Archbishop Warham could, as it happened, afford to look upon the ways of Providence with approval, for these events had made him Primate, and he celebrated his accession to the Primacy with a banquet whose details seem to belong to the Arabian Nights rather than to sober history. Courses innumerable (and nasty, too, according to modern ideas) graced the festive board on this occasion, and the guests who partook of them made pigs of themselves over what the contemporary historian of these things calls the “subtylties” that bulked so largely at the feast. To the Duke of Buckingham, the high steward, fell the honour, or the duty, of serving the Archbishop with his own hands; and, partly in recognition of his services, and partly, no doubt, in consideration of his being so great a gourmand, he was accorded the privilege of staying three days at the new Archbishop’s nearest manor, in order that he might be bled. That seems to have been the necessary performance after partaking of too many “subtylties.”

But all this while I have been keeping His Most Christian Majesty, Henry the Eighth, waiting; and, having done so, it is well for me I am not his contemporary, for men did things so derogatory to his dignity only at the peril of losing their heads.

Well, eighteen years later, the King, who had knelt before Becket’s bones, was engaged in uprooting the ancient faith, and his fury was naturally felt more acutely here, on this the most sacred spot of English soil. Becket was proclaimed a traitor, and in April, 1538, the martyr, dead three hundred and sixty-eight years, was summoned to appear in Court to show reason why his shrine should not be destroyed and his name blotted out from the records of the English Church. Thirty days were allowed “Thomas Becket” (thus the Royal Proclamation styled him, without title or handle of any sort to his name) to appear, and when he failed to present himself, sentence was pronounced against him by default. The sentence was that his bones should be burnt and scattered to the winds; a poor and inadequate kind of revenge. More to the point, perhaps, was the spoliation of the shrine of the Blessed Thomas; for the Royal Commissioners sent to strip it, loaded twenty-six carts with the valuables that had accumulated here during all those centuries, in addition to two coffers of jewels and gold containing the ransom of kings.

THE “REGALE” RUBY

The King kept some of the jewels for his own personal use. Louis the Seventh of France had, a few years after the murder of Becket, visited the Shrine of St. Thomas, and had left there a magnificent ruby. Not merely had he left it; for the ruby—the “Regale of France,” it was called—left itself, so to speak. In point of fact, it had been suggested to the French king that he should present that magnificent stone to the Shrine, and he was objecting to do so, when the great ruby leapt from the ring he was wearing and affixed itself to the Saint’s reliquary, where it remained “shining so brightly that it was impossible to look steadily at it.”

So the visitor went away without that gorgeous stone, marvelling greatly, as we do, some seven hundred and fifty years after the event.

The ruby, indifferently described as being “as large as a hen’s egg,” and “as large as a man’s thumb-nail,” was appropriated by Henry the Eighth.

Thus did Henry repay the magnificent hospitality extended him years before at Canterbury. The city saw but little of Royalty for many years afterwards; and, indeed, it was not until Charles the First came here to be married in the Cathedral that any great State function revived its past glories. Then the display made was worthy of local traditions. Feasting and general jollity prevailed while the newly-wed King and Queen remained in the city. A few years later, when loyalty was the passion of only a minority and the King was warring with the Parliament, the Dover Road and Canterbury witnessed a strange journey. None knew of it, for the matter was secret. It was, in fact, the smuggling out of the country of the little Princess Henrietta, away from the custody of the King’s enemies. The French tutor of the Princess afterwards told the story of this escape. The Countess of Dalkeith was in charge of the little girl at Oatlands, and resolved at all hazards to restore her to her mother in France. Disguising herself, this tall and elegant body, one of the handsome Villiers family, acted the part of a poor French servant, little better than a beggar. She even fitted herself with a hump, and, carrying a bundle of linen, and with the Princess dressed in rags, set out by road for Dover, with the girl on her back, in the character of her little boy Pierre.

On the road, we are told, the Princess indignantly tried to tell everyone she was not “Pierre,” but the Princess. Fortunately, no one understood, and these strange travellers arrived safely at Dover and crossed to Calais.

The adventure seems incredible when we consider that the Princess Henrietta Maria was born June 16, 1644, and that this journey to Dover is stated to have taken place towards the end of July, 1646. We have to ask ourselves, “Could a child of two years and a little over one month, understand and talk like that?” But the source of the story has been noted; and we are to recollect, as to the authentic date of the adventure, that Edmund Waller, the courtly poet, on New Year’s Day, 1647, presented the Queen, then in Paris, with a poem on the subject, in which the Countess of Dalkeith’s exploit is referred to:—