Winchester, Painted by Wilfrid BallVarley, Telford
History
Winchester, Painted by Wilfrid Ball
Varley, Telford
Winchester (England) -- Description and travel; Winchester (England) -- History; Winchester (England) -- Pictorial works
“Manners makyth man”--one is tempted to wonder if more may not here be
meant than meets the ear, and whether ‘manners,’ in its Latin equivalent
_mores_ at least, does not wrap up a punning allusion, after the method
so dear to that age, to Warden Morys, to whose hands, on the erection of
the building, Wykeham first committed the future of his great college.
But be that as it may, the emblem seems to sum up the spirit of the
college with literal fidelity. Passing through its chambers, its chapel,
its courts, its cloisters, one is sadly tempted to linger to recall the
memory of this great headmaster, or recount the quaint stories told of
this famous warden or that, and the names of Ken, Arnold, Goddard,
Gabell, Huntingford, Barter, rise almost instinctively to one’s lips. We
shall find their memories all piously preserved and commemorated whether
in portrait, tablet, or building, as for instance the Memorial Gateway
erected as a memorial of the old Wykehamists who fell in the South
African War; but here we may not stop, and those who wish to do so can
follow out their story in Leach’s _Winchester College_ or Adams’s
delightful _Wykehamica_. But more striking than the past, the noble
traditions nobly preserved is the vitality in the present. ‘Sainte Marie
College’ has always known how to adapt herself successfully, as age
succeeded age, to the requirements of the day, and has paid the truest
respect to the Founder’s wishes in never allowing herself to grow old.
There is no frost, mingled with the kindliness of age, in Winchester
College.
CHAPTER XVIII
WOLVESEY--ST. CROSS--THE CASTLE HALL--THE ROUND TABLE
And for great Arthur’s seat ould Winchester preferres,
Whose ould Round Table yet she vaunteth to be hers.
DRAYTON’S _Polyolbion_.
From College one turns naturally to Wolvesey--Wolvesey with its
wonderful grey stone walls, its memories of Saxon and Norman,
Plantagenet and Stuart times. Here Alfred kept his Court, with all the
learned men of his time around him; here the _English Chronicle_ was
first compiled; and here, above that very Wolvesey wall, it may be, the
Danish pirates captured in the Solent were hanged--as has been already
related--in retributive justice. But the big blocks of ruin in Wolvesey
Mead are of later date; they recall to us the career of that notable
figure among the Bishops of Winchester, Henry of Blois, King Stephen’s
brother, bishop from 1129 to 1171--the masterful man, devoted churchman,
and scheming politician, whose story has been somewhat fully related in
Chapter VIII. To strengthen himself he fortified
[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. LAWRENCE, WINCHESTER
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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