Some stormy years at the end of Gardiner's interrupted episcopacy and during the rule of his immediate successors did not much affect Winchester externally; but under Robert Horne the whole diocese suffered terribly through the "Puritanical" views of its bishop. The Norman chapter-house was pulled down, part of the lead on the cathedral roof was stripped off, and stained glass, architectural decorations, etc., throughout the neighbourhood were ruthlessly destroyed. However, after a short period of comparative peace, far worse had yet to come. Under James I. and during the early part of the reign of Charles I., little happened to the building beyond the institution of Curle's passage through the buttress at the southern end of the cathedral, with its quaint inscription on the western wall. The Great Rebellion, as was only to be expected, brought Winchester into the utmost peril. The important situation of the town in the south of England caused it to become the centre of much hard fighting. Sir William Waller, whom Winchester has no cause to remember with affection, came very near to destroying the interior of the cathedral entirely. His troops marched right up the nave in full war equipment, some even being mounted. Tombs were defaced, relics scattered, statues mutilated, stained glass smashed, and the more portable objects carried out into the streets. It is difficult to estimate with any exactitude what was the whole extent of the damage done; but we have sufficient testimony in the broken figures, empty niches, etc., to see that it was great. One highly creditable incident in the midst of the general disgrace has been recorded--namely, the preservation from insult of Wykeham's chantry. This was the work of a Colonel Fiennes, who had been educated at Wykeham's College at Winchester. The protests of the inhabitants seem to have finally induced Waller to call off his fanatical troops from their work of destruction and violation. What might have happened to the cathedral, had this not been done, it is quite impossible to imagine. "Of the brass torn from the violated monuments" in 1644 "might have been built a house as strong as the brazen towers of old romances" (Ryves's "_Mercurius Rusticus_" quoted by Milner).