Beautiful Britain | Page 8

been unknown to English saints, and the
marvel was increased by the sight--to our notions so revolting--of the
innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth abounded--boiling over
with them, as one account describes it, like water in a simmering
cauldron. At the dreadful sight all the enthusiasm of the previous night
revived with double ardour. They looked at one another in silent
wonder, then exclaimed, "See, see what a true monk he was, and we
knew it not!" and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter,
between the sorrow at having lost such a head and the joy of having
found such a saint.
[Illustration; THE CHAPEL OF ST. MICHAEL OR THE
WARRIORS' CHAPEL. It is one of the most interesting Chapels in the
Cathedral, containing the tomb of Stephen Langton and in the centre of
the drawing that of Lady Margaret Holland and her two husbands.]
Almost immediately the superstitious belief in the efficacy of a martyr's
blood made everyone who was permitted to approach Becket's body
anxious to obtain a scrap of a blood-stained garment to soak in water

with which to anoint the eyes! In a short time many parts of the clothes
had been given away to the poor folk of Canterbury; but as soon as the
miracle-working properties came to be properly understood these
precious shreds of the Archbishop's voluminous garments ran up in
value until the possession of such a fragment meant wealth to the
owner. Any relic of the body itself had still greater value, its efficacy in
curing the multifarious ailments of the pilgrims who began to flock to
Canterbury being immeasurable. And when the neighbouring
monastery of St. Augustine burned with desire to possess a relic of St.
Thomas they offered Roger, the keeper of the "Altars of the
Martyrdom," the position of Abbot of their own abbey if he would
contrive to bring with him a portion of Becket's skull. Roger had been
specially chosen to guard this relic, but he succumbed to the temptation
offered by the rival establishment outside the city walls, and having
purloined the coveted fragment of the martyr, was duly installed in the
highest office of St. Augustine's. Whether the whole affair was public
property at the time does not fully appear, but those who recorded
events at St. Augustine's did not hesitate to glory in the success of their
scheme!
So great was the popular execration of the murder that the autocratic
Archbishop who had not inspired universal admiration in his lifetime
was soon to become the most frequently invoked of all the calendar of
saints, and the King himself, finding that his submission to the Papal
legate at Avranches, two years after the crime, was not sufficient to
avert the wrath of Heaven, which seemed to be visiting him in the form
of rebellions and disasters in every part of his dominions, came to
Canterbury in 1174 and went through a penance of extreme severity.
Landing at Southampton, he came by the Pilgrims' Way to Harbledown,
and so entered the ancient city. At the church of St. Dunstan, outside
the walls, he took off his ordinary dress and walked barefoot through
the streets to the monastery of Christ Church. It was a wet day, but
being in the month of July the wearing of a shirt only with a cloak to
keep off the rain could not have been the cause of very great physical
discomfort apart from the cutting of his feet by stones on the road. At
the Cathedral they took Henry to the tomb of the man whose death he
had caused, and there he knelt and shed bitter tears, groaning and

lamenting. After again regretting his rash words in an address read by
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, and promising to restore the rights
and property of the Church, the King, kneeling at the tomb, wearing a
hair-shirt with a woollen one above it, placed his head and shoulders in
one of the openings in the tomb and there received five strokes with a
monastic rod from each of the bishops and abbots present, and
afterwards the eighty monks each administered three strokes. Henry
was now quite absolved, but he remained for the whole night with his
bare feet still muddy and in the same penitential garb.
[Illustration: THE SCENE OF THE MARTYRDOM IN THE
NORTH-WEST TRANSEPT OF THE CATHEDRAL. Since the tragic
death of Becket in 1170 practically everything in this portion of the
Cathedral has been re-constructed.]
Arriving in London, the King took to his bed, suffering from a
dangerous fever, but a few days later, hearing from Richmond in
Yorkshire that the Scots had been defeated and driven north, he
recovered rapidly, believing implicitly, after the manner of his age, that
this success was attributable to the penance