romantic legends merely because they are not confirmed by such dry-as-dust evidence as alone will satisfy a certain section of scientific compilers, whose minds can perceive neither truth nor beauty underlying ancient legends and traditions. The fact that they cannot be proved to have happened is more than half their charm, and our garden of romance, with its beautiful flowers of chivalry, is infinitely better to live with than the dry and parched fields given over to the cultivation of nothing but facts.

The defeat of the Danish giant is said to have been achieved in a meadow to the north of the city, named from that occurrence "Danemark Mead"; and we are told also that the Dane's sword was to be seen in the Cathedral treasury down to the reign of James I. Be this as it may, we do know that in the eighth year of Edward I a writ of right was brought by the King against the Abbot of Hyde, to recover land usurped in the north suburb of the city, called "Denemarche", and judgment was given for the crown.

The appearance of the city in Saxon days has been described thus by Dean Kitchin: "The three Minsters, which filled up the south-eastern corner of the city, were for long the finest group of churches and dwellings in all England. Wolvesey Palace, at once the school, the court of justice, and the royal dwelling place, formed the bulwark against the dreaded invasions of the Dane; inwards from Wolvesey precincts came the strong enclosure of St. Swithun's Convent, a second fortress, which protected the church, and behind both, sheltered by their strong walls and by the river and the marshlands to the north, were the growing buildings of the Nuns' Minster, and the new Minster. And up the rising towards the west, on either side of the ancient Roman road from the eastward gate of the city, the houses of the citizens began to cluster into a street, with here and there a stone-built dwelling, and the rest made of that 'wattle and dab' construction, of which from time to time examples are still laid bare in the city."

Although many historical persons flit across the scene throughout the centuries, the personal associations of Winchester are dominated by the outstanding figures of Alfred, St. Swithun, and the great clerical craftsman, William of Wykeham, the builder of much of the cathedral, and the founder of St. Mary's College, Winchester, and New College, Oxford—the former of which, although of later foundation, was intended as a stepping-stone for the latter.

With the Norman Conquest, and the rapid rise of Westminster, the days of Winchester as the seat of government were numbered, although it was much favoured by the early Norman kings, possibly owing to its proximity to such hunting grounds as the New Forest Cranborne Chase (where King John's hunting lodge still stands), and the Royal Warren of Purbeck.

William I had his great palace near the cathedral, and it was to Winchester that the body of William Rufus was brought on a cart, after his ill-fated death in the New Forest.

Then the Domesday Book—if not compiled at Winchester—was kept there for many years, when it was called "The Book of Winton". In the seventh year of Henry II a charge appears in the Pipe Roll for conveying the "arca", in which the book was kept, from Winchester to London.

There is naturally much in the life-history of St. Swithun that is incapable of proof. He was possibly born in the neighbourhood of Winchester about the year 800. He became a monk of the old abbey, and rose to be head of the community, when he gained the favour of King Egbert, who entrusted him with the education of his son Ethelwolf. There is an authentic charter granted by Egbert in 838, and bearing the signatures of Elmstan, episcopus, and Swithunus, diaconus. On the death of Elmstan, in 852, Swithun was appointed his successor in the see, when, in addition to erecting several churches, and building a stone bridge over the Itchen, he appears to have enlarged and beautified the Saxon cathedral built by Kynewalch when Winchester became the seat of a bishopric in 679. The site of this Saxon church is considered to have been a little to the north of the present cathedral, which is a Norman building commenced by Walkelin a few years after the Conquest.

St. Swithun is best known to-day in his capacity of weather prophet. In his humility he is said to have desired to be buried outside the church, so that the foot of the passer-by, and the rainwater from the eaves, could fall upon his grave; and here his body lay for more than a century. When his remains were eventually translated, a chapel was erected over the site of his grave at the north-east corner of the church, and faint traces of this building may still be seen. King Edgar provided the richly jewelled shrine into which the relics of the saint were translated by St. Ethelwold, on July 15, 980, when the relics of Birinus were enshrined at the same time, although these had already been translated from Dorchester to Winchester by Bishop Hedda as early as the seventh century. The shrine attracted an immense number of pilgrims until that of Becket at Canterbury rose into prominence. The skull of St. Swithun is said to have been taken to Canterbury by St. Elphege in the eleventh century, and an arm of this patron saint of Winchester was one of the most treasured possessions of Peterborough. What remained of these much-disturbed relics were re-translated by Bishop Walkelin from the old to the new cathedral, but in 1241 the shrine was broken by the vane of the tower falling through the roof.

At the Reformation the shrine was destroyed, as is recorded in the commissioners' letter, dated September 21, 1538:—"About three o'clock this Saturday morning, we made an

end of the shrine here at Winchester. There was no gold, nor

ring, nor true stone about it, but all great counterfeits; but the

silver alone will amount to 2000 marks."

The popular tradition regarding St. Swithun's Day, July 15, is to the effect that, as it rains or is fair on this day, the ensuing forty days will be either wet or dry.

"St. Swithun's Day, if thou dost rain, For forty days it will remain: St. Swithun's Day, if thou be fair, For forty days 't will rain nae mair."

The tradition is said to be due to the saintly request being disregarded, with the result that, when his remains were about to be translated, a heavy rain burst forth, and continued without ceasing for the forty succeeding days. This was interpreted as a divine warning, so that, instead of disturbing the saintly bones, a chapel was erected over them. As a matter of fact, Professor Earle and other authorities assure us that the legend is fictitious, and that the translation was attended by the utmost éclat and success, and blessed with fine weather.WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE DEANERY GARDENS

Foreign pilgrims coming from Normandy and Brittany, on their way to the shrine of St. Swithun, or to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, would land, many of them, at Southampton, and journey to Winchester, there to await other bands of pilgrims bound for the great Kentish shrine. This was the route taken by Henry II when he did penance before the tomb of the murdered Becket, in July, 1174. Although clearly seen in the wold of Surrey and the weald of Kent at the present time, it must be confessed that but faint traces of the Pilgrims' Way remain in Hampshire, although early chroniclers speak of an old road that led direct from Winchester to Canterbury. The great concourse of pilgrims to St. Swithun's shrine caused Bishop Lucy to enlarge much of the church, and in the reign of the first Edward the building still known as the Strangers' Hall was erected by the monks of St. Swithun for the poorer class of pilgrims, who here found food and shelter for the night. On their departure they repaired to the doors of the Prior's lodging—the three beautiful arches of which now form the entrance to the Deanery—where they were given alms and fragments of food to sustain them on their journey.

The associations of Alfred with this ancient Wessex capital are many and various. He founded the famous Abbey of Hyde, situated without the city gates, known for long as the New Minster, and first removed from its original site near the cathedral in the twelfth century. That Alfred's remains were laid to rest somewhere within, or just without, the walls is beyond question, although the exact spot has not yet been definitely located. When the Benedictine monks of Hyde obtained a charter from Henry I in 1110, giving them leave to erect a new convent and church in the green meadows outside the north gate, they are said to have taken to their new home the wonder-working shrine of St. Josse, the silver cross given by Canute, and the bones of Alfred.

At the Reformation, Thomas Wriothesley wrote to Cromwell saying:—"We intend both at Hyde and St. Mary to sweep away all

the rotten bones that be called relics; which we may not omit,

lest it be thought we came more for the treasure than for the

avoiding of th' abomination of idolatry".

So the resting-place of the noblest of English kings remains unknown; but a passing antiquary is said to have carried off a stone marked with the words, "ÆLFRED REX, DCCCLXXXI", and this stone may still be seen at Corby Castle in Cumberland.

Of Hyde Abbey nothing but an old gateway near St. Bartholomew's Church, and some slight fragments of wall, remain; but a considerable portion was standing until the ruins were pulled down to provide the site for a new Bridewell, which has vanished in its turn. The property has now come into the hands of the Corporation, and scientific excavations have been commenced. Strong hopes are entertained that Alfred's tomb may be found, although the iconoclasts of the Reformation and the Magistrates of later days have made the task a difficult, if not an impossible one. In 1901 Alfred's thousandth anniversary was celebrated at Winchester, and on September 20 of that year Lord Rosebery unveiled Hamo Thorneycroft's magnificent bronze statue, standing in the Broadway, and bearing on its granite pedestal the single word, eloquent in its simplicity:—

AELFRED.

Interesting and important as are the associations of Alfred and St. Swithun with this ancient capital of Wessex, the genius loci is William of Wykeham, one of the most remarkable men the world has ever produced. The more we study his life and character the more we are amazed at the versatile nature of his splendid gifts. Born, like Wolsey, the only other clerical architect with whom he can be compared, of humble parents, in the sleepy little village of Wickham, in the autumn of 1324, he early attracted the attention of Sir John Scures, the lord of the manor of Wickham, and Constable of Winchester Castle. By Sir John's influence he became a scholar at the Priory School, the "Great Grammar School of Winchester", then situated just outside the west wall of the priory enclosure. Taught by the brethren of St. Swithun's, he was eventually recommended to Bishop Edington, who appears to have appreciated the great talent for architecture shown by young Wykeham. Edington himself was no mean builder, and he had already begun to rebuild the west front of the cathedral, and to transform the nave from the Norman to the Perpendicular style, a transformation that was to be completed by Wykeham when he succeeded his old master in the episcopacy.

In Wykeham's twenty-third year Edward III came to Winchester, and he, having heard of the clever young architect, wished to test his skill in the warfare then being waged against Scotland and France, and particularly in the new fortifications of Calais. On taking service with the King, plain William Wykeham became Sir William de Wykeham, and as Surveyor of Works he superintended such buildings as St. Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, and the castles of Dover and Queensborough. In 1356 he was in charge of Windsor Castle, which, as his birthplace, Edward wished to beautify by many additions. It has been said that the Round Tower Wykeham built at Windsor made the fortune of its designer. We now find Wykeham Warden of all the royal castles, and sub-dean of the church of St. Martins-le-Grand, on the site of which is the General Post Office; and as a public notary he was present at the signing of the Treaty of Bretigny.

Possibly owing to the dearth of clergy caused by the Black Death, Wykeham, after the laying-on of hands by his old master, Bishop Edington, became an acolyte in the December of 1361, a sub-deacon in the March following, and priest in the June of 1362. A few years later, when Edington was laid to rest within his cathedral, a sharp controversy arose between the King and the Pope as to who should succeed. The differences, which need not be discussed here, being eventually settled to the satisfaction of both parties, Wykeham was offered the vacant see, when he said to the King:"Sire, I am unworthy, but wherein I am wanting myself,

that will I supply by a brood of more scholars than all the

prelates of England ever showed".

And how worthily he fulfilled his promise is a matter of history.

To quote the authors of Historic Winchester:"There was a great stir in the old city when the day of

Wykeham's enthronement arrived. It was the 9th of July, and

the town would be looking especially beautiful in its bower of

trees; an outrider had announced the bishop before he

entered the city, probably by the north gate, and either here

or at the entrance to the close he was met by the

Archdeacon of Northampton, William Athey by name, who

was commissioned to enthrone him: having saluted, the

Archdeacon alighted from his palfrey, which according to the

custom at that time was with all its trappings taken

possession of by this ecclesiastic.... The bishop's robing most

probably took place at the priory close by, from whence the

procession, forming in the cloisters under the direction of

Hugo de Basyng, prior of St. Swithun's, would pass to the

west door, where it would be joined by the heads of the other

monasteries in and near Winchester—Thomas de Pechy,

Abbot of Hyde, holding highest rank amongst them. Next

would follow long lines of monks clad in their robes of brown,

black, white, or grey, according to their order, and then many

a layman, gathered in from the country round to honour both

Church and State on this occasion. The great procession,

gorgeous with embroidered cope and many a rich vestment,

with episcopal staff and crozier both of prior and abbot

carried aloft, must have formed an imposing spectacle as it

filed up the long nave of the cathedral, thronged, doubtless,

to overflowing by many citizens—for unusual interest would

be evinced by Winchester in this enthronement of one long

known to them, now Chancellor of England and certainly,

next to the King and Archbishop, the greatest man in the

country."

As bishop, Wykeham found plenty to do, apart from his ecclesiastical duties, in repairing his various palaces, and in housing the predecessors of his Winchester scholars in a house on St. Giles's Hill, until such time as he could give them fitting buildings and a chapel of their own. But before Wykeham could see his schemes take an

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