From Paddington to Penzance: The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's EndHarper, Charles G. (Charles George)
General
From Paddington to Penzance: The record of a summer tramp from London to the Land's End
Harper, Charles G. (Charles George)
England -- Description and travel
One of the most curious features of the Cathedral is the series of
mortuary chests placed above the choir screens, and containing the
bones of saints, bishops, and royal personages mixed indiscriminately.
These chests were placed here by Bishop Fox on the completion of the
screens, and are six in number, of wood, carved and painted in the
Renaissance style, just then appearing in this country. The names of
the persons whose bones are deposited in them appear on the sides, and
amongst them are Canute, Egbert, Alwyn, and Edmund Ironside.
With the placing of the present side screens of the choir the
architectural history of the Cathedral is practically ended.
The taste of the seventeenth century is, however, shown in the erection
by Inigo Jones of an anachronism in the shape of a classic screen to
the choir, which is now happily removed. Its fragments, piled up in
remote corners and forgotten, may be seen by the curious who wander in
the dim and dusty passages of the tower and transepts.
The Cathedral contains a long and splendid series of chantry chapels
of surpassing beauty, commencing with Edingdon’s and ending with
Gardiner’s. Of these and of the many beauties of detail to be seen,
this short sketch cannot treat; but before leaving the building, one
may notice a singularly beautiful memorial to Bishop Ethelmar, who died
in 1261, and whose heart only is buried here, his body lying in
Paris. He is represented in ecclesiastical vestments, and holds his
heart in his hands.
[Illustration: THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER.]
Ethelmar, or Aymer de Lusignan, or Ethelmar de Valence, a half-brother
of Henry the Third, was forced into the bishop’s throne against the
will of the monks. He became bishop in 1249, but was eventually,
through his rapacity, banished the kingdom, and forced to flee for
France.
But the history of Winchester Cathedral shows many stirring episodes,
foremost among them being that story, dim with the lapse of ages, in
which Queen Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor, is said to have
undergone the terrible ordeal of walking barefooted over red-hot
ploughshares, and to have emerged from it unscathed. Then there is told
also the shameful tale of how the miserable John, terrified by the
fulminations of the Pope, did homage before the high altar to the papal
legate for his kingdom. In later ages, Queen Mary and Philip of Spain
were married here, and there is still shown the chair in which the
queen sat on that occasion.
In the days of the Puritans, the Cathedral, in common with most other
ecclesiastical edifices, suffered much, the stained and painted glass
adorning the windows being almost entirely wrecked. But reverent hands
collected the shattered fragments, and at the Restoration placed them
in the great west window, where they are still, presenting a most
perplexing combination of haphazard odds and ends of design.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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