England truly remains herself, the England of my
heart, because of such places as Chichester, Winchester, Salisbury,
Wells, and those dear market towns which still remember and maintain
her great past and renew the ways of our forefathers. All are very old,
co-eval with England, all have sturdy and unforgotten traditions, and
in these, if we but knew it, lies our best hope for the future.
Among these dear places Chichester is no exception, rather is she most
typical; she has an immemorial past, and out of it she will contrive
somehow or other to face and to outface whatever the future may bring.
Like everything that is best in England, that is indeed most typical of
ourselves, her origins are not barbarian, but Roman. Her ancient name
was Regnum, the city, it is said, first of Cogidubnus, King of the
Regni and Legate in Britain of Claudius Caesar. That the Romans built
and maintained an important town here cannot be doubted; the very form
of the city to-day would be enough to establish this, apart from the
notable discoveries of buildings, pavements, urns, inscriptions, and I
know not what else belonging to the whole of the Roman occupation of
Britain.
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