and convent”--a rarely suggestive illustration of mediaeval life and method. Destined ever to bring trouble with her in her lifetime, her very legacy seemed to bear with it the same evil fruit of civil disturbance to the city and much bickering of rival authorities for centuries after her death. Of Winchester in Cnut’s reign we have frequent mention in the chronicles of the time. The story of Cnut rebuking his courtiers on the seashore at Southampton we need not repeat, except as regards its sequel. “After which,” to quote Rudborne’s account, “Cnut never wore his crown, but placing it on the head of the image above the high altar of the cathedral (_at Winchester_), afforded a striking example of humility to the kings who should come after him.” Nor was humility the only virtue Cnut displayed. His munificence to the Church was striking and ample, and one chronicler after another the gifts made by Cnut and Emma jointly to the religious houses both at Winchester and in the district round. “This same Cnut,” we read, “embellished the Old Minster with such magnificence that the gold and silver and the splendour of the precious stones dazzled the eyes of the beholders.” Two of Cnut’s gifts were indeed to become memorable in after years. One was the great altar cross of solid gold which he and Queen Emma presented jointly to the New Minster, a presentation quaintly portrayed in the _Liber Vitae_ of Hyde, a register and martyrology illuminated at Winchester during this reign. For years it remained the glory of the houses till it was destroyed at the burning of Hyde Abbey, and even then its history was not ended, for Bishop Henry of Blois, having stolen the precious metal mingled with the ashes from the conflagration, was forced by the monks of Hyde to make restitution. The other historic gift was that made to the Old Minster, of “three hides of land called Hille,” usually identified as St. Catherine’s Hill, whereon, in centuries to come, generation after generation of Wykeham’s scholars were to make regular pilgrimage for purposes of play on ‘remedies’ or days of relaxation. The land is still Church property, and is held now by the ecclesiastical commissioners. Cnut is a great figure both in Winchester and in English history. Foreigner though he was, he ruled not as an alien conqueror, but as an English monarch, and Englishmen are proud to claim him as one of the greatest among our national rulers. He died in 1035, and his body was brought to Winchester for interment in the Old Minster, and in the Cathedral his bones are still preserved in one of the mortuary chests already referred to, along with those of Emma his [Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. CROSS St. Cross Hospital founded by Bishop Henry of Blois in 1136, and placed by him subsequently under the protection of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, from which circumstance the Brethren wear the characteristic _croix pattée_ or eight-pointed cross of the Order. [Illustration]