JUNE 135 



let this way be consecrated to the choir ; let that one lead 

 to the market.' 



In 1644, when King Charles's cause in the south was 

 broken at the battle of Cheriton, near Alresford, "Waller 

 drove the fugitives right up to the walls of Winchester. 

 Six months later Oliver Cromwell battered the town and 

 took it, and his troopers wrought irreparable havoc among 

 the archives and other manuscripts in the cathedral 

 library. Four years later, in 1648, the city magnates 

 assembled to receive their king, when, on his melancholy 

 journey from Hurst Castle to Windsor, he arrived, as a 

 prisoner, to spend the night in the old town. The neigh- 

 bouring squires, too, rode in from the country, and the 

 people assembled in crowds, but the officer commanding 

 the escort sternly repressed the warm expressions of loyal 

 welcome they were burning to make. 



The sun shone on Winchester once more at the Restora- 

 tion, and its forfeited bishopric was restored to it, for 

 Charles ii. was often there, and his sinister brother, the 

 Duke of York, to boot. Livelier company, too, he brought 

 with him, and such as vastly helped to revive the local 

 trade. Men still show the spot in the garden behind the 

 canons' house where unflinching Prebendary Ken spoke 

 his mind about Nell Gwynne. Charles well loved the 

 quiet town, with its gray buildings and green alleys, so 

 fitting for flirtation, and gave command to Sir Christopher 

 Wren to build him a fine palace, after the fashion of Ver- 

 sailles. But he never lived to see it finished, the works 

 were stopped at his death in 1685, and there stands to 

 this day the ' King's House ' — monument of the last act of 

 royal favour to Winchester. 



Two years before the king's death, in December 1683, 



