Winchester | Page 6

stand, especially as
the original charge was an unjust one; so at the ensuing meeting of
Convocation, Courtenay, then Bishop of London, declared boldly that
unless their favourite bishop was reinstated in office, no money would
be forthcoming from the clergy. In less than a month the pressing need
of funds caused the King to send a messenger to Waverley and beg
Wykeham to return to his house at Southwark. This was the first step,
which, however, did not mean an immediate return to the temporalities,
as these had been settled on the youthful heir apparent, Richard; but the
people took up Wykeham's cause, and on June 18, 1377, in the
presence of the little Richard, his uncle, and the King's council,
Wykeham promised to fit out three galleys for sea, in return for the
temporalities of Winchester. Two days later Edward III died, forsaken
by his mistress, Alice Perrers, and estranged from the one man who had
served him so long and so faithfully.
The architectural genius of Wykeham as exhibited at St. Mary's
College and the cathedral at Winchester, and at New College, Oxford,
originally founded as "St. Maries' College of Winchester at Oxenford",

marks a very decided epoch in the development of English architecture.
His works, in an architectural style found nowhere but in England, are
the outcome of a mind free from triviality, and full of common sense.
His buildings are admirably suited to their purpose, and at first sight
they appear to be so simple in design that it has been suggested that
Wykeham cared more for the constructive than the artistic side of
building. It is true that he considered sound construction and good
proportions of greater importance than a profusion of detail, yet such
ornament as is found in his work is highly effective and most carefully
studied. To this bishop-architect we undoubtedly owe much of the
dignity and simplicity which mark the Early Perpendicular buildings,
qualities which make the style such a contrast to the exuberance of that
which immediately preceded it, or the over-elaboration of the Tudor
buildings that followed it.
With few exceptions, practically the whole of Wykeham's work, both
here and at Oxford, remains much as he left it; so that, good bishop,
wise administrator, generous founder, and pioneer educationist though
he was, it is mainly as a munificent builder and architectural genius that
his fame has lived in the past, and will continue to live in the future.
Here for the moment we must leave the great prelate of Winchester and
begin our perambulation of the city that received him as a youth,
welcomed him as a bishop, mourned him when dead, and that still
bears on the long nave of its cathedral, and on its famous college, the
impress of his manly, robust, and essentially English mind.
By way of a footpath leading from the London and South-Western
Railway station, the upper part of the famous High Street can be
reached, although the thoroughfare now possesses but few features of
interest until we arrive at the old West Gate, a reminder, if such were
needed, that Winchester was a heavily fortified and strongly walled city.
On the right is Castle Hill, the site of the ancient castle wherein Stigand,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was imprisoned and Matilda besieged, and
from whose courtyard William Rufus set out on the hunting expedition
to the New Forest which was attended by such fatal consequences. All
that now remains of this stronghold is the fine old hall built by Henry
III.
For some time this apartment was used as the County Hall, and here
Judge Jeffreys opened his Bloody Assize before proceeding to

Dorchester, Exeter, and Taunton. Alice Lisle was the widow of John
Lisle, who had been Master of St. Cross Hospital, and member for
Winchester in the Long Parliament. Although the men of Hampshire
had taken no part in Monmouth's Rebellion, many of the fugitives had
fled thither, and two of them, John Hickes, a Non-conformist divine,
and Richard Nelthorpe, a lawyer, found refuge in the house of Alice
Lisle, where they were eventually discovered. At her trial, Alice Lisle
stated briefly that, although she knew Hickes to be in trouble, she was
quite ignorant of the fact that he had participated in the rebellion. When
the jury said they doubted if the charge had been made out, Jeffreys
was furious, and after another long consultation they returned a verdict
of "Guilty". The next morning the judge pronounced sentence, and
ordered the prisoner to be burned alive that same afternoon. When
remonstrances had poured in from all quarters, Jeffreys consented to
the execution being postponed for five days; and the sentence was
eventually commuted from burning to hanging. So the first victim of
Monmouth's ill-fated rebellion was hanged on a scaffold in