Winchester | Page 9

those of Fox and Beaufort are usually considered the most
beautiful.
The proud Cardinal Beaufort, founder of the "Almshouse of Noble
Poverty" at St. Cross, is represented by Shakespeare as dying in
despair:
"Lord Cardinal, if thou think'st on Heaven's bliss Hold up thy hand:
make signal of thy hope. He dies, and makes no sign!"
Dean Kitchin writes: "One cannot look at his effigy, as it lies in his
stately chantry, without noting the powerful and selfish characteristics
of his face, and especially the nose, large, curved, and money-loving.
The sums Beaufort had at his disposal were so large that he was the
Rothschild of his day. More than once he lent his royal masters enough
money to carry them through their expeditions."
The mortuary chests are certainly among the most interesting things
possessed by any English cathedral. They are supposed to contain the
bones of Kings Eadulph, Kinegils, Kenulf, Egbert, Canute, Rufus,
Edmund, Edred, Queen Emma, and Bishops Wina and Alwyn. They no
doubt got much mixed up when removed from the crypt by Henry de
Blois, and again when the chests were broken open by the
Parliamentarians, so that a detailed identification has been made
impossible. It is now generally acknowledged that the bones of Rufus
are in one of these chests, and that the so-called Rufus tomb in the
retro-choir is the burial place of some great ecclesiastic. Such at any
rate is the opinion of Dean Kitchin, who has done so much to elucidate
the past history of the city and its Cathedral.
When one of these boxes was taken recently out of its enclosing chest
and examined, it was found to have a roof something like a low gable,
which was decorated with painting about a century later than the time
of de Blois. On the outside appeared the words in Latin: "Here are
together the bones of King Kinegils and of Ethelwolf". Four of the
Italian chests that held the inner boxes were the gift of Bishop Fox. The

other chests have revealed five complete sets of human bones, and
among the remains in another were the bones of a female, possibly
those of Queen Emma.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE DEANERY]
The visitor will not fail to have pointed out to him by the well-informed
vergers the innumerable features of interest, such as the Lady Chapel,
the retro-choir, the Holy Hole where the relics were kept, the black oak
stalls of the choir, the fine pulpit given by Prior Silkstede, and the
magnificent screen begun by Beaufort and completed by Fox. The
monuments, apart from those contained in the chantries, are many, and
include one surmounted by a beautifully wrought cross-legged effigy,
which has not yet been identified. There are memorials or tombs of
James I and Charles I, by le Suer, who wrought the statue of the latter
at Charing Cross; Dr. Warton, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, and
headmaster of Winchester; Jane Austen; and William Unwin, the
intimate friend of Cowper. A flat stone, with an inscription by his
brother-in-law, Ken, marks the resting-place of Izaak Walton, "whose
book", a modern writer tells us, "makes the reader forget for the time
the cruelty of his sport".
The curiously carved font, whereon are depicted symbolical figures and
incidents from the legendary life of St. Nicholas of Myra, bears much
similarity to three others found in Hampshire--at St. Michaels',
Southampton; East Meon; and St. Mary Bourne. They are all of the
same era, and possibly the work of the same hand, being among the
most interesting of our Norman fonts. The material of which they are
made has never been settled, some authorities defining it as Tournai
marble, others as basalt, and yet others as nothing more than slate.
The roll of bishops is a remarkable one, and the see has had eleven who
were also Lord Chancellors, the last being Wolsey in 1529.
As we have seen, Winchester continued in favour with the reigning
houses long after it had ceased to be a royal residence. Here Henry I
was married to the Saxon Matilda, and here in the closing years of his
life the aged Wykeham married Henry IV and Joan of Navarre; and
here, too, came Philip of Spain and Henry VIII's sad daughter, Mary of
England, to be wedded before the high altar, the chair on which the
royal bride sat being still shown to visitors.
For the architectural student the plan of the cathedral is not the least

interesting feature of the building, for although it has an ambulatory
which is semicircular internally, the plan is in other respects rather
exceptional. It is what architects call a periapsidal plan, meaning that
its eastern termination contains a processional aisle or ambulatory,
designed mainly for the purpose of allowing a procession to pass