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Yet his virtues appear to have been his own, and his vices rather those of his period and position. His queen held him in jealous hatred for an inconstancy not unlike her own, and she stirred up his sons against him and against each other, so that the brightest episode in the awful family history is the record that the eldest son, who died before his father, passed away with expressions of filial penitence. Basest and worst of all those sons was the infamous John (who in time mounted his father's throne). But, as so often happens, he was his father's favourite, and it is said that King Henry's death was finally caused by his discovery that his darling was a leading spirit in conspiracies against him.

In his relations with A Becket, too, Henry seems to have been singularly unfortunate. À Becket, who was the first English subject who rose to high place under Norman rule, was a man of haughty spirit and of somewhat insolent manners. He was probably right in making a stand against the encroachments of Norman barons. There are those who even regard him as a sort of ecclesiastical Robin Hood! But he seems to have even done right, wrongly. And undoubte.lly he was wrong both in principle and practice when he would fain have withdrawn erring priests from civil justice, "accounting ecclesiastical degradation as sufficient punishment for any crime."

The king seems to have had no share in the death of the archbishop, beyond a passionate exclamation that surely he could have no servants very faithful since they left him at the mercy of this proud prelate! There were four desperate men only too ready to seize such a hint, and though when the king missed them from his court and-suspecting their design-sent after them to forbid it, his better second thought was just too late to prevent the result of his rash words.

He did not stint his repentance. He lived, too, believing that all his domestic woes were but judgments on his sin. To those who know human nature, the frank and unreserved completeness of his penitence is the best testimony of his substantial innocence of the crime. The heart is apt to break bitterly over the unexpected evil which its wrath brings forth, while the deliberately designed wrong-doing or crime is generally insolently ignored or artfully palliated. The sin of Henry II. in this matter did not go beyond the sin of any angry man, throwing about fiery words. Only the sparks which fell from his lips lighted on tinder and blazed to their bitter end. One cannot help thinking that Chaucer's Poor Parson" had well in mind the king and the king's sin and sorrow, when he set himself to discourse on contrition and humiliation and the sin of "ire." "For sothly almost all the harme or damage that ony man doth to his neighbour cometh of wrath; for certes, outrageous wrath doth all that ever the foul fende willeth or commandeth him."

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A HIGH CIVIC HOSPITALITY.

And now, as we return towards the town, we pass under the West Gate, which narrowly

escaped destruction at the beginning of this century, and was saved from the vandalism of the Corporation only by the casting vote of the mayor. Through the gate, on our right-hand side, just beyond the Church of Holy Cross, we note a house (No. 37) which is said to be typical of the order of domestic architecture introduced by the French silk weavers who settled in Canterbury after the "Black Bartholomew " massacres. "The shop occupies the ground floor, the first floor was for the family residence and the loom, over this may be seen the doors of the warehouse for the bales of silk." This type of house is prevalent in Canterbury, only it is generally somewhat modified. Canterbury was very hospitable to the persecuted refugees. In those days it was the pride of England herself, as of her yeomen, to keep an open door." Surely every prosperous country like every thriving household, only gains by the accession of clever heads and willing hands! There must be bad management somewhere if hospitality is a luxury to be put down.

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The main street of Canterbury (it has several names in its course) has many quaint and interesting buildings. The curious Hospital of St. Thomas, originally founded for the lodging of poor pilgrims, still stands on Eastbridge, and is used now as an almshouse. Visitors may see the hall in which the wayfarers were entertained, and they can trace on its wall the dim outlines of an ancient painting discovered a few years ago.

Further on, down the High Street, after we cross Butchery Lane," we come upon "Mercery Lane," at whose corner we find such remains of the famous "Checquer's Inn" as time and change have spared. Until thirty years ago, a huge garret, called the " Dormitory of the Hundred Beds," where the pilgrims formerly slept, was still shown, but at that period it was destroyed by fire. "Mercery Lane" is picturesque in itself, apart from the fact that it leads through the "Butter Market to the Cathedral.

GENIUS AND SCAPEGRACE.

In the Butter Market a statue reminds us that Christopher Marlowe was a native of Canterbury, being the son of a humble tradesman here. The great Elizabethan dramatist "who prepared the way for Shakespeare" but little resembled his successor in his fashion of life or the manner of his death. He ran through a wild and miserable

career,

"Now strutting in a silken suit,
Then begging by the way,"

and perished miserably in a low, lewd quarrel, when he was only thirty years of age. To quote words attributed to himself, his history and his end were such

"As every Christian heart laments to think on."

Probably Marlowe was not often in Canterbury after he left it as a lad of seventeen to go to Cambridge. Yet, doubtless, it was its peaceful and prosperous agricultural surroundings which

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Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds:
Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wondrous architecture of the world
And measure every wandering planet's course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all."

Why did a man who could think and write thus, choose to consort with the most profligate companions in the lowest scenes of vice, and to die by the hand of a worthless serving-man? Such characters and such histories dominate the memory, and to us Canterbury Cathedral is haunted less by the ghost of the murdered À Becket, than by a vision of a little rosy-cheeked lad who must have gazed on its great stained windows, and listened to its solemn chants, and made them up into the visions and aspirations of his young soul, but who, so few years after, was to lie dying in a Deptford tavern, youth, life, innocence, and genius, all poured out-and wasted!

IN THE CATHEDRAL.

Of the cathedral itself we scarcely dare to begin to speak. Expositions of its architecture and details of its history can be had elsewhere, with more precision and fulness than are possible in our little paper. Entering the precincts from the Butter Market, through the noble perpendicular gateway, the close seems less attractive than that of some other cathedrals, notably those of Salisbury and Winchester. But if in passing out of the cathedral we take the way through the cloisters, and by the Green Court and Mint yard, we receive a very different impression. The exquisite old Norman gateway and staircase beneath the New King's School are sure to evoke such an exclamation of delight and satisfaction as is generally reserved for a glorious sunset, a wealth of blossoms, or any other triumphant work of Nature herself.

The cathedral dates from 1070, and was then commenced on the site of a still earlier building which had been destroyed by fire. The crypt is, naturally, the oldest part of the existing building. It is, in itself, a noble cathedral under ground. People may ask what is the purpose of a crypt? And while there is certainly satisfaction in such practical answers as that it ensures a good foundation, or secures the upper part of the edifice from damp, it remains undoubtedly true that the building of crypts is a custom borrowed from early Christian churches in Rome and the East,

which were erected over caves made sacred by the tomb of a martyr, or by the first ministrations of an apostle of Christianity. Take for example, the Church of St. Paul in Civita-Vecchia, Malta, which is built over the caves wherein tradition says Paul took shelter after his shipwreck, and where he subsequently preached and baptised.

What is more puzzling is, why certain ceremonials should have been performed in crypts, as for instance, the marriage of the "Black Prince" with his cousin Joan of Kent?

A LEGEND OF THE CRYPT.

Perhaps the most popular interest attaching to the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral is the legend that it was for a time used to shelter the fugitive Huguenots (to whom we know the city showed so much kindness), who were even permitted to put up their looms and work there! That there is no trace of such an incident in the cathedral annals is scarcely proof that it never happened, for it can be readily understood that true human charity might make a genial concession which it might be judged unwise to record in formal ecclesiastical archives-so little does poor humanity realise of what it ought to be most proud! It is certainly hard to see how such a story could arise without any basis. Anyhow, the French refugees wor shipped in the south aisle of the crypt, and the French service is continued there to this day, many people of French name and blood still remaining in Canterbury.

MYSTERIES AND HORRORS.

In a low part of the crypt towards the east, the remains of Thomas à Becket were interred after his murder, until they were removed to the shrine in the Trinity Chapel of the cathedral above. When the shrine was demolished in 1538, historians all concur in saying that the Archbishop's bones were "burnt"-this being the royal mandate. Nevertheless in 1888, when excavations were being made in the original place of interment in the crypt, a stone coffin was found, containing a skeleton of a man of the age and height of A Becket, and with a fracture in his skull, corresponding to the way in which the archbishop met his death. Competent judges strongly suspected that these were his remains. What does this mean?

It means

either that the historians were wrong in their unanimous report that the bones were "burnt" at the Reformation, or else that the skeleton in the shrine had never been the skeleton of À Becket! Strange things happen. Of some of the strangest there is no doubt. For instance, how came it to pass that through two seasons of ruthless destruction and "purification," in 1538 and 1643, when images were thrown down and relics and everything else suspected of a taint of superstition were scattered to the winds, yet the beautiful thirteenth-century windows of Trinity Chapel, setting forth the miracles of healing worked at A Becket's shrine, escaped all injury, and remain to show us what our fore

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Stand for your own: unwind your bloody flag
With blood and sword and fire to win your right:
In aid whereof, we of the spirituality

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors."

What ground the poet had for this creation, we know not. We know only that Chicheley founded All Souls' College Oxford, that its members might pray for the souls of the victims of the war with France! If he were really the instigator of the war, this "after thought" of his does not somehow touch us, like Henry the Second's barefoot penitence for the murder which had sprung from his hasty words!

The Black Prince's tomb, surmounted by his weapons, cuirass, and gloves, will always draw attention; Stephen Langton's plain grave, intersecting the wall of the Warriors' Chapel, might easily escape observation, but should remind us of the famous Churchman of obscure birth who was practically the author of that Great Charter which, wrung from the profligate King John, became the bulwark of British freedom.

Among other graves of special interest we may note those of Henry IV. and his wife Joan, Odo Coligny, brother of the well-known Huguenot admiral, and himself one of the refugees from Papal bigotry, and Cardinal Pole, cousin of Queen Mary of persecuting memory, and himself the last English archbishop who acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Pope.

There are two monuments in the cathedral which are interesting as showing a contrasted state of moral feeling in those who erected them. One is of Dean Fotherby, and is decorated by an elaborate device formed of skulls and other portions of decaying human anatomy.

Beside this repulsive memorial stands another to Dean Boys, whereon he sits in his usual attitude of study, his head and eyes slightly raised. The one is a hint of death as sheer physical decay, the other suggests life and labour still going on.

A "cathedral" derives its name as we know,

from the "seat" of a bishop or archbishop. The archiepiscopal chair of Canterbury is of special interest. It is called "St. Augustine's chair," after the missionary archbishop who founded the original church. The chair itself undoubtedly dates back to about the time of Thomas à Becket. In monkish days the election of the archbishop (a matter then wholly in ecclesiastical hands) was made in the spacious Chapter House. After the Reformation this building was used for the hearing of sermons-to which the construction of cathedrals does not readily lend itself. The Chapter House now looks somewhat bare and neglected.

THE GREAT ECCLESIASTICS.

Among the more prominent of the men who have been bishops and archbishops of Canterbury in pre-Reformation days and afterwards, we may mention St. Dunstan, of whom it is related that having censured a noble for a grave public sin, he refused to listen to the king's demand for his pardon, bravely saying to the noble, "When you are truly penitent I will gladly obey the king; as long as you are hardened in your sin, God forbid that any mortal man shall induce me to violate the law of God and render void the censure of the Church." Also St. Elphege, carried away captive and finally cruelly murdered by the Danes, when they ravaged Canterbury in 1011. While he lay in prison, friends came and urged him to levy a tax on his tenants whereby to raise the ransom demanded for him. But he replied, "What reward can I hope for if I spend upon myself what belongs to the poor? Better give up to the poor what is ours, than take from them the little which is their own." Lanfranc, À Becket, Langton, Simon of Sudbury, beheaded by Wat Tyler, Reginald Pole, Laud, himself beheaded, and his successor, Juxon, who had attended Charles 1. on the scaffold, and John Tillotson, are also notable archbishops.

Despite the last-named prelate's undoubted talents and high character for tolerance and wisdom, it seems probable that he owed his preferment to a singular incident which befel twelve years earlier, while he was but Dean of Canterbury. It seems that when the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.) was taking his bride, the Princess Mary, to Holland, the bridal party had some difficulty in getting away from England owing to contrary winds. After beating about for a day or two, they were compelled to land at Sheerness, and the Prince, his bride, and four attendants, made an excursion to Canterbury, where they put up at one of the chief hotels. There, somehow, funds fell low, and the Prince, accustomed to royal methods, despatched a messenger to the mayor and council, requesting a loan. But the mayor and council were not ready to give it. They suspected imposture, and some were even for putting the whole travelling-party under arrest! In the meantime, the innkeeper became clamorous, and Dean Tillotson, hearing rumour of the strange affair, went into the town to make inquiry into it. He at once recognised the Princess, and instantly put his own means and credit at the disposal of her and her consort.

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