Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/149

 12 S. III. FEB. 24, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

143*

other gentlemen of his train, were together with him butchered at the cross in Cheap- side.'" Says the old French chronicle ' Croniques de London ' (Camden Society, 1844) :

" En cele temps, la veille de seint Luke [Oct. 17] fut la table qe sire Thomas de Lancastre fist peindre et pendre en 1'esglise seint Paul fut remis al piler, la quele table per bref del roy de graunt reddour fut del piler ousted"

Curiously enough, Edward III. was very anxious to obtain the canonization of Thomas of Lancaster, and he repeatedly wrote to John XXII. with reference to this. A letter, dated Feb. 28, 1327, begins with a burst of enthusiastic eulogy :

" Ecce ! Dominus Deus noster, qui in sanctis suis semper est inirabiliter gloriosus, sidus nouum miri luminis splendore conspicuum, producensque coelitus multiplicis pacis radios salutares, felicis, uidelicet, recordationis, dominum Thomam, quon- dam comitem Lancastr', nostrumque consan- guineum carissimum in Anglia suscitauit."

Edward goes on to request that the first formal steps may be taken, so that " such a light may no longer lie hid, but set upon a candlestick to shed a yet fuller glow." On June 8 of the same year, writing from York, the king authorized Robert de Werynton to collect alms to build a chapel* on the spot where Thomas of Lancaster was executed. In 1330 he writes again to the Pope, urging him to canonize that " noble soldier and athlete of Christ, who shines with so many miracles." A similar epistle was sent to various cardinals. On April 3 in the following year the king wrote from Eltham, urging the same request : " Pulsate et aperietur uobis," he cries. He also indites a letter to the cardinals complaining that they are imposed upon by " commenta fictitia maliloquorum." Thomas of Lan- caster has been slandered ! But the sober truth was known, and the Pontiff refused to move in the matter, which was then dropped ; the miracles ceased, and the cult speedily waned.

In 1168 the ritual murder of a boy named Harold was attributed to the Jews of Gloucester. Abbot Hamelin and the monks gave the body honourable burial, and a local cult seems to have prevailed, but I am unable to supply details of this.

In that great and encyclopaedic work, ' De Seruorum Dei Beatificatione, et Bea- torum Canonizatione ' (III. xiii .10), Bene- dict XIV. discusses a matter of the highest

interest the claim to martyrdom of Maryv Queen of Scots. Profound scholar as he was, Benedict XIV. summarizes the evidence with masterly conciseness and clarity. The libels of Buchanan are swept away. Just before her death Mary certainly declared that she was joyful in that God " had given her the grace " to die for the honour of His Name, and of His Church, Catholic, Apos- tolic, and Roman." Writes the Pontiff :

" Si de huius Reginae martyrio quaestio in- - stitueretur quae usque adhuc "instituta non est

nihil fortasse deerit ex iis quae pro uero

martyrio sunt necessaria."

It is well known that, upon his deathbed,. James II. expressed a wish to be buried in- the parish church at St. Germains, but his body was provisionally laid in the English Benedictine church of St. Edmund, Fau- bourg St. Jacques. Many stories of miracles performed at his tomb are extant, and numerous cures are reported to have been- wrought there. David Nairne (apiuf Macpherson, ' Original Papers,' 2 vols., 1775) writes :

" The people of Paris, convinced of the sanctitv of this Prince, and persuaded that the Church would declare its opinion in this respect at a proper time and place, began immediately to- revere bis memory beforehand, and to go in crowd3 to the church where his body was deposited, to celebrate masses and neuvaines, for asking several favours of God through the intercession of this good king."

An account of several miraculous cures,. " or such as appeared at least to be so," wrought through the. intercession of King James, was kept in the registers of the- church. The Bishop of Autun,* an old man of 80, was cured of a terrible complaint from which he had suffered 40 years ; Gilbert Marais, a surgeon of Auvergne, was healed of a palsy in both his legs, Oct. 28, 1701 ; Philip Pitel, a Benedictine monk,, was cured of a suffocating cough, when crying, " O God, I beseech Thee mercifully to cure me, and to grant me health through, the merits and intercession of King James!" The whole account of the miracles and cures is said to have comprised thirteen quarto and thirty-two folio pages. It appears that the honour of formal Canonization would certainly have been conferred upon him towards the end of the eighteenth century had not the process, which was already well advanced, been hindered by the catastrophe of the French Revolution.

MONTAGUE SUMMERS, F.R.S.L.

existed in Leland's time.
 * This chapel, which was never finished, still

of Bossuet.
 * Gabriel de Roquette (1623-1707), a nephew