I died, forsaken by his mistress,
Alice Perrers, and estranged from the one man who had served him so long
and so faithfully.

The architectural genius of Wykeham as exhibited at St. Mary's College
and the cathedral at Winchester, and at New College, Oxford, originally
founded as "St. Maries' College of Winchester at Oxenford", marks a very
decided epoch in the development of English architecture. His works, in
an architectural style found nowhere but in England, are the outcome of
a mind free from triviality, and full of common sense. His buildings are
admirably suited to their purpose, and at first sight they appear to be
so simple in design that it has been suggested that Wykeham cared more
for the constructive than the artistic side of building. It is true that
he considered sound construction and good proportions of greater
importance than a profusion of detail, yet such ornament as is found in
his work is highly effective and most carefully studied. To this
bishop-architect we undoubtedly owe much of the dignity and simplicity
which mark the Early Perpendicular buildings, qualities which make the
style such a contrast to the exuberance of that which immediately
preceded it, or the over-elaboration of the Tudor buildings that
followed it.

With few exceptions, practically the whole of Wykeham's work, both here
and at Oxford, remains much as he left it; so that, good bishop, wise
administrator, generous founder, and pioneer educationist though he was,
it is mainly as a munificent builder and architectural genius that his
fame has lived in the past, and will continue to live in the future.

Here for the moment we must leave the great prelate of Winchester and
begin our perambulation of the city that received him as a youth,
welcomed him as a bishop, mourned him when dead, and that still bears on
the long nave of its cathedral, and on its famous college, the impress
of his manly, robust, and essentially English mind.

By way of a footpath leading from the London and South-Western Railway
station, the upper part of the famous High Street can be reached,
although the thoroughfare now possesses but few features of interest
until we arrive at the old West Gate, a reminder, if such were needed,
that Winchester was a heavily fortified and strongly walled city. On the
right is Castle Hill, the site of the ancient castle wherein Stigand,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was imprisoned and Matilda besieged, and from
whose courtya