San Diego Sarah on 13 Dec 2021  •  Link

Winchester had a bad time during the Civil Wars. This is an edited account of some of the damage inflicted by the victorious Parliamentarian troops in December 1642:

The surrender of Winchester Castle took away the last check upon Sir William Waller MP's forces, and Wednesday was spent by the soldiers in plundering the city and the Close.

On Thursday, December 14, 1642 the doors of the Cathedral were violently broken open, and the army started to deface that glorious church.

The House of Commons, on September 8, 1641, ordered the removal of the Communion Table from the east-end of the church, chapel, or chancel, into some other convenient place, to remove the rails, and to level the chancels.
Crucifixes, pictures of the Holy Trinity, and images of the Virgin were to be destroyed, and all tapers, candlesticks, and basons were to be removed from the Communion Table.

Mercurius Rusticus (p. 144): "The doors being open as if they meant to invade God himself, as well as His profession, they enter the church with colors flying, their drums beating, their matches fired, and that all might have their part in so horrid an attempt, some of their troops of horse also accompanied them in their march, and rode up through the body of the church and quire, until they came to the altar; there they begin their work, they rudely plucked down the table, and break the rail, and afterwards carrying it to an ale-house, they set it on fire, and in that fire burnt the books of Common Prayer, and all the singing books belonging to the quire; they throw down the organ, and break the stones of the Old and New Testament, curiously cut out in carved work, beautified with colours, and set round about the top of the stalls of the quire; from hence they turn to the monuments of the dead, some they utterly demolish, others they deface.
They begin with Bishop Fox his chappel, which they utterly deface, they break all the glass windows of this chappel, not because they had any pictures in them, either of Patriarch, Prophet, Apostle, or Saint, but because they were of painted coloured glass; they demolished and overturned the monuments of Cardinal Beaufort, son to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, by Katharine Swinfort, founder of the hospital of S. Cross, near Winchester, who sate Bishop of this See 43 years.
They deface the monument of William of Wainflet, Bishop likewise of Winchester, Lord Chancellor of England, and the magnificent founder of Magdalen College in Oxford, which monument in a grateftil piety, being lately beautified by some that have or lately have had, relation to that foundation, made these rebels more eager upon it, to deface it, but while that colledge, the unparalleled example of his bounty, stands in despight of the malice of these inhuman rebels, William of Wainflet cannot want a more lasting monument to transmit his memory to posterity.

San Diego Sarah on 13 Dec 2021  •  Link

From hence they go into Queen Marie's chapel, so called because in it she was married to Philip of Spain; here they break the Communion table in pieces, and the velvet chair whereon she sat when she was married.
They attempted to deface the monument of the late Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Portland (who died March 13, 1634), but being in brass, their violence made small impression on it, therefore they leave that, and turn to his father's monument, which, being of stone, was more obnoxious to their fury; here mistaking a Judge for a Bishop, led into the error by the resemblance or
counterfeit of a square cap on the head of the statue, they strike off not only the cap, but also the head too of the statue, and so leave it.
Amongst other acts of piety and bounty done by Richard Fox, 57th Bishop of this See, he covered the quire, the presbytery and the aisles adjoining with a goodly vault, and new glassed all the windows in that part of the church, and caused the bones of such kings, princes, and prelates as had been buried in this church and lay dispersed and scattered in several parts of the cathedral to be collected and put into several chests of lead, with inscriptions on each chest whose bones lodged in them.
These chests, to save them from rude and profane hands, he caused to be placed on the top of a wall of exquisite workmanship, built by him to inclose the presbytery.
There never to be removed (as a man might think) but by the last trumpet, did rest the bones of many kings and queens, as of Alfredus, Edwardus senior, Eadredus, the brother of Athelstan, Edwinus Canutus, Hardecanutus, Emma, the mother, and Edward the Confessor, her son, Kiniglissus, the first founder of the Cathedral of Winchester, Egbert, who, abolishing the Heptarchy of the Saxons, was the first English monarch, William Rufus, and divers others.
With these in the chests were deposited the bones of many godly bishops and confessors, as of Birinus, Hedda, Swithinus, Frithestanus, S. Elphegus the Confessor, Stigandus, Wina, and others.
But these monsters of men, to whom nothing is holy, nothing is sacred, did not stick to profane and violate these cabinets of the dead, and to scatter their bones all over the pavement of the church: for on the north side of the quire they threw down the chests wherein were deposited the bones of the Bishops: the like they did to the bones of William Rufus, of Queen Emma, of Hardecanutus, and of Edward the Confessor, and were going on to practise the like impiety on the bones of all the rest of the West Saxon Kings.

But the outcry of the people, detesting so great inhumanity, caused some of their commanders (more compassionate to these ancient monuments of the dead than the rest) to come in amongst them and to restrain their madness."

San Diego Sarah on 13 Dec 2021  •  Link

Those windows which they could not reach with their swords, muskets, or rests, they broke by throwing at them the bones of Kings, Queens, Bishops, Confessors, or Saints, doing more than ;^1,000 worth of damage to the windows.

They broke off the swords from the brazen statues of James I and Charles I which then stood at the entrance to the choir, breaking also the cross on the globe in the hand of Charles I and "hacked and hewed the crown on the head of it, swearing they would bring him back to his Parliament."

"After all this, as if that they had already done were all too little, they go on
in their horrible wickedness, they seize upon all the Communion plate, the Bibles and Service-books, rich hangings, large cushions of velvet, all the pulpit cloths, some whereof were of cloth of silver, some of cloth of gold.

They break up the Muniment House and take away the common seal of the Church, supposing it to be silver, and a fair piece of gilt plate, given by Bishop Cotton; they tear the evidences of their hands, and cancel their charter; in a word, whatever they found in the church of any value and portable they take it with them, what was neither they either deface or destroy it.

And now, having ransacked the church, and defied God in His own house and the King in his own statue, having violated the urns of the dead, having abused the bones and scattered the ashes of deceased monarchs, bishops, saints, and confessors, they return in triumph, bearing their spoils with them.

The troopers (because they were the most conspicuous), ride through the streets in surplices with such hoods and tippets as they found, and that they
might boast to the world how glorious a victory they had achieved they hold out their trophies to all spectators, for the troopers, thus clad in the priests' vestments, rode carrying Common Prayer Books in one hand and some broken organ pipes together with the mangled pieces of carved work, but now mentioned, containing some histories of both Testaments, in the other."

Vicars says gleefully, "Yea, and they for certain piped before them with the
organ pipes, the fair organs in the Minster being broken down by the soldiers, and then afterwards cast them all into the fire, and burnt them."

It has been said that "of the brass torn from violated monuments might have been built a house as strong as the brazen towers in the old romances."

San Diego Sarah on 13 Dec 2021  •  Link

As the result of an Act passed in 1643, all crosses, crucifixes, representations of saints and angels, copes, surplices, hangings, candlesticks, basins, organs, &c., were carried out of the Cathedral, and other churches, railings and altars were destroyed, raised chancels levelled, and according to local tradition cavalry were during these troublous times sometimes quartered, together with their horses, in the Cathedral.

Water for troop-horses is said to have been obtained from the well in the crypt.

A Wykehamist, said to have been Nathaniel Fiennes (brother of Lord Say and Sele) who had been educated at Winchester and was also one of the Fellows of New College, and who possessed considerable influence amongst the Parliamentarians, was the means of saving Winchester College, together with the tomb and statue of William of Wykeham “whose rectitude, knowledge of humanity, talents for public work, and steady industry justify us in claiming for him a place in history close to, if not beside, such brightest stars of time as Chaucer, Wycliffe, and Edward the Black Prince."

At this time Fiennes was only a captain of the 36th Troop of Horse for the Parliament. Walcott records the gift of £2^ 5s. 6d. to Fiennes' soldiers who is also said to have placed a guard at the College gate.

Highlights from
THE CIVIL WAR IN HAMPSHIRE (1642-45)
AND THE STORY OF BASING HOUSE

by REV. G. N. GODWIN, B.D.

SOUTHAMPTON
HENRY MARCH GILBERT AND SON

LONDON
JOHN AND EDWARD BUMPUS LTD.

1904
https://www.ebooksread.com/author…

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In the event, George Morley remained on as Bishop of Winchester until 1684.

... preacher of the coronation sermon, 1661; translated to Winchester, 1662; frequently entertained the Duke of York at Farnham Castle; signified to Clarendon the king's wish that he should leave the country, 1667; of Calvinistic leanings; benefactor of Winchester diocese, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Christ Church and Pembroke College, Oxford; published controversial works.
-- Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.

https://www.pepysdiary.com/encycl…