take out the relics, which were then placed in a strong coffer studded with iron nails and fastened with iron hasps.

Next day a procession was formed, headed by the young king, Henry III. After him came Pandulf, the Italian Bishop of Norwich and Papal Nuncio, and Langton the archbishop, with whom was the Archbishop of Rheims, Primate of France. The great Hubert de Burgh, Lord High Justiciary, together with four other barons, completed the company, which was selected to bear the chest to its resting-place. When this had been duly deposited, a solemn mass was celebrated by the French archbishop. The anniversary of this great festival was commemorated as the Feast of the Translation of the Blessed St. Thomas, until it was suppressed by a royal injunction of Henry VIII. in 1536.

A picture of the shrine itself is preserved among the Cottonian MSS., and a representation of it also exists in one of the stained windows of the cathedral. At the end of it the altar of the Saint had its place; the lower part of its walls were of stone, and against them the lame and diseased pilgrims used to rub their bodies, hoping to be cured of their afflictions. The shrine itself was supported on marble arches, and remained concealed under a wooden covering, doubtless intended to enhance the effect produced by the sudden revelation of the glories beneath it; for when the pilgrims were duly assembled on their knees round the shrine, the cover was suddenly raised at a given signal, and though such a device may appear slightly theatrical in these days, it is easy to imagine how the devotees of the middle ages must have been thrilled at the sight of this hallowed tomb, and all the bravery of gold and precious stones which the piety of that day had heaped upon it. The beauties of the shrine were pointed out by the prior, who named the giver of the several jewels. Many of these were of enormous value, especially a huge carbuncle, as large as an egg, which had been offered to the memory of St. Thomas by Louis VII. of France, who visited the shrine in a.d. 1179, after having thrice seen the Saint in a vision. A curious legend, thoroughly in keeping with the mystic halo of miraculous power which surrounds the martyred archbishop’s fame, relates that the French king could not make up his mind to part with this invaluable gem, which was called the “Regale of France;” but when he visited the tomb, the stone, so runs the story, leapt forth from the ring in which it was set, and fixed itself of its own will firmly in the wall of the shrine, thus baffling the unwilling monarch’s half-heartedness. Louis also presented a gold cup, and gave the monks a hundred measures, medii, of wine, to be delivered annually at Poissy, also ordaining that they should be exempt from “toll, tax, and tallage” when journeying in his realm. He himself was made a member of the brotherhood, after duly spending a night in prayer at the tomb. It is said that, “because he was very fearful of the water,” the French king received a promise from the Saint that neither he nor any other that crossed over from Dover to Whitsand, should suffer any manner of loss or shipwreck. We are told that Louis’s piety was afterwards rewarded by the miraculous recovery, through St. Thomas’s intercession, of his son from a dangerous illness. Louis was the first of a series of royal pilgrims to the shrine. Richard the Lion Heart, set free from durance in Austria, walked thither from Sandwich to return thanks to God and St. Thomas. After him all the English kings and all the Continental potentates who visited the shores of Britain, paid due homage, and doubtless made due offering, at the shrine of the sainted archbishop. The crown of Scotland was presented in a.d. 1299 by Edward Longshanks, and Henry V. gave thanks here after his victory over the French at Agincourt. Emperors, both of the east and west, humbled themselves before the relics of the famous English martyr. Henry VIII. and the Emperor Charles V. came together at Whitsuntide, a.d. 1520, in more than royal splendour, and with a great retinue of English and Spanish noblemen, and worshipped at the shrine which had then reached the zenith of its glory.

But though the stately stories of these royal progresses to the tomb of the martyred archbishop strike the imagination vividly, yet the picture presented by Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” is in reality much more impressive. For we find there all ranks of society alike making the pilgrimage—the knight, the yeoman, the prioress, the monk, the friar, the merchant, the scholar from Oxford, the lawyer, the squire, the tradesman, the cook, the shipman, the physician, the clothier from Bath, the priest, the miller, the reeve, the manciple, the seller of indulgences, and, lastly, the poet himself—all these various sorts and conditions of men and women we find journeying down to Canterbury in a sort of motley caravan. Foreign pilgrims also came to the sacred shrine in great numbers. A curious record, preserved in a Latin translation, of the journey of a Bohemian noble, Leo von Rotzmital, who visited England in 1446, gives a quaint description of Canterbury and its approaches. “Sailing up the Channel,” the narrator writes, “as we drew near to England we saw lofty mountains full of chalk. These mountains seem from a distance to be clad with snows. On them lies a citadel, built by devils, ‘a Cacodæmonibus extructa,’ so stoutly fortified that its peer could not be found in any province of Christendom. Passing by these mountains and citadel we put in at the city of Sandwich (Sandvicum).... But at nothing did I marvel more greatly than at the sailors climbing up the masts and foretelling the distance, and approach of the winds, and which sails should be set and which furled. Among them I saw one sailor so nimble that scarce could any man be compared with him.” Journeying on to Canterbury, our pilgrim proceeds: “There we saw the tomb and head of the martyr. The tomb is of pure gold, and embellished with jewels, and so enriched with splendid offerings that I know not its peer. Among other precious things upon it is beholden the carbuncle jewel, which is wont to shine by night, half a hen’s egg in size. For that tomb has been lavishly enriched by many kings, princes, wealthy traders, and other righteous men.”

Such was Canterbury Cathedral in the middle ages, the resort of emperors, kings, and all classes of humble folk, English and foreign. It was in the spring chiefly, as Chaucer tells us, that