After Emma’s death Edward the Confessor was frequently at Winchester; he revived the practice of the earlier Saxon kings, and “wore his crown at Winchester at Easter time”—in other words, held his Easter Court there. Into the details of his reign we need not enter. Most striking, perhaps, from the point of view of our Winchester annals, is the amazing accumulation of extravagant legend, beneath which the history of this reign is buried and obscured. One such legend we have just related; another one is that of the mysterious death of Earl Godwine. The Chronicle records the circumstance briefly and naturally. “On the second Easter day he was sitting with the king at refection (doubtless at Wolvesey) when he suddenly sank down by the footstool, deprived of speech and of all power.... He continued so, speechless and powerless, until the Thursday, and then resigned his life, and he lies within the Old Minster.” A plain story, plainly told—an old man, a sudden stroke of paralysis, and death in its natural course. But not so in the hands of the fifteenth-century annalist; the story had grown, by the snowball principle, by then: Godwine was no friend of the monks, and Edward was a Saint—the Confessor. Godwine in this account, while feasting at the royal table, is under grievous suspicion of compassing the death of the king’s brother, Alfred the
Ætheling. A cupbearer, in handing the cup to the king, slips with one foot on the floor, but dexterously recovers his balance with the other foot. “Thus,” remarked Godwine, “brother brings aid to brother.” The king retorts fiercely, “But for the wiles of Earl Godwine, my brother would have been able to bear aid to me.” The earl earnestly protesting, and in token of his innocence, lifts a piece of bread, praying that it may choke him if he is in any way complicated in the crime of murder. The pious king solemnly blesses the bread, which proves a fatal mouthful, for “Satan entered into him when he had received the sop,” and the earl falls speechless before the incensed king, who spurns the body with his foot, while his sons Harold and Tostig remove it, and later on bury it surreptitiously in the Cathedral. So was history written ‘once upon a time.’ Whereabouts in the Cathedral the great earl was buried is unknown.
One more legend—for legend, unfortunately, we must so deem it—the legend of Abbot Alwyn and the monks of Newan Mynstre, and we must conclude. Edward’s reign is marked by the struggle between Saxon and Norman interest for supremacy in England, and to the Confessor Norman art, Norman culture, Norman thought were dear. Doubtless his instinct was so far right, but, unaccompanied as it was by any national sentiment or attachment, this predilection must be accounted in him a weakness, and not a virtue, and opposition to the king’s policy took on a national and therefore patriotic colour. This was reflected in the
Winchester religious houses, and the Newan Mynstre, staunch in its attachment to the Saxon cause, became the rallying point for Saxon patriotism, while the Old Minster had leanings towards the Norman cause. Thus it came about that when, on the Confessor’s death, Harold marched to Senlac to repel the Norman invader, Abbot Alwyn and twelve monks of Newan Mynstre donned coats of mail, shouldered each a battleaxe, and fought sternly and heroically in defence of the cause.
There, in the thickest of the fight, they plied their axes bravely, and when all was over their bodies were found, lying dead round the dead king’s banner, and it was seen from their habit that they were monks of the New Minster at Winchester. The Norman Conqueror, on being informed of the discovery, remarked with grim irony that “the Abbot was worth a barony, and each of the monks a manor,” and mulcted the New Minster accordingly. The story, which is to be found in Dugdale’s Monasticon, is picturesque and appealing—unfortunately there is no confirmation of it. It is not given in the Chronicle, nor in any local sources such as the Hyde Abbey records (where assuredly it would have been preserved), in Rudborne, or the Annales de Wintonia. Rudborne gives, indeed, a long list of lands which the Conqueror deprived the New Minster of, but that in itself would be no confirmation of the story, for in the same passage he states that William also seized lands belonging to the Old Minster. William, it is true, kept the Abbacy of the New Minster vacant for some two years, but that again was but an act of minor tyranny, too familiar to call for much remark. The story, indeed, appears to be quite discredited by the entries in Domesday Book, which seem to afford no evidence of spoliation, but rather to prove that the New Minster lands were added to by William, while the Old Minster certainly suffered at his hands; and we fear that the story of the abbot and the twelve monks of New Minster must, like so many others, be offered up reluctantly as one more sacrifice on the altar of historical accuracy. The subject may be pursued in the Victoria History of Hampshire, where it is fully discussed.
With Harold’s death on Senlac field Winchester opens on a new phase. Saxon history in Winchester is glorious and fascinating, but of Saxon buildings in Winchester few visible traces remain. Norman Winchester is with us still, and under the Normans Winchester was to expand and attain greater outward beauty and glory than perhaps a thousand years of undiluted Saxon rule would ever have conferred upon her.
KING’S GATE, WINCHESTER
The smallest of the five original gates of Winchester, of which it and Westgate alone are standing now. Abutting on the great gate of St. Swithun’s Priory—now the Close Gate—it was burnt down during the Barons’ War, and when rebuilt a small church was built above it for the use of the lay servitors of the Priory. This church is now the Parish Church of St. Swithun’s, Winchester. An absurd local tradition connects the name with the number of sovereigns of the realm who have passed beneath it.