Winchester’s next glory was the birth of Henry III., known to the day of his death as Henry of Winchester—­this in 1207.  In 1213 the city was the scene of the reconciliation of King John and Archbishop Stephen, but in 1265 she was sacked by the younger de Montfort, and this seems finally to have achieved her overthrow.  When Edward I. came to the throne in 1272 he abandoned Winchester.  The city never regained its place, London was too strong for it both geographically and economically.  Its trade, which remained very considerable until the latter part of the fourteenth century, chiefly owing to its wool and cloth, was, however, slowly declining, and politically the history of the city becomes a mere series of incidents, among the more splendid of which were the marriage of Henry IV. with Joan of Navarre in 1403; the reception of the French ambassadors by Henry V. before Agincourt in 1415; the rejoicings for the birth in Winchester of Arthur Tudor the son of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York in 1457; the meeting of the Emperor Charles V. and Henry VIII. in 1522; and the marriage of Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain in 1554.  At that great ceremony, the last Catholic rite the old Cathedral was to witness, there were present, according to the Venetian Envoy, “the ambassadors from the Emperor, from the Kings of the Romans and Bohemia, from your Serenity, from Savoy, Florence, and Ferrara and many agents of sovereign princes.  The proclamation was entitled thus:  Philip and Mary, by the grace of God, King and Queen of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem, Ireland, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Spain, Archduke of Austria, etc.”

But when Queen Elizabeth visited the city in 1560 (she was there four times during her reign), she said to the mayor, “Yours Mr Mayor is a very ancient city”; and he answered, “It has abeen, your Majesty, it has abeen,” and in spite of bad grammar he spoke but the truth, Winchester’s great days were over.  Yet it saw the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603, and the town having been taken by Waller in 1644 the Castle was besieged by Cromwell himself in 1645.  “I came to Winchester,” he writes, “on the Lord’s Day the 28th of September.  After some disputes with the Governour we entered the town.  I summoned the Castle; was denied; whereupon we fell to prepare batteries, which we could not perfect until Friday following.  Our battery was six guns; which being finished, after firing one round, I sent in a second summons for a treaty; which they refused, whereupon we went on with our work and made a breach in the wall near the Black Tower; which after about two hundred shot we thought stormable; and purposed on Monday morning to attempt it.  On Sunday morning about ten of the clock the Governour beat a parley, desiring to treat, I agreed unto it, and sent Colonel Hammond and Major Harrison in to him, who agreed upon these enclosed articles.”