when
the battle cry--"St. George "--had made the saint popular.

The City Cross is graceful and elegant fifteenth-century work, much
restored of course, and in a quaint angle of some old houses that
rather detract from its effectiveness. The exact site of the inhuman
execution of Mrs. Alicia Lisle in September, 1685, is unknown, but it
was probably in the wider part of the High Street. This gentle old
lady, nearly eighty years of age, had given shelter to two men in all
innocence of their connexion with Sedgemoor, but the infamous Jeffreys
ordered her to be burnt; a sentence commuted by James II to beheading.

The City walls were almost intact down to 1760. Now we have but the
fine West Gate and the King's Gate, over which is St. Swithun's
church. The churches of Winchester are little more than half their
former number. St. Maurice has a Norman doorway and St. Michael a
Saxon sundial. St. John Baptist and St. Peter, Cheesehill, are of the
most general interest. The former has a screen and pulpit over four
hundred years old; transitional arches; and an Easter sepulchre. The
latter is a square church mostly in Perpendicular style but with some
later additions more curious than beautiful. Visitors to St.
Lawrence's should read the inscription to Martha Grace (1680). St.
Bartholomew's, close to the site of Hyde Abbey, shows some Norman
work. In 1652 the Corporation petitioned Parliament to reduce the
several city parishes into two, deeming a couple of ministers, one for
each church, sufficient for the spiritual requirements of the city. In
connexion with this a tract was issued describing the ghastly
condition of the churches, one, St. Mary Kalendar being a garbage den
for butcher's offal, another, St. Swithun's, Kingsgate, was let by the
corporation as a tenement and had a pigsty within it!

[Illustration: CITY CROSS, WINCHESTER.]

The ancient castle and residence of the Kings of England is now
represented only by the Great Hall, dating from the early part of the
thirteenth century. It is used for county business and is a good
specimen of the domestic architecture of the time. The great interest
of the hall is the reputed Round Table of King Arthur, placed at its
west end. Experts have decided that it cannot be older than 1200. The
painted names upon it are those of Arthur's Knights. These were
executed in the reign of Henry VIII and replaced earlier inscriptions.
The Hospital of St. John Baptist is in Basket Lane. Est