Part 7

Wriothesley writes in 1538, being the chief acting commissioner here: “About three o’clock a.m., we made an end of the shrine of Winchester. We think the silver will amount to near two thousand marks. Going to bedsward we viewed the altar. Such a piece of work it is that we think we shall not rid of it before Monday or Tuesday morning. Which done we intend both at Hyde and St. Mary’s to sweep away all the rotten bones, called relics, which we may not omit lest it should be thought we came more for the treasure than for avoiding the abominations of idolatry.” Wriothesley was granted several of the richest manors of Hyde, and having a lease of the site, pulled down the abbey and sold the materials. He made over the site to the Bethell family. The lands he left to his children, but a failure of male descent, which no doubt the Roman Catholics regarded as a judgment, caused the abbey manors to be distributed to many families. Some of them went to Lady Rachel Russell, a daughter of Thomas, Earl of Southampton. She lived much at Stratton, where her letters were written.

In 1788 the magistrates of Hampshire bought the site of the abbey to erect a bridewell. Dr. Milner writes: “At almost every stroke of the mattock or spade some ancient sepulchre or other was violated, the venerable contents of which were treated with marked indignity.” A crozier, patens, chalices, and rings, and “fantastic capitals” were now found, stone coffins were broken and bones scattered. Three superior coffins were found in front of the altar, and a slab, probably the base of a statue of Alfred, which is now at Corby Castle, in Cumberland. It is impossible to determine what relics were then destroyed.

The bones found in 1867 lie under a stone marked simply with a cross, beneath the east window of St. Bartholomew’s Church. They belonged to five persons, supposed to be Alfred, his queen and two sons, and St. Grimbald. The four first mentioned were found in a chalk vault, at the east end of the church of Hyde Monastery. The bones of St. Grimbald were in another chalk vault, under the chancel, near the north transept, which extended where there is now a timber yard, on the east side of the present church. In Milner’s time, the ruins of the church nearly covered a meadow. St. Bartholomew’s was probably like the church at Battle, built for the tenants and servants of the abbey. The cut stones, with which its walls are studded, give it a chequered or chessboard appearance, and suggest the spoliation of some earlier building. But a portion at least, of the church existed long before the destruction of the abbey. The alternation of squares of stone and flintwork is an example of what was in times past a favourite device, now known by architects as “diaper work.”

[Sidenote: Walk to Headbourne.]

Returning into Hyde Street, my friends went home; and I, walking on towards the country, came to some pretty outskirts of Winchester. Here are bright villas, covered with flowering rose-trees, and a thatched cottage swathed in ivy. The road gradually becomes overshadowed on both sides by beeches and elms, which soon give place on the left to corn-fields, dotted over with children “gleazing,” while on the right appears the long wall and fine plantations of Abbots Barton--an old monastic farm.

Just before coming to Headbourne Worthy, I passed two semi-detached cottages of red brick, with ornamental windows. These cheerful dwellings stand on a site of dark memory. Two years ago, a hayrick was here, under which a couple of young sailors, tramping along the road, took refuge at night from a storm. Though in this uncomfortable position, they managed to quarrel about money--with which neither was well provided--and at last the discussion grew so hot that the elder--twenty-seven years of age--pursued the younger, a boy of eighteen round the rick, with an open knife in his hand. The latter cried aloud, but the wind and rain prevented his being heard, except by a dog at a neighbouring cottage, who raised his voice in vain. At last the deed was done, and the murderer took three shillings from the body, which he covered up with hay. He then made off, but was captured and executed.

[Sidenote: A Winchester Scholar.]

I now descend a hill between high grassy banks, and reach Headbourne Worthy--the stately designation only signifying a village. The church has a somewhat modern appearance outside, but, according to some, has Saxon portions. At the west end, we find a small Norman arch leading into the vestry, where there is a bas-relief, almost obliterated, of the Crucifixion and two Marys, larger than life. It is supposed that these figures were originally on the outer wall of the church, and that the room in which they now are, in which an upper floor and piscina are traceable, was a chapel built round them. There is in the church a handsome piscina and some sedilia. But the chief pride of the little sanctuary is a brass, said to be in a certain sense unique. It dates from 1434, and is in memory of a boy who died when one of the scholars at “New College” in Winchester. He stands here, with closely-cut hair and a gown fastened down the front, giving a good idea of the appearance of the scholars of that day. A scroll proceeds out of his mouth, with the words, “Misericordiam Dm̄ inetm̄ cantabo,” which is supposed to mean that he will sing the school chants eternally.

I returned the keys to a small house, a few yards off, in the garden of which I observed some of the finest “everlastings” I had seen in this country. Beside it ran a grass-carpeted lane, down which a pedestrian wishing to return to Winchester in a mile, and able to face an easy fence, might turn to the right across a field and walk beside a bank gay with knopweed, fleabane, and St. John’s wort, until he reached the Nuns’ Walk. I, however, continued up the hill, and, passing a red-brick house, with four splendid lignums in front of it, came to King’s Worthy--once Crown property as the name denotes.

There is nothing remarkable about the church, except a Norman arch at the west entrance. The tombstones outside are sadly gay with wreaths and floral crosses. Short-lived they are, for the fences not being perfect cows stray in, and, unable to read of the virtues of the deceased, munch up and trample on the offerings in a most unsentimental manner. The body of the boy Parker, of whose murder I have spoken, having been refused, as I was told, burial at Headbourne, was interred here on the south-west side, and a headstone raised to his memory by subscription.

Crossing the graveyard to return home, I found myself in a field, where stand two elms of immense height and girth. Then--in and out--under old ivy-mantled trees--over a stile, and under the railway arch, I come into a large oozy field, which eyebright loves, and where sleek cattle are grazing; then I reach the clear Itchen, dozing and gleaming in the sun. Here I am beside the river of Isaak Walton. I fancy that I can see on the bank opposite, the quaint figure of the piscatorial draper, who was always ready to exchange his yard stick for his fishing-rod, and whose writing flows along as clearly and smoothly as the stream he gazed on. Those who wish to know something of his bodily presence may look at his statue by Miss Grant.

[Sidenote: Brooks.]

Awaking from my reverie, I cross by a plank bridge the rivulet which passes Headbourne Church and rises just above it. This stream, which accompanies the Nuns’ Walk, is said by some old writers to have been conducted into Winchester by Æthelwold. It was evidently turned artificially, perhaps by that eminent man; whoever directed it seems to have raised the Nuns’ Walk to bank up the stream.

Another rivulet running close beside it, drawn from the Itchen and used for irrigation, is called the Mill Stream, from an old mill which stood near: both flow in old water courses, as the willows along them testify. I crossed over to the last mentioned, which was set with the spears of bulrushes and gemmed with blue forget-me-nots, and walked on beside it upon fronds of silver weed, gathering watercresses at times, which seemed refreshing under the hot sun, till I crossed back into the Nuns’ Walk. It is difficult to understand why this name was given to the path, perhaps from its beauty; for it was far from the nunnery, though close to Hyde Monastery. If the nuns frequented it, they must have met the monks here. Let us hope on these trying occasions they kept their eyes rivetted on their books, or “commercing with the skies.” In the earlier period, however, the brethren were canons and mostly married. Would that we could picture here the stately figure of Bishop Æthelwold, whom their worldliness so deeply grieved!

Continuing along the walk by the clear stream, and occasionally startling a trout, which shot under the shade of the bank, I passed Abbots Barton farm, with its mullioned windows and old sun-dial. Farther on, I came to three little boys, fishing with landing nets--would that Gainsborough could have seen that group! I asked them whether they were successful; to which they replied--

“Oh, yes, we have caught several minnows, and some dog-fish.”

“Dog-fish? What may they be?”

“Some call them trotters,” they returned, and showed me the can in which their take had been deposited; but although I looked attentively, I could see nothing. They assured me, however, that they were there safe enough, and I was glad they enjoyed the sport, though I could not say much for the fry.

[Sidenote: The Monster Trout.]

Trudging on in the chequered light which the sunshine cast through the glossy leaves of witch elms, I came to a man feeding ducks. It was one o’clock, and he was eating his dinner of bread and cucumber, with a clasp knife. Every minute he was throwing in pieces of bread, and watching their scrambles. I stopped as I was passing. He looked at me with a smile, and said--

“I think they are getting nearly as much as I am.”

“You seem very liberal to them,” I replied.

“Yes; but they ought not to be here. This is a nursery, and they eat the small fish.”

“Are there any large fish in the stream?” I inquired.

“Oh, yes, very often; but I take them out and put them into the river. The Itchen is the place for the large fish.”

“What sized fish have you there?”

“I have seen trout there of six or eight pounds, but one was caught a few weeks ago that weighed sixteen pounds; and you can see it now, stuffed, at Mr. Chalkley’s, near the Butter Cross.”

“He must have been an old fellow.”

“Oh, very. I should say, twenty years. I had known him in the upper water for three years; but one time, when the hatch was open, he got into the lower water and was then, in fact, in the town. Plenty of people went out to try to catch him, but he escaped them for eighteen months; but at last was taken off his guard.”

“Have you any other fish here?”

“There are a few perch in the river, but we don’t want them; there ought to be none at all in it. Lower down, at Twyford, there are some grayling; and at Bishopstoke, some salmon-ladders have been placed to lead them up here, but they will not come.”

The capture of the large trout to which he alluded had made quite a sensation in Winchester. Not only was it stuffed and exhibited, but its portrait was taken. It seems remarkable that though the fish had been hooked so often, there were no barbs found in its mouth--this is generally the case, they come out by some kindly provision of nature. I need scarcely say that this veteran, when cooked, was not found particularly tender.

[Sidenote: Brooks.]

To the east of the walk on which I stood, a rich pasture land extended, looking very tempting for a stroll. It is divided into two farms--one entered under the Hyde arch; the other by the Mill, at the farther end of the town. The ground is intersected with dykes and rivulets, and especially by one large clear stream, which enjoys the unsuitable name of the Black Ditch. This feeds the “middle and lower brooks,” being led along the streets so called. The “upper brook” street is supplied by the stream which has travelled beside us from Headbourne, and, being spring water, is thought better than the rest. My impression is that the work of Æthelwold consisted in making the small canals or “brooks,” which flow into the town from a few yards behind the City Road, and perhaps some cutting across the meadow, and that the Headbourne stream was banked up at a later period, after the building of Hyde Monastery, through which it took a remarkably convenient course.

The southern part of this pasture land was the scene of the famous combat between Guy and Colbrand. Passing by some cottages covered with ivy, and some gardens flaming with phlox, I found myself back at St. Bartholomew’s Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] Charter Rolls, 8 Ed. I.

[60] The Cathedral was often called the Church of St. Swithun.

[61] Malmsbury calls it an image of the crucifixion, with great weight of gold, silver, and gems.

FIFTH DAY.

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.”

[Sidenote: The Britons.]

“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.”

[Sidenote: The Saxons.]

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.”

[Sidenote: St. Swithun.]

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!

[Sidenote: The Saxon Cathedral.]

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.”

[Sidenote: Miracles.]

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.”