132 A CITY OF MANY WATERS 



the fabric weather-tight ; indeed to avoid the expense of 

 repairs he barbarously pulled down the fine Norman 

 cloister and chapter-house. But the day of doom had 

 come for images and relics and all pleasant pictures. 

 What was not of costly material was burnt, and what was 

 precious (and there was very much of that) was turned to 

 money. Even the great silvern cross over the high altar, 

 perhaps with Cnut's crown still on it, was torn down, and 

 to this day you may see the space it once covered, bare 

 and cold amid the rich tracery and carving of the reredos. 

 Probably upon no town in the realm was a greater out- 

 ward change effected by the suppression of the monasteries 

 in 1547 than upon Winchester, because no other town 

 could show such a large proportion of ecclesiastics in her 

 population. The Priory of St. Swithun, perhaps the most 

 ancient in England, the Abbey of Hyde, the houses of the 

 Grey Friars and Black Friars within the walls, and those 

 of the White Friars and Augustinians outside them in the 

 Soke, all were swept away, together with St. Mary's Abbey 

 of Benedictine nuns. And the spoliation went on briskly 

 after Henry viii. had gone to rest, for Winchester was still 

 far the richest see in England. Innumerable mortuary 

 chapels in the cathedral and other churches in the town^ 

 were disendowed, and their revenues either appropriated 

 to the Crown or bestowed on laymen. But Winchester 

 was loyal first and Catholic afterwards; she remained 

 faithful to the hand that smote her so sorely, and her 

 people thought that their reward had come when in their 

 cathedral Queen Mary was wedded, with splendid pageant, 

 to Philip of Spain. The days of Wintonian glory surely 

 would return with the old religion. They even went so 



' Dr. Milner enumerates ninety-two churches and separate chapels 

 existing in Winchester and its suburbs in the fourteenth century. 



