Literary by-paths in old England . of English stand among the ruins of Wolvesey Castle,then, is to stand at the fountain-head of our lit-erature. On this spot, within these grey, crum-bling walls, there took rise that stream of Englishwriting which for these thousand years has rolledonward, ever increasing in volume and of the Chronicle were written by Alfredhimself, and the ancient manuscript, that whichused to be chained to a desk in Wolvesey Castle,so that all might read it who could, may still beseen in the library of Corpus Christi College,Oxford. Alfred was buried
Literary by-paths in old England . of English stand among the ruins of Wolvesey Castle,then, is to stand at the fountain-head of our lit-erature. On this spot, within these grey, crum-bling walls, there took rise that stream of Englishwriting which for these thousand years has rolledonward, ever increasing in volume and of the Chronicle were written by Alfredhimself, and the ancient manuscript, that whichused to be chained to a desk in Wolvesey Castle,so that all might read it who could, may still beseen in the library of Corpus Christi College,Oxford. Alfred was buried first in the Old Minster atWinchester, but the canons affirmed that hisghost walked at nights and gave them no rest,and in the end they prevailed upon his sonEdward to remove the remains to the New Min-ster, which Alfred himself had founded in orderto keep a certain prior at his court. In the NewMinster the King found peace for a century or so,but when the monks were turned out of thatbuilding and sent to Hyde Abbey in another 372. IN OLD ENGLAND part of the city, they took with them the sacreddust of the monarch who had founded theirhouse. With the burial of Alfreds body atHyde Abbey it vanishes from our sight. For inthe eighteenth century Hyde Abbey was almostwholly demolished, and then the last authentictraces of the Kings resting-place disappeared. Ofthe Abbey itself there are only one or two frag-ments remaining. There is the entrance gateway,the corbels of which are thought to be por-traits of Alfred and his son, and on the otherside of that gateway is a building, now used forfarm purposes, which formed part of the originalstructure. Some years ago, however, during ex-cavations here, a coffin was laid bare which isthought to have been that of the King, and thiswas reverently re-buried at the east end of HydeChurch on the opposite side of the street. Amid these scenes which are so redolent of hismemory, the pilgrim cannot fail to ask himselfwhat manner of man was this king
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Keywords: ., bookauthorshelleyh, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1906
