co-operated with the king in carrying out the separation of the Church from Rome between 1529 and 1536. He served on the courts which tried Sir Thomas More and Anne Boleyn, and he was employed to tell Catharine of Aragon that she and her daughter were degraded from their rank. It is characteristic of the type of man that he did his work gently, and with a constant recollection of the changes of fortune. His personal kindness to Anne Boleyn, which she acknowledged, no doubt stood him in good stead on the accession of her daughter Queen Elizabeth. In 1538 he was created Lord St John, and he was enriched by a grant of the lands of Netley Abbey, near Southampton. He was appointed lord steward of the household, and lord chamberlain, and became a knight of the garter in 1543. Henry VIII. named him one of the council of regency for his son Edward VI. During the reign of Edward VI., St John kept the favour both of the Protector Somerset, who made him lord keeper of the great seal, and of Somerset’s enemy, the duke of Northumberland, who kept him in office. He was created earl of Wiltshire in 1550, and marquess of Winchester in 1551. On the death of Edward VI., he trimmed cleverly between the parties of Lady Jane Grey, and Mary Tudor till he saw which was going to win, and then threw himself on the winning side. He opposed Queen Mary’s marriage to Philip, prince of Spain (Philip II.), till he saw she was set on it, and then gave his approval, for it was his wise rule to show just as much independence as enhanced the merit of his obedience. He was lord treasurer under Mary, and kept his place under. Elizabeth, to whose ecclesiastical policy he gave his usual discreet opposition and final obedience. Winchester died at his house of Basing on the 10th of March 1572. He had built it on so grand a scale that his descendants are said to have found it necessary to pull down a part. He married, first Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London, by whom he had four sons and four daughters, and then Winifred, daughter of Sir John Bruges, alderman of London, and widow of Sir Richard Sackville, by whom he had no children. It is said that one hundred and three of his descendants were alive at the date of his death.
His grandson, William Paulet, third marquess (c. 1535–1598) was one of the judges of Mary, queen of Scots, and author of a book called The Lord Marquesses Idleness which contains a Latin acrostic of extreme ingenuity on the words Regina nostra Angliae.
The fifth marquess, John Paulet (1628–1674), was a Roman Catholic. He lived much in retirement in order to be able to pay off debts left by his father. He is remembered by the ardour and sincerity of his loyalty to King Charles I. It is said that he caused the words “Aimez Loyauté” to be engraved on every pane of glass in his house of Basing. During the first Civil War it was fortified for the king, and stood a succession of sieges by the parliamentary forces between 1643 and 1645. On the 14th of October 1645, it was stormed by Oliver Cromwell. The marquess, who fought valiantly, told Hugh Peters, chaplain of the New Model Army of the parliament, who had the vulgarity to crow over him, “That if the king had no more ground in England but Basing House, he would adventure as he did, and so maintain it to the utmost,” for “that Basing House was called Loyalty.” The house caught fire during the storm and was burnt down, 'the very ruins being carried away by order of the parliament. The marquess was imprisoned in the Tower of London, but was finally allowed to compound for his estate; after the restoration of King Charles II. he was promised compensation for his losses, but nothing was given to him. He died in Englefield Park on the 5th of March 1674. He was three times married, first to Jane, daughter of Viscount Savage, by whom he had one son; then to Honora de Burgh, daughter of Richard, earl of St Albans and Clanricarde, by whom he had four sons; and then to Isabella Howard, daughter of Viscount Stafford.
See Doyle. Official Baronage (London, 1886); and J. A. Froude, History of England (London, 1856–1870), for the first marquess; J. P. Collier, Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature (London, 1865), for the second marquess; and Clarendon, History of the Rebellion (Oxford, 1886), for the fifth marquess.
WINCHESTER, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough of
Hampshire, England, 6612 m. S.W. by W. from London by the London &
South-Western railway; served also by the Southampton branch of the
Great Western railway, with a separate station. Pop. (1901) 20,929. It
occupies a hilly and picturesque site in and above the valley of the
Itchen, lying principally on the left bank. The surrounding hills are chalk
downs, but the valley is well wooded.
Setting aside for the present the legends which place the foundation of a great Christian church at Winchester in the 2nd century, the erection of Winchester into an episcopal see may be placed early in the second half of the 7th century, though it cannot be dated exactly. The West Saxon see was removed hither from Dorchester on the Thame, and the first bishop of Winchester was Hedda (d. 705). The modern diocese includes nearly the whole of Hampshire, part of Surrey and very small portions of Wiltshire, Dorsetshire and Sussex. St Swithin (852–862), well known through the connexion of his feast day (15th July) with the superstition that weather-conditions thereon determine those of the next forty days, is considered to have enlarged the cathedral, as are Æthelwold (963–984) and Alphege (984–1005). The history of the Saxon building, however, is very slight, and as usual, its place was taken by a Norman one, erected by Bishop Walkelin (1070–1098). The cathedral church of St Swithin lies in the lower part of the city in a wide and beautiful walled close. It is not very conspicuous from a distance, a low central tower alone rising above the general level of the roof. It consists of a nave, transepts, choir and retro choir, all with aisles, and a lady-chapel forms the eastward termination. The work of the exterior, of whatever date, is severely plain. The cathedral, however, is the longest in England, and indeed exceeds any other church of its character in length, which is close upon 556 ft. Within, the effect of this feature is very fine. The magnificent Perpendicular nave is the work of Bishop Edington (1346–1366) and the famous William of Wykeham (1367–1404), by whom only the skeleton of Walkelin’s work was retained. The massive Norman work of the original building, however, remains comparatively intact in both transepts. The central tower is Norman, but later than Walkelin’s structure, which fell in 1107, a mishap which was readily attributed to divine wrath because King William II., who fell to the arrow in the neighbouring New Forest, had been buried here seven years earlier, in spite of his unchristian life. The tomb believed to be his is in the choir, but its identity has been widely disputed, and even an examination of the remains has failed to establish the truth. The choir is largely Edington’s work, though the clerestory is later, and the eastern part of the cathedral shows construction of several dates. Here appears the fine Early English construction of Bishop de Lucy (1189–1204), in the retro choir and the lady-chapel, though this was considerably altered later. Beneath the cathedral east of the choir there are three crypts, connected together. The western and the central chambers are Norman, and have apsidal terminations, while the eastern is Early English. The cathedral contains many objects of interest. The square font of black marble is a fine example of Norman art, its sides sculptured with scenes from the life of St Nicholas of Myra. The magnificent reredos behind the high altar must have been erected late in the 15th century; it consists of a lofty wall, the full width of the choir, pierced by two processional doors, and covered with tiers of rich canopied niches, the statues in which are modern. A cross of plain ashlar stone in the centre shows where an immense silver crucifix was once attached; and a plain rectangular recess above the altar once contained a massive silver-gilt retable, covered with cast and repoussé statuettes and reliefs. A second stone screen, placed at the interval of one bay behind the great reredos, served to enclose the small chapel in which stood the gold shrine, studded with jewels, the gift of King Edgar, which contained the body of St Swithin. Under many of the arches of the nave and choir are a number of very elaborate chantry chapels, each containing the tomb of its founder. Some of these have fine recumbent effigies, noble examples of English medieval sculpture;
