Bygone Hampshire Author:William Andrews Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 's Jfirst Capital. By Thomas Frost. AS the train from London to Southampton pauses a few minutes at Winchester, the traveller thinks, according as his mind... more » is most deeply imbued with antiquarian lore or with modern fiction, of the round table of King Arthur, or of " The Warden " of Anthony Trollope and Miss Braddon's .' Henry Dunbar." But he will scarcely be able to realise that the quiet city upon which he gazes, apparently sleeping amid its green surrounding meadows, was once the capital of England, and not merely of the England of Anglo-Saxon times, but of the kingdom ruled by Norman and early Angevin monarchs. Yet so it was ; this quiet old city was the usual place of residence of the Saxon kings who were crowned in its cathedral, and contained, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, the royal treasury, the records of the kingdom, the courts of justice, and one of the numerous mints then existing. Though William I. was crowned in Westminster Abbey, he came here on the arrival of his queen,Matilda of Flanders, in England, and was again crowned in the cathedral, the ceremony being, it is said, a much more splendid one than that which had preceded it. Here, too, at the banquet which followed, the ceremony was performed for the first time of a champion riding into the hall, clad in armour, and challenging to mortal combat anyone who denied the king's right to the throne. Queen Matilda kept her court here until private affairs rendered necessary her return to Normandy; and here, too, was held the council called to investigate the charges preferred against Archbishop Stigand, who was deprived of the primacy, and imprisoned in or near the castle. He was buried in the cathedral, to which he bequeathed a large crucifix and a pair of silver-gilt figures of saints, which were pla...« less