No. 141 The Trusty Servant centenary. Your eloquence on that day impressed us, your audience, with its insights and charm and I make an entreaty: that you should speak in English again today.
Before he became the Patron Saint of England, St George was adopted as patron saint of the Order of the Garter, which was formed in the reign of King Edward on this day in 1348. I therefore mention William Edington as the third Bishop. He was created the first Prelate of that Most Noble Order, a role that you fulfil even to this day. Edington’ s immediate successor ensured that St George was depicted in the glass of his Chapel among the other saints and prophets. We will process to Chapel shortly and will see his image more clearly but it is fitting that the image of St George is looking down on these proceedings from the Chapel windows immediately behind my left shoulder.
My Lord Bishop, it is now your turn to speak. Of the ten recorded Ad Portas ceremonies for Bishops of Winchester only Bishop John Taylor replied to his audience in English. I further entreat you to follow his example and not that of the majority.
Having exhorted the Bishop to reply in English, Henry almost got his wish. The Bishop replied with the words that follow:
Aulae Praefecte, gratias maximas ago Custodi et Sodalibus atque toti Collegio pro honore quem mihi hodie tribuitis, et tibi personaliter pro verbis liberalibus quibus me excepisti.
Prefect of Hall, very many thanks to the Warden and Fellows and the whole College for the honour which you are bestowing on me today, and to you personally for the generous words with which you have welcomed me.
These gates at which I am humbled to be welcomed today, stand at a place of great significance, where this College, Winchester Cathedral, and Wolvesey Palace, the Bishop of Winchester’ s residence are all within a stone’ s throw of each other. These are institutions of profound historic significance. The geography of this place is not only physical and human, but historical, cultural- and indeed spiritual.
These are institutions which your founder William of Wykeham did much to shape and to create, and the meaning of which is, I believe, hinted at in his famous motto:‘ Manners makyth man’.
But what does that motto mean – and indeed what doesn’ t it mean? It’ s not simply about what we today would call‘ good manners’: giving up your seat on the train; not speaking with your mouth full – not of course that those things don’ t matter.
The great monuments of William’ s life are, firstly, in Winchester Cathedral: he built the great nave- the longest Gothic nave in Europe- where his chantry chapel still stands – for the worship of almighty God.
And he founded both Winchester College, and New College too, with a specific purpose: as he himself had risen from humble, Hampshire origins, so he wanted others to do likewise, raising up a new generation of priests and administrators, devoted to the service both of almighty God and wider society after the great losses of the Black Death. Worship and service, then, were at the very heart of Wykeham’ s legacy.
And that legacy- with its clear moral and spiritual purpose- suggests that William’ s motto‘ Manners makyth man’ is not about behaviour( at least not simply so), but about character, indeed about virtue.
Winchester College was, therefore, to be a school of character and of virtue. Indeed, it still, so evidently, is, and that is one reason why I am both proud and honoured to be its Visitor.
But nothing comes out of nowhere, and we can reach further back than William, and his foundation of these great institutions, to understand just why they were founded.
At my service of welcome here, I asked where the world would be without the Diocese of Winchester, and the Kingdom of Wessex of which it was an integral part. Without the Diocese of Winchester, without the Kingdom of Wessex, of which Winchester was its capital, this world would indeed be a very different place.
For the Kingdom of Wessex, especially under Alfred the Great, was a major engine of Christian learning and education; of church growth and of mission. And think of Wessex’ role in shaping this nation. The relationship between Church and state that still exists today owes its existence to this place. Not for nothing does the Bishop of Winchester have a seat as of right in the House of Lords.
Of course, there is great privilege in such a position – but it is ultimately a position of service, of humility. It’ s a posture exemplified by St. Swithun, another of my illustrious predecessors, who is remembered for acts of service such as building the bridge over the Itchen, restoring a basket of broken eggs, and wanting to be buried outside, under the feet of passers-by where the raindrops might fall on him.
It is such a rich heritage in which we stand today. It is a heritage which has shaped not just this Diocese, and this College but this country and indeed the wider world. And it’ s a heritage of which we should be humbly proud and should value. It is a legacy, ultimately, of the grace of God. And it’ s a legacy, like all good legacies, which should lead us on into the future.
So may we indeed be faithful to that rich past by committing ourselves, both College and Diocese, to a rich future marked above all else by learning, by serving, by growing and by loving. There is, I believe no greater gift we can make to this world than that. Thank you very much.
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