“A remarkable, if not fabulous event, took place ‘in the hall of Winchester Castle’ (or palace) in Edward the Confessor’s time. The story goes that one of the serving-men in bringing in a dish slipped one foot, but saved himself with the other. Earl Godwin being in good spirits, perhaps, at the termination of the almost endless grace, attempted a joke--a somewhat hazardous venture before the Confessor. ‘So should one brother support the other,’ quoth he. Edward was down upon him in a moment. ‘So might I have been now assisted by my brother Alfred, if Earl Godwin had not prevented it.’ The Earl protested that he had no connection with that murder; ‘might the next morsel be his last if he had.’ He ate and tried to swallow, but the food and the lie stuck in his throat, and he fell dead under the table.” “I have read, somewhere,” observed Mr. Hertford, “that there is no truth in that story beyond the fact that the Earl died suddenly at a banquet here, and was buried in the Cathedral. It has a Norman flavour.” We find that Henry II. bought a place in Winchester for his mews, which remained in the hands of John and Henry III.[12] John in his fifth year gave to Matthew Wallop “the custody of our house and castle gates and gaol in Winchester for the service of his keeping at his cost our birds put in the Castle to be mewed, finding one servant to mew them, and keep throughout the mewing time. And he shall find three hare hounds for each season.”[13] John also ordered a Columbarium to be made in the Castle.[14] [Illustration: Castle Hall.] While we were admiring the exterior of the hall I thought of the grim ornaments with which the Castle was once adorned. Here was placed by Edward I. a quarter of the last native Prince of Wales. Here Queen Isabella exhibited the head of Earl Despencer. As I was musing, a labourer came out, and we were enabled to enter the building. “Magnificent!” exclaimed Mr. Hertford. “What a length and height; and look at those tall, blue shafts of Purbeck marble!” “Those pillars and aisles,” I replied, “have led some to mistake it for a church. But although we read of four chapels in the Castle--the chief of which was to St. Josse--this was not among them. The length is 110 feet. The old entrance to the hall, the mouldings of which are still visible, was used towards the end of the last century, and corresponded with that still existing on the south side.”[15] [Sidenote: Arthur’s Table.]