We cannot give in full the story of Henry, interesting and important as it is, and intimately associated as much of it was with our city; for Henry was here continually, he made it his chief residence, and in the years that followed Winchester had often reason to pay dear for his attachment to his parent city. Wild disorder, riot and revel, profuse expenditure and pinch of consequent poverty, anarchy and siege and civil warfare in her streets, all followed in turn, till order was at last evolved, and dignified and noble parliaments assembled in her Castle Hall, the symbol of the reign of law that was to follow, and the earnest of that rule by representative assembly which has made our nation--and almost Winchester herself--the mother of parliaments, honoured through the length and breadth of the world. Chequered as the reign was to be, the early years were quiet and prosperous, till Henry’s evil genius, Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester, gained ascendancy over the king. The king’s marriage to a French princess, Eleanor of Provence, followed, and the king, under the influence of a foreign wife, and a prelate and justiciar of alien sympathies, entered on a [Illustration: CHEYNEY COURT AND CLOSE GATE, WINCHESTER The outermost ‘court,’ if such a term may be used, of the Cathedral Close, from which the great Close Gate gives access to Swithun’s Street and King’s Gate. The Close Gate is guarded by a porter, as in mediaeval days, who locks and unlocks it regularly by night and day. Near Cheyney Court stands part of the old ‘Guesten Hall,’ where poor pilgrims to the Shrine of St. Swithun used to be lodged. Weird tales of ghostly visitors haunting the Close are told by persons still living. The name Cheyney appears to be derived from the French _chêne_, an oak. ] reckless course of extravagance and anti-national policy which estranged all his subjects’ sympathies. To all posts of honour and preferment, whether civil or ecclesiastical, foreign claimants were preferred, and the land groaned under the tyranny of alien domination, while its resources were being drained away from it to provide revenues for foreign beneficiaries abroad. Protest after protest, discontent, active opposition, ridicule, and remonstrance were all in vain. The king was once significantly asked by the witty Roger Bacon what dangers by sea a skilful pilot would most avoid, and on evading the question was told ‘Petrae et rupes’ (_stones and rocks_), a faintly-veiled allusion to the chief influence for evil in the state. But all was in vain, and at last armed opposition could no longer be prevented, and the barons under Simon de Montfort broke out into open revolt.