Page:The religious life of King Henry VI.djvu/27

Rh of Edmundsbury for all their kindness to him during his stay; and the King, taking Abbot Curteys by the hand, "gleefully and gladly thanked him again and again," and affectionately commended himself to God, St. Edmund, and to the prayers of the Abbot and his brethren. So intimate did the King become with the monks on this visit that during the rest of his life he constantly returned to Edmundsbury to renew his acquaintance with the monks and to demand the protection and assistance of St. Edmund, the Martyr King. A long account of this visit is printed in Dugdale's Monasticon, in which there is a miniature of the young King praying before the shrine of St. Edmund. This picture is taken from the life of the saint written at the time by the monk-poet Lydgate, and presented to the monarch at the time of his visit.

In 1442 Henry reached his legal majority, and three years later married Margaret of Anjou. In the summer of the following year, 1446, the King and his court made a tour of the monasteries in England and paid his devotions at the celebrated shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. In this same year Pope Eugenius IV sent him the "Golden Rose," and