130 A CITY OF MANY WATERS 



Edward never knew another hour of tranquillity, nor ever 

 did he see his beloved Hampshire valley again. 



In the thirteenth century pilgrims flocked in such 

 hordes to St. Swithun's shrine that Bishop Lucy, to 

 protect the regular worshippers in the cathedral from 

 annoyance, and even contagion, from the malodorous 

 throng, enlarged the church by an addition, with a separ- 

 ate entrance from the north transept, and closed on the 

 south side by the fine gates of wrought iron, supposed to 

 be the oldest specimens of that craft in England. Against 

 WiUiam de Wykeham, the greatest of Winchester's prelates, 

 who shall breathe a word of disparagement ? Had he 

 done no more than found and endow St. Mary's College 

 of Winchester, he had earned the blessing of us all, for on 

 that model have been moulded all our other great public 

 schools. William surely has proved not the least among 

 the prophets, else what inspired him to choose the simple 

 motto — £Si.vinntx0 makytlt Jttan — as if he had foreseen how 

 the gentle ordeal of the public school was to supply the 

 hall-mark of courtliness, even in days when rapid money- 

 making raises of a sudden many above their birth level. 

 Yet is one sorely tempted to irritation because of the 

 disastrous activity of this excellent man. Would that in 

 his ardour for designing new buildings he had been con- 

 tent to leave the old ones alone ! Then had Winchester 

 Cathedral remained in the south what Kirkwall is in the 

 far north — a magnificent and perfect example of Norman 

 architecture at its best. But William of Wykeham had 

 begun his career as Chief Commissioner of Works to 

 Edward iii., and, being an ambitious sedile, must needs 

 cut and slash at the Old Minster, obliterating Walkelin's 

 noble triforium, and ripping out the round-headed clere- 



