What makes this work the more remarkable is that the Norman walls were not removed; the ashlar facing was stripped off them and replaced by masonry designed in the prevailing style.
Wykeham did not live to complete this his greatest work; but his will, still extant, gives instructions to that end. The good bishop died in 1404, and was buried in the chantry chapel he had had prepared in that portion of the Cathedral corresponding to the pierced side of the Saviour. Here a beautiful and elaborate altar tomb stands, bearing his effigy, habited in the bishop’s robes, with mitre and crozier. Angels support the head, and at the feet are figures of monks praying, while the bishop’s arms and his motto, “Manners makyth Man,” are shown below, with the arms of the See of Winchester.
The character of Wykeham shines out from the age in which he lived with great brilliancy. The statesman, prelate, and architect were united in him with a far-seeing benevolence surprising in those times. His foundations of Winchester College and New College, Oxford, have served as models for all the great public schools subsequently founded.
One of the most curious features of the Cathedral is the series of mortuary chests placed above the choir screens, and containing the bones of saints, bishops, and royal personages mixed indiscriminately. These chests were placed here by Bishop Fox on the completion of the screens, and are six in number, of wood, carved and painted in the Renaissance style, just then appearing in this country. The names of the persons whose bones are deposited in them appear on the sides, and amongst them are Canute, Egbert, Alwyn, and Edmund Ironside.
With the placing of the present side screens of the choir the architectural history of the Cathedral is practically ended.
The taste of the seventeenth century is, however, shown in the erection by Inigo Jones of an anachronism in the shape of a classic screen to the choir, which is now happily removed. Its fragments, piled up in remote corners and forgotten, may be seen by the curious who wander in the dim and dusty passages of the tower and transepts.
The Cathedral contains a long and splendid series of chantry chapels of surpassing beauty, commencing with Edingdon’s and ending with Gardiner’s. Of these and of the many beauties of detail to be seen, this short sketch cannot treat; but before leaving the building, one may notice a singularly beautiful memorial to Bishop Ethelmar, who died in 1261, and whose heart only is buried here, his body lying in Paris. He is represented in ecclesiastical vestments, and holds his heart in his hands.
THE DEANERY, WINCHESTER.
Ethelmar, or Aymer de Lusignan, or Ethelmar de Valence, a half-brother of Henry the Third, was forced into the bishop’s throne against the will of the monks. He became bishop in 1249, but was eventually, through his rapacity, banished the kingdom, and forced to flee for France.