“Close to this,” I continued, “beside the wall of St. Lawrence’s Church, a murder took place, in the twenty-first year of Richard II., which brings before us the lawless state of the times. One James Dyngeley, a priest, struck a man named Walter Pynchon, through the back to the heart with a baslard. This weapon was a large dagger suspended to the girdle, and worn by laymen and by some priests, notwithstanding an ecclesiastical prohibition. Roger, the parson of St. Lawrence, claimed the prisoner (as an ecclesiastic) for the Bishop of Winchester, and he was incarcerated in Wolvesey Castle. From this he broke out with others on the 5th of December, in the fifth year of Henry IV., but was pardoned by the King for this and other felonies--a proof of the influence of the Church in those days.”[39] The next church we come to is St. Maurice’s, which is modern, the fifteenth-century tower has a good Norman doorway looking towards the Cathedral. There are some old registers belonging to this church which record the burials of men killed in the Soke (across the bridge), fighting with the Roundheads in the days of Cromwell. There is a monument here in which the admirers of William Widmore have made him ridiculous for ever, by calling him “a friend without guile, and an apothecary without ostentation;” the less excusable, as they say he was “an honest Englishman.” Opposite this church is a passage leading to the “Bell and Crown.” A hostel of that name has stood here ever since Henry V.’s reign. The building now on the spot is old, and has been evidently much altered. The wall of the staircase is spotted over with a small blue pattern. “I thought there was a paper on the wall,” said the landlord, “and was going to have another put over it; but a gentleman said to me, ‘Do no such thing. Why, that is stencilled! there is not another house in Winchester can show such decoration.’” Stencilling was much used in the last century. “I have heard,” said Mr. Hertford, “that the celebrated Miss Mellon (Duchess of St. Albans) went about when young with her father and a company of actors who, as occasion offered, acted plays and stencilled rooms.” The work is performed by placing against the wall a thin piece of metal on which a pattern has been cut, and then brushing paint over it. This ornamentation is interesting, as showing the transition from frescoes and panelling to paper-hangings. The passage in front of the “Bell and Crown” was formerly a large archway, on the eastern side of which there was a hall for entertainments. [Illustration: The Guildhall.]