essex until some hours of quiet have been spent within the walls of
the ancient capital, and no one can know England until the spirit of
the English countryside, the secluded and primary village of the
byways with its mothering church, rich with the best of the past, has
been studied, known and loved. This is the essential England for which
the yeoman of England, whose memorials will be seen in almost every
Wessex hamlet, have given their lives.

[Illustration: ST. CROSS.]

CHAPTER I

WINCHESTER AND CENTRAL HAMPSHIRE

The foundations of the ancient capital of England were probably laid
when the waves of Celtic conquest that had submerged the Neolithic men
stilled to tranquillity. The earliest records left to us are many
generations later and they are obscure and doubtful, but according to
Vigilantius, an early historian whose lost writings have been quoted
by those who followed him, a great Christian church was re-erected
here in A.D. 164 by Lucius, King of the Belgae, on the site of a
building destroyed during a temporary revival of paganism. The Roman
masters of Lucius called his capital, rebuilt under their tuition,
"Venta Belgarum." The British name--Caer Gwent--belonged to the
original settlement. The size and boundaries of both are uncertain.
Remains of the Celtic age are practically non-existent beneath
Winchester, though the surrounding hills are plentifully strewn with
them, and if Roman antiquities occasionally turn up when the
foundations of new buildings are being prepared, any plan of the Roman
town is pure conjecture. The true historic interest of Winchester, and
historically it is without doubt the most interesting city in England,
dates from the time of those West Saxon chiefs who gave it the
important standing which was eventually to make it the metropolis of
the English.

The early history of Winteceaster is the history of Wessex, and when
Cerdic decided to make it the capital of his new kingdom, about 520,
it was probably the only commercial centre in the state, with
Southampton as its natural port and allied town. As the peaceful
development of Wessex went on, so the population and trade of the
capital grew until in a little over a hundred years, when Birinus came
from over seas bearing the cross of the faith that was soon to spread
with great rapidity over the whole of southern England, he found here
a flourishing though pagan town. After the conversion of King Cynegils
the first Wess