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Page 13
[Illustration: BEAUFORT TOWER AND AMBULATORY, ST. CROSS]
After the Reformation, Ralph Lambe re-founded the charity for six
poor and needy persons, who were to have six separate homes or chambers
within the hospital, each furnished with locks and keys. Each person was
to receive ten shillings quarterly, with a gown value ten shillings, and
ten shillings' worth of coal yearly. On the election of a new mayor each
was to receive two shillings, and any funds remaining were to be divided
among the inmates at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen of the
city. This institution is still a flourishing one, and the original
hall, standing to the west of the chapel, is let as a public
dining-hall.
Another old charity was that of St. Mary Magdalene, founded for lepers,
in 1173-88, by Bishop Toclyve, the inmates being known locally as "the
infirm people upon the hill", now Maun Hill. In early times lepers were
required to give up the whole of their personal goods, and one of the
questions asked by the official visitor to the Hospital of St. Mary
Magdalene was whether the goods of the deceased inmates went to the
works of the church after the settlement of debts. The funds of this
foundation were much tampered with at various times, and it lost some of
its property at the Reformation. One of its benefactors left to it four
flitches of bacon yearly, this being an important article of diet. The
original plan of the hospital was quadrangular: on two sides were the
inmates' rooms and the chapel, the remaining sides being occupied by the
Master's House and the common hall. The buildings were much damaged in
the time of Charles I by the troops stationed there, and again in the
reign of Charles II by the Dutch prisoners confined within the hospital.
The chapel was pulled down in 1788, and the materials were used for
building purposes, when the fine Early Norman doorway was used in the
Roman Catholic Church in St. Peter Street, where it may still be seen.
This was the west doorway of the ancient hospital chapel. The site is
now occupied by a hospital of another character, the isolation hospital,
but the old "lepers' well" can still be seen. The charity survives to
some extent in six cottages in Water Lane, built in 1788, wherein are
housed four men and four women.
In Symond's Street stands the picturesque "Christes Hospital", founded in
1586 by James Symonds. It is generally called the "Bluecoat" Hospital,
from the distinctive dress worn by the inmates. A scholastic institution
was attached to this charity for the education of four poor boys, chosen
by the mayor and corporation, who also elected their teacher. The latter
was not to be, in the terms of the founder, either a "Scotchman, an
Irishman, a Welshman, a foreigner, or a North-countryman", lest their
pronunciation of the English language should suffer.
From among the fertile meadows bordering the banks of the Itchen to the
south of Winchester rises the stately grey pile of St. Cross, standing
where it has stood for over seven and a half centuries, a witness alike
to the munificence of its founders, de Blois and Beaufort, and to the
skill of the mediaeval builders.
A good road leads from the city to the pleasing suburb in which the
hospital is situated, though a far pleasanter way is by one of the field
paths through the meadows.
Henry de Blois became bishop when only twenty-eight years old, and in
1136 he founded the hospital for the entire support of "thirteen poor
men, feeble and so reduced in strength that they can hardly or with
difficulty support themselves without another's aid"; and they were to
be supplied with "garments and beds suitable to their infirmities, good
wheate bread daily of the weight of 5 marks, and three dishes at dinner
and one at supper, suitable to the day, and drink of good stuff".
Besides this, he provided for a hundred poor men to be supplied daily
with dinner. Bishop Toclyve, de Blois's successor in the see, added to
the charity the feeding of yet another hundred poor men daily; and it
has been said, on somewhat slight evidence, that the poorer scholars of
Winchester College dined without fee in the "Hundred Men's Hall".
In 1137 the management of the institution was given over to the Knights
of St. John of Jerusalem; the cross still worn as a badge by the
Brethren is a link with the ancient Order, being the cross _potent_, or
Jerusalem cross, which was an insignia of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
established by the Crusaders.
[Illustration: ST. CROSS FROM THE MEADOWS]
Shortly after the death of de Blois a dispute arose between the
Hospitallers and the bishop, but after the lapse of many years the
management was restored to the latter, then Peter de Rupibus, who
appointed Alan de Soke as Master. In 1446, Cardinal Beaufort, Wykeham's
successor in the see, added a new foundation to St. Cross, to be called
"The Almshouse of Noble Poverty". De Blois's charity had been intended
to benefit the very needy; this of Beaufort's was designed for those who
had fallen upon evil days after a life of ease and comfort. There were
to be two priests, thirty-five brethren, and three sisters. The brethren
were to be of gentle birth, or old servants of the founder. The scheme,
however, was never completed, owing to the Wars of the Roses
intervening, with the result that the estates with which he had intended
to endow his almshouse were claimed by the Crown on the accession of the
House of York. So it came about that in 1486 Bishop Waynflete was
compelled to reduce the recipients of Beaufort's charity to one priest
and two brethren. Fortunately, St. Cross was spared at the
Reformation, and its endowments were not confiscated. The Vicar-General
reported that there were "certain things requiring reformation", and
that sturdy beggars were to be "driven away with staves"; also that the
Lord's Prayer and the Creed were to be taught in English, and that
relics and images were not to be brought out for the devotion of
pilgrims. In 1632 Archbishop Laud caused a strict enquiry to be made,
with the result that the Master, Dr. Lewis, reported that the fabric was
in a state of great dilapidation. This Master lost his post through his
loyalty to Church and King, and John Lisle, the regicide, became Master
of the Hospital until Cromwell made him a peer, when his place was
filled by John Cooke, the Solicitor-General who drew up the indictment
against Charles I. Both these regicides met with misfortune, for Cooke
was executed and Lisle assassinated, so that at the Restoration Dr.
Lewis was restored to the mastership. Between the years 1848 and 1853,
chancery suits, costing a large sum of money, resulted in an entirely
new scheme being drawn up, under which the two charities were treated as
separate foundations under one head. The differences of qualification
between the two sets of Brethren are carefully laid down, and a portion
of the income is used for the maintenance of fifty out-pensioners, the
modern equivalent for the "Hundred Poor Men" of mediaeval days. The
distinctive dresses of the Brethren are the same with regard to colour
and cut as those worn in the time of Henry VI, those worn by the
recipients of Beaufort's charity being of red cloth, with the badge, a
cardinal's hat and tassels on a silver plate, worn on the left breast.
The Brethren of the older institution, founded by de Blois, wear black
gowns, with the silver cross _potent_ pinned on the left breast. On the
death of a Brother the cross is placed on a red velvet cushion and laid
on his breast in the coffin; but before burial the cross is removed and
fastened by the Master on the breast of the Brother elected in place of
the deceased.
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