Royal Winchester: Wanderings in and about the Ancient Capital of England

by A. G. K. L'Estrange

Mary and Philip.

A gleam of gold and jewellery comes to us here from 1554. We were told that in this Lady Chapel Mary and Philip were married, but there is no doubt that the ceremony was performed before the high altar, which seemed the proper place. The chair in which Mary sat is here, and has originated the claim of the chapel. It is small, with a low back—a faldistorium—of a form not then uncommon, but was brave with brass nails, gilding, and velvet. It has now a shabby and melancholy appearance, like the performances of the sovereign who sat in it; the horse-hair is coming out, and no wonder, for nearly every second lady visitor poses in it as the queen of the moment.

But let us look at something better. The light of love is in the eyes of the gloomy bride, and is even slightly reflected from the dark, underhung visage of the king. All the nobility are gathered from the whole of England. The Queen in cloth of gold, with the sword borne before her, sweeps up with a long retinue from the west entrance, and takes her place on the “Mount,” beneath the rood loft. On her left is Philip, also in cloth of gold, having beside him a large number of nobles of Spain. Golden hangings glow in the choir, and at the altar stand six bishops with their crosiers. But with all this brilliancy none could fail to see the dark cloud of popular discontent lowering in the sky, and alas! the golden apparel concealed a sad and a false heart.

In this Lady Chapel, which has such high pretensions, the remains of some old frescoes (Silkstede’s) long covered with paint and plaster, are still visible. There are twenty-four separate designs, all in honour of the Virgin. In one place a young man puts a gold ring on the Virgin’s finger to keep it till he sees his lady-love. When he returns for it he finds it will not come off. He does not attribute this to the trickery of the monks, but to the intervention of the Virgin, and forthwith jilts his sweetheart and takes the cowl. In another design a painter accustomed to represent the devil “as ugly as he knew him to be,” is executing on a high wall, a figure of Our Lady, with the devil under her feet. His artistic work is stopped by a dragon-like fiend pulling down his scaffolding, when lo! the Virgin he has just painted holds out her hand to him and supports him till assistance arrives. Here also we have John Damascen, a celebrated writer of the eighth century, condemned by Saracen Caliph to lose his right hand. The peccant member is cut off, and hung up in the market-place, but on its being taken down and applied to the wrist with prayers to the Virgin, it is reunited.

“What absurd stories,” said Miss Hertford. “I wonder how even a child could have believed them.”

“I did not credit them,” I replied, “but now that I see framed on the wall that wonderful restoration of these indistinct outlines, I may think that the miraculous power of the Virgin is still present in her chapel.”

Rebuses.

Those who deem that a person guilty of a pun should suffer imprisonment will not look with much appreciation on the humour attempted on the vaulting of this and the last-named chapels. All that can be said in its behalf is that it has the flavour of a bygone age. These rebuses seem to us puerile. There might be a temptation to represent Silkstede by a skein and a horse; and as Winchester was often called Winton, and famous for its wine, there might be something juicy in symbolizing it by a vine issuing from a tun. But here we have a musical note termed “long,” coming out of a tun for Langton, and some can see a hen making a similar egress for Hunton. The dragon issuing from a tun refers to Proverbs xxiii. 31, 32: “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup.... At last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.”

We might be surprised that, when Fox put up the panelling here, he did not insert his own name in a similarly humorous manner. Reynard was a known ecclesiastical emblem, but not a complimentary one—in a church carving we find him preaching to a flock of geese. Our austere bishop would have been shocked at such a representative; he chose the self-sacrificing pelican.[84]

“Playing with words was much in fashion even at a later epoch,” said Mr. Hertford. “Not a few of our great families have punning mottoes as ‘Ver non semper viret’ for Vernon, ‘Cavendo tutus’ for Cavendish, and so on.”