There is ample evidence that Winchester was a British city (Caer-Gwent), and the Venta Belgarum of Roman days, when it was connected by roads with the other Roman cities of Andover, Silchester, Porchester, and Salisbury.  With the taking of the town by the Saxons in 495 it became known as Wintanceastre, and here, after the final subjection of the Britons, the capital of Wessex was established.  If the claim of Canterbury to be the “Mother City” of the Anglo-Saxon race be granted, few will deny to Winchester the honour of being her eldest and her fairest daughter.  A royal city was this when Birinus, the apostle of Wessex, came hither in 634, on his way to the Oxfordshire Dorchester, to baptize the King of the West Saxons; and in 679 the episcopal see was established, a cathedral built, and a monastic house attached to it.  It was from Wintanceastre that Egbert sent forth the decree which gave the name of Anglia to his kingdom; and here, by the tranquil waters of the Itchen, Alfred (with his friend, adviser, and tutor, St. Swithun), Athelstan, and Canute held their Courts, and directed their policies.

It was during the reign of Athelstan that the redoubtable Guy, Earl of Warwick, returning to England in the garb of a palmer from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, found the Danes besieging Winchester in great force, and King Athelstan unable to find a champion willing to meet the Danish giant, Colbrand, in order to decide the issue by single combat.  The Earl, retaining his disguise as a palmer, begged the king to let him appear as the English champion.

[Illustration:  The city bridge]

This singular combat, which was to decide the fate of the city, commenced by Guy breaking his spear on the giant’s shield, and the Dane cutting the head off the Earl’s horse.  Guy then fought on foot, and, beating the club out of his opponent’s hand, cut off his arm.  So the duel waged until night, when the Dane, faint from loss of blood, fell to the ground, and his head was cut off by the English champion.  Having settled the affair to the honour of his country and his own satisfaction, the Earl made himself known to the King, under an oath of secrecy, and returned thanks in the cathedral for his victory.  He then retired to a hermitage beside the Avon, and passed the remainder of his life in the cave which still bears his name, and probably contains his bones.

Several modern antiquaries are very sceptical about the whole story, and labour hard to prove that Guy was a mythical figure, and his deeds nothing but legendary lore.  There is always some truth in these old legends, in spite of the frills and embellishments added by the later chroniclers, and the history of our land would be poor reading indeed if we banished the romantic legends merely because they are not confirmed by such dry-as-dust evidence as alone will satisfy a certain section of scientific compilers, whose minds can perceive neither truth nor beauty underlying ancient legends and traditions.  The fact that they cannot be proved to have happened is more than half their charm, and our garden of romance, with its beautiful flowers of chivalry, is infinitely better to live with than the dry and parched fields given over to the cultivation of nothing but facts.