WINCHESTER WORTHIES: ALFRED THE GREAT, IZAAK WALTON, AND THOMAS KEN.
WINCHESTER, _July 2, 1902_.
[Sidenote: Memorials of Kings, Good and Bad.]
Unquestionably the most interesting town in the south of England to
a student of history is Winchester. It was the ancient capital of
the kingdom, and teems with memories of Alfred the Great, Canute,
William the Conqueror, and many of their successors. Thorneycroft's
fine bronze statue of Alfred stands in the middle of the High Street,
and instantly catches the eye of any one looking up or down this
central thoroughfare. As we paused in front of it for a few moments,
I had the pleasure of hearing two little boys from America, who are
travelling with me, recall Alfred's diligence as a student, and his
winning of the book offered by his mother as a prize; his invention
of a candle chronometer, and of the lanthorn, as well as the familiar
incident of the scolding given him by the neatherd's wife for his
negligence in allowing her cakes to burn. The purity of his character,
his self-sacrificing labors for his people, and the righteousness and
prosperity of his reign have caused him to shine like a star in the
long succession of English kings, who have too often been selfish,
grasping, licentious or tyrannical.
For example, in Winchester Cathedral, close at hand, lie the remains of
Hardicanute, the last Danish monarch, who died of excessive drinking.
The fact that a man is buried in a cathedral argues nothing here as to
his piety. If he wore the crown, or won battles, or wrote poems, he is
given a place in God's house, regardless of his character.
But, besides men like Hardicanute or William Rufus, Winchester
Cathedral boasts the possession of mortuary chests containing the bones
of Canute, Egbert, Ethelwulf, and other kings. There is a monumental
brass on the wall in memory of Jane Austen the novelist, who is buried
under the pavement.
[Sidenote: Memorial of the Gentle Fisherman.]
But by far the most interesting thing of this kind in the cathedral,
is the floor slab which marks the resting place of Izaak Walton, the
Prince of Fishermen (1593-1683), and the author of _The Compleat
Angler_, concerning which it has been truthfully said that Walton
"hooked a much bigger fish that he angled for" when he offered
his quaint treatise to the public. There is hardly a name in our
literature, even of the first rank, whose immortality is more secure,
or whose personality is the subject of a more devoted cult. Not only
is he the _sacer vates_ of a considerable sect in the religion of
recreation, but multitudes who have never put a worm on a hook--even on
a fly-hook--have been caught and securely held by his picture of the
delights of the gentle craft and his easy, leisurely transcript of his
own simple, peaceable, loving, and amusing character." When, on the
outbreak of the civil war, he retired from business as milliner for
men in London, he went to a place in the country which he had bought,
but we are told that he spent most of his time "in the families of
the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved." He
married twice, both wives being of distinguished clerical connection,
the second, Anne Ken, sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards Bishop of Bath
and Wells. Of Thomas Ken we shall have something in particular to
say presently. As we strolled, after supper, along the banks of the
Itchen, from whose clear and grassy waters Walton himself had drawn so
many fish, it was interesting to come upon anglers plying his beloved
vocation. By the way, long before the time of Walton, there were
people at Winchester who were fond of fish, and oysters, too. We read
that, before the Reformation, the monks of Netley Abbey, twelve miles
distant, were wont to keep their brethren at Winchester supplied during
Lent with oysters from Southampton Water, they in return receiving
forty-two flagons of ale weekly.
Enough has been said above to show that no church in Great Britain,
outside of London, is richer in monuments than Winchester Cathedral.
It has also the distinction of great size, being 556 feet long,
the longest nave in England. But the exterior is heavy, without a
suggestion of the symmetry and grace of Salisbury.
[Sidenote: Wit in Winchester College.]
The other "lion" of Winchester, also, has a very uninviting and even
forbidding exterior. This is the ancient College, a school for boys,
where Alfred himself is said to have been educated, though William of
Wykeham refounded it in 1382. The front of it looks like a prison,
but within the quadrangles, and stretching far back to the river, are
lovely grounds covered with grass as green and smooth as a velvet
carpet. The best thing I saw here was the following inscription on the
walls of a school-room, accompanied by the painted emblems which I
mention below in brackets:
_Aut disce._ [A mitre and crosier, as the expected rewards of
learning.]
_Aut discede._ [An inkhorn and sword, the emblems of the civil and
military professions.]
_Manet sors tertia caedi._ [A rod.]
Which may be freely translated, "Either learn, or depart hence, or
remain and be chastised," though the pithy, alliterative rendering in
vogue among the boys is better, "Work, or walk, or be whopped" (_h_
silent in the last word). American boys would probably have rendered
it, "Learn, or leave, or be licked."
The school has revenues of nearly $100,000 per annum. There are 420
pupils. A number of them were having their supper as we passed through
the dining-hall, eating from square beech-wood trenchers instead of
plates, talking in shrill tones, and nudging and pushing each other
just like American boys, unimpressed by the fact that the heavy, narrow
tables from which they were eating were five hundred years old. How
like boys it was to call the water pipe in the quadrangle, at which
they wash their hands and faces, "Moab," and the place where they
blacked their shoes, "Edom," because in Psalm lx. 8, it is said, "Moab
is my wash-pot, I will cast my shoe over Edom."
[Sidenote: A Lovely Churchman.]
As we walked through the ancient cloisters we came upon another
characteristically boyish thing, a name cut on one of the stone pillars
in clear, strong letters--"Tho Ken 1665"--and hardly anything in
Winchester interested me so much as this, for the boy who cut it there,
nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, became afterwards the author
of what we call "the long metre doxology," four lines which have been
sung more frequently than any other four lines in the English language,
and which for generations to come will express the praise of increasing
millions. This doxology was written by Ken as a concluding stanza to
his famous Morning, Evening and Midnight Hymns, the best known of
which, perhaps, is his evening hymn, "Glory to thee, my God, this
night."
But there are other reasons why it was a pleasure to be vividly
reminded of Ken at Winchester. He was a man of singularly modest,
sweet, and lovable disposition. Macaulay says that his character
approached, "as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal
perfection of Christian virtue." Yet he was no weakling, and on two
notable occasions he showed that, mild and gentle as he was, he was
also firm and fearless.
When the profligate Charles II. was at Winchester, waiting for the
completion of his palace there, he requested Ken, then prebendary at
Winchester, to lend his house temporarily to the notorious Nell Gwynn,
the King's mistress. Ken refused to let such a person have his house.
Charles does not seem to have resented the affront, for he afterwards
made Ken Bishop of Bath and Wells. It is one of the abominations of
the English union of Church and State, that a thoroughly depraved man
like Charles II., if he succeeds to the throne, becomes _ipso facto_
the head of the Church of England. By the way, the altar books in black
letter in Winchester Cathedral were presented to the church by this
same graceless Charles II. Things get badly mixed under such a system
as that of the Church of England.
[Sidenote: Ken's Defiance of James II.]
The second occasion on which Ken showed that, notwithstanding the
infelicities of the national church, she does have men who will stand
for God against the King when necessity arises, was when James II.,
without calling Parliament, issued what he called a declaration for
liberty of conscience, the real aim of which was to put England again
under the yoke of Romanism, and ordered that this declaration should
be read in every cathedral and church in the kingdom. Ken and six
other bishops refused, and they were arrested, and committed to the
Tower of London. Instantly a blaze of popular indignation burst forth.
Enormous crowds assembled to see the seven bishops embark, the shore
was covered with crowds of prostrate spectators, who asked their
benediction, as did also the very soldiers sent to arrest them. The
bishops bore themselves well throughout, and, a few days after, when
they were tried in Westminster Hall, and the verdict "Not guilty" was
brought in, there was a tumultuous outburst of joy. Thus Ken bore his
bold and manly part in the revolution, which finally swept the Stuarts
from the throne, and delivered England, for the time, from the menace
of Romish domination.
Winchester, then, with her ancient cathedral and her ancient school,
with her Alfred the Great, her Izaak Walton, and her Thomas Ken, with
her wealth of heroic, and gentle and saintly memories, has given us two
of the most profitable days of our sojourn in Southern England.