were concerned, but likewise several belonging to the King's own household, and body-guard. These illegal combinations were at length broken by the address and spirit of the Sovereign; and no fewer than thirty persons were condemned, and executed, on the occasion. During the disastrous contests between Henry and his Barons, Winchester suffered greatly; both parties alternately obtaining possession, and committing various acts of violence. After the decisive battle of Evesham, several parliaments were held here by the King; and here also, in the same reign, occurred the famous trial of John Plantagenet, Earl of Surrey, for cleaving the skull of Alan de la Zouch, Chief Justice of Ireland, as he sat upon the bench at Westminster Hall. This high-spirited Nobleman had been summoned to produce evidence of the tenure by which he held his lands, when, drawing his sword, he swore that his father and grand-father had held their estates by that right, and that he would maintain them by the same. This asseveration he fatally verified on the person of the Judge; but was acquitted of the murder on his trial, upon his solemn oath, “that he had not struck the deceased out of preconceived malice, or contempt of the King's authority; and upon twenty-four persons, of the rank of Knights, who were compurgatores, swearing they believed what the Earl had sworn to be true: he was, however, fined in the heavy sum of 1200 marks." During this reign, as well as the preceding ones from the time of Henry the First, many disputes arose about the privilege of electing to the See, between the Sovereign, the Pope, and the Monks belonging to the Cathedral. The increased importance of London about this period, operated greatly to the disadvantage of Winchester; and though Edward the First held several parliaments here, in one of which the celebrated ordinances were passed, afterwards known by the name of the Statutes of Winchester, yet the Royal Residence was in a great measure removed; and with it, of course, departed the attendants on the court, and others engaged in public affairs, whose expenditure had hitherto contributed to the affluence of the city. Towards the conclusion of this reign, all the liberties of Winchester were declared void, by order of the King, whose displeasure had 2 been been excited from the escape of Bernard Pereres, a foreign hostage, that had been confined in the Castle under charge of the Mayor, and other corporate officers. The good offices of Margaret, the reigning Queen, procured a restoration of the privileges of the city; and the memory of this benevolent Princess has been ever since held in great and deserved estimation by the inhabitants. Shortly after the murder of Edward the Second, a parliament was caused to be held in this city, by the Queen and her paramour, Roger Mortimer, in which the illustrious Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, was attainted of high treason. Being condemned to die, on the day appointed for his execution, he was led to a scaffold erected before the Castle gate; but such was the general detestation against the bloody deed, that no person could be prevailed on to become his executioner till the evening, when the disgraceful office was undertaken by a wretch from one of the prisons, who, to save his own life, consented to decapitate the Earl. In the reign of Edward the Third, Winchester was appointed as one of the fixed markets, or staples, for wool; and the merchants availing themselves of the solemn promise given by the King and his Council, not to revoke this order, erected large warehouses, and other buildings, for the more convenient management of the trade. The growing commerce of the city, was, however, interrupted by the destruction of Portsmouth and Southampton by the French, in the years 1337 and 1338; and again by the great Plague, which, about ten years afterwards, spent its first fury in this neighbourhood: but the most destructive event to the prosperity of Winchester, was the removal of the wool staple to Calais in the year 1363. "Henceforward," observes Mr. Milner, "her decline from wealth and commerce was sensible and uniform." In this reign the rebuilding of the nave of the Cathedral was commenced by Bishop Edyngton, who was Treasurer and Chancellor to the King. The honor of completing it, with other material alterations, was reserved however for his able successor, William de Wykeham. Richard the Second, and his Queen, visited this city in the year 1388; and here, in 1392, a parliament was held, in consequence of London having suffered a temporary deprivation of its privileges through the Royal indignation, Henry the Fourth had the solemnities solemnities of his marriage with Joanna, Dowager Duchess of Bretagne, celebrated in Winchester Cathedral, by the venerable Bishop Wykeham, in 1401. The celebrated Henry Beaufort, son of John of Gaunt, and afterwards Cardinal, was appointed to the See of Winchester on the death of Wykeham, by the above Monarch. Henry the Sixth was a considerable benefactor to this city, which he visited several times; and in 1449 he held a parliament here, which continued from the sixteenth of June, till the sixteenth of the month following. In this reign the trade and population had so greatly decreased, that the inhabitants, on a petition to the King for the renewal of a grant made by himself in 1440, represent that 997 houses were actually divested of inhabitants, and seventeen parish Churches shut up. On the death of Cardinal Beaufort, in 1447, the celebrated Waynflete was elected to succeed him by the Monks, on the recommendation of the King, who honored his installation by his own presence. On the pregnancy of Elizabeth of York, Henry the Seventh's Queen, that Princess was brought to lye-in at Winchester from motives of state policy, in order to conciliate the Welsh nation, among whom a pretended prophecy had been industriously propagated, that the prosperity of their favorite Cadwallader, should regain the sovereignty of Britain, Henry himself affected to trace his genealogy to that King; and the better to fall in with the prevailing prejudice, he caused his new-born son to be christened Arthur, from the circumstance of his having drawn his first breath in the Castle, traditionally asserted to have been erected by the famous British hero of that name, In the year 1522, Henry the Eighth, and his Royal guest, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, spent a week together in this city; on which occasion the celebrated Round Table was new painted, and a distich, in honor of the illustrious visitors, placed beneath it. On the "The characters in the names of the twenty-four Knights, and the costume in the dress of the King, were those of the reign of Henry the Eighth, and have since, at each fresh painting, been copied, though incorrectly. The distich was as follows: Carolus the death of Bishop Fox, in this reign, the far-famed Wolsey was invested with the temporalities of this See, in October, 1528, but was not installed till the following year, and then only by proxy: in 1529 he was deprived of his dignity; and this See remained vacant nearly four years, when the King bestowed it on the cele brated Gardiner. The final dissolution of the Monasteries, during the prelacy of this Bishop, and the consequent destruction of religious houses, rendered Winchester scarcely any thing more than a mere skeleton of its former grandeur. In the year 1554, Winchester became the scene of the meeting, and subsequent nuptials, of Queen Mary and Philip, of Spain, which were solemnized with great splendor. The restitution of many estates, which had been alienated from the Bishopric during the reigns of her brother and father, were restored to the See through the influence of the above Sovereign; but Winchester itself had lost its importance; and in a charter obtained through the solicitations of Sir Francis Walsingham, is described as having fallen " into great ruin, decay, and poverty." This charter was granted by Elizabeth, in the latter part of whose reign, several Catholics were executed here, on the score of religion; though only one Protestant had actually suffered in this city, during the persecution under her more bigotted sister. The commencement of the year 1603 was distinguished at Winchester, by the singular occurrence of James of Scotland, being proclaimed King of England, by the sole authority of the High Sheriff of Hampshire. This was Sir Benjamin Tichborne, who, on receiving intelligence of the death of Elizabeth, hastened from his family seat, and issued the proclamation, without waiting for orders from the Privy Council in London, who had passed several hours in deliberating on this important subject. The spirited and more decided conduct of the Sheriff, was deservedly rewarded by the new Sovereign, who granted to him and his heirs in perpetuity, the Royal Castle of Winchester, together with an annual pension Carolus, Henricus vivant; defensor uterque; Milner's Winchester, Vol. I. p. 622. of of 1001. during his own life, and that of his eldest son, whom he also knighted. Before the expiration of the above year, another transaction, of much celebrity, occurred in this city; namely, the trial of the great Sir Walter Raleigh," Lord Cobham, Lord Grey de Wilton, and others, with whom these noblemen had been implicated through the subtlety of the King's Ministers, on pretended charges of conspiracy. During these proceedings, Winchester presented some faint images of its former splendor; but still continued to decline during the remainder of this reign, though James occasionally visited it in his progresses to the west. In the eventful reign of Charles the First, the City and Castle of Winchester were secured for the Parliament, by Sir William Waller; but about the conclusion of the year 1643, the Castle was seized and garrisoned by the Royalists, under the command of Sir William, afterwards Lord Ogle. About this period, a design was entertained of re-establishing the King's authority in the adjoining counties of Hampshire and Sussex; and Winchester was appointed as the general rendezvous of the army that was then forming in the west: fortifications were at the same time thrown up round the city, and particularly on the eastern and western sides, where the entrenchments may yet be traced. The activity of Waller, and the defeat of Lord Hopton on Cheriton Down, disconcerted this project; and Waller obtained possession of the city without loss: the Castle, however, held out for the King; and *See Beauties, &c. Vol. IV. p. 309, et seq. + The wanton violence of the soldiery, at their triumphant entrance into Winchester, observes Mr. Milner, "heightened by their religious prejudices, was chiefly displayed against our venerable Cathedral. Here, the monuments of the dead were defaced; the bones of Kings and Bishops thrown about the Church; the two famous statues of the Kings, Charles and James, erected at the entrance into the choir, pulled down; the communion plate, books, hangings, and cushions, seized upon, and made away with; the Church vestments put on by the Heathenish soldiers, riding in that posture in derision about the streets, some scornfully singing pieces of the Common Prayer, while others tooted |