Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/256

242 Jerusalem, and had been showed there for many generations. What astonished the people most was, that it was invisible to any one still in mortal sin, and only revealed itself to the absolved penitent. This was eagerly shown to the people at the dissolution, and the secret explained. The phial had a thick and opaque side, and a transparent one. Into this, the fresh blood of a duck was introduced every week, and the dark side only shown to rich pilgrims till they had freely expended their money in masses and offerings, when the transparent side, showing the blood, was turned towards them, to their great joy and wonder.

At Boxley, in Kent, a miraculous crucifix had long been the wonder of the people, and was called the Rood of Grace. The lips, eyes, and head of the image moved on the approach of votaries. This image was brought by Hilsey, the Bishop of Rochester, to St. Paul's Cross, and there broken before all the people, and the wheels and springs by which it was moved exposed. A great wooden idol in Wales, called Darvel Gatheren, had been held in great veneration by the populace. There was a legend connected with it, that one day it would fire a whole forest. It was thought very witty, therefore, that Friar Forrest, the confessor of Queen Catherine, being condemned to be burnt for denying the king's supremacy—and still more, as we have already stated, for refusing to betray anything to the injury of his royal mistress—this image should be brought to town, and employed as fuel on the occasion; and the following rude verses were attached in large letters to the stake at which he was consumed:—

A finger of St. Andrew, covered with a thin plate of silver, had been pawned by a convent for a debt of forty pounds; but the king's commissioners refused to pay the debt, and the people were very merry over the pawnbroker and his worthless pledge.

By such means Henry struck a blow at the Catholic religion amongst the people, which soon went further than he intended, for his object was merely to get easy possession of the wealth of monasteries; but these exposures, showing the people that they had been so grossly deluded by their priests, threw them into the arms of the Reformers, and created a momentum in that direction which was soon beyond all Royal power to arrest.

There was one shrine which Henry especially coveted, for its enormous riches—that of Thomas à Becket. Though he had himself, in his youth, made pilgrimages to this saint, he now seemed to conceive a violent antipathy to him, as a shocking example of resistance to kingly power and dignity. He determined, therefore, to execute a signal punishment upon him, though his bones had been crumbling in the tomb for four hundred years. Perhaps no greater farce was ever solemnly acted in the public courts of law in any country, than was performed on this occasion. The tomb of à Becket was broken open by the king's officers, and a regular process was served upon him, summoning him to appear in court, and answer to the charges of rebellion, treason, and contumacy against his sovereign lord the king. Thirty days were allowed him to prepare his defence, and answer to the charges in Westminster Hall. No Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, appearing in person, Henry might have condemned him for contumacy, and confiscated his property; but, to make the matter more notorious, he granted the defaulter counsel to plead for him, and a regular trial was gone through, which, of course, ended in the sturdy belligerent saint being convicted of the charges, condemned as an arrant traitor and rebel, and the whole of his riches forfeited to the crown.

Cromwell, on this decision, sent down his commissioners in August to take possession of the property who stripped the shrine of the gold and jewels which had been the wonder of people of all ranks, and from all parts of the world, who had visited it. They filled two immense chests with these precious spoils, so heavy, that they required eight strong men each to lift them.

The blood of this turbulent saint had been exhibited at his tomb, as that of Christ and St. Januarius at other shrines; and Cranmer had particularly requested permission for his commissioners to examine and expose the deception. So complete was the vengeance now taken on the so long glorified St. Thomas, that Henry put forth an express proclamation against him, declaring that it had been clearly proved on the trial that Becket had been killed in a riot occasioned by his own insolence and disloyal resistance to his sovereign; and that the Bishop of Rome, himself a foreign and usurping power, had canonised the disturber, because he was a champion and partisan of his; and he bade all his subjects take notice, that Becket was no saint at all, but a rebel and traitor; and that, therefore, all images and pictures of him should be destroyed, and that his disgraceful name should be erased from all books and calenders, under penalty of His Majesty's high displeasure, and imprisonment at his will. A jewel of remarkable beauty and value, which had been offered at the shrine by Louis VII. of France, Henry appropriated to his personal use, and wore upon his thumb.

The work of dissolution of the monasteries and convents now went on briskly, for, says Bishop Godwin, "the king continued much prone to reformation, especially if anything might begotten by it." The Earl of Sussex and a body of commissioners were sent into the north, to inquire into the conduct of the religious houses there, and great stress was laid on the participation of the monks in the insurrection of the Pilgrimage of Grace. The abbeys of Furness and Whalley were particularly rich; and though little concern with the rebellion could be traced to the inmates, yet the commissioners never rested till, by persuasion and intimidation, they had induced the abbots to surrender their houses into the hands of the commissioners. The success of the Earl of Sussex and his associates led to similar commissions in the south, and for four years the process was going on without au Act of Parliament. The general system was this:—First, tempting offers of pensions were held out to the superiors and the monks or nuns, and in proportion to the obstinacy