long after it had ceased to be a royal residence. Here Henry I was
married to the Saxon Matilda, and here in the closing years of his life
the aged Wykeham married Henry IV and Joan of Navarre; and here, too,
came Philip of Spain and Henry VIII's sad daughter, Mary of England, to
be wedded before the high altar, the chair on which the royal bride sat
being still shown to visitors.

For the architectural student the plan of the cathedral is not the least
interesting feature of the building, for although it has an ambulatory
which is semicircular internally, the plan is in other respects rather
exceptional. It is what architects call a periapsidal plan, meaning that
its eastern termination contains a processional aisle or ambulatory,
designed mainly for the purpose of allowing a procession to pass round
the high altar without entering the presbytery. In the crypt of
Winchester Cathedral the plan of the early Norman church may be seen
_sui generis_. A rather exceptional feature is that the eastern
ambulatory is semicircular within but rectangular without, although the
long chapel that projects from this ambulatory has an apsidal, not a
rectangular, termination.

To the receptive mind all our ancient cathedrals, and a few of our
modern ones, possess a subtle atmosphere of their own, indescribable but
plainly felt, both within and without their walls. In such an atmosphere
we lose sight of the Winchester of to-day. It becomes ancient,
ecclesiastical, historical, learned, and romantic. Here we return in
imagination to the scenes of the Middle Ages, when love was attested by
chivalrous deeds of arms done in honour of bright eyes, and poetry
sounded its lyre in praise of him who had been most devoted to his
Church, most faithful to his mistress, and most loyal to his king. As a
whole, this Cathedral of Winchester is a vast building, simple almost to