GLASTONBURY ABBEY, SOMERSETSHIRE
But that is away from the question. In itself the fight for the freedom of the Press was a good fight, and London was its campaign ground, and within the precincts of Fleet Street are all its memorials.
If religious progress and development is of special interest to him the student of England will first visit Canterbury, because of its association with St. Augustine, Lanfranc, and Saint Thomas à Becket. It is still the seat of the Primate of the Church of England. From Canterbury he might well follow the old "Pilgrims' Way," which runs through Kent, Surrey, and Hampshire towards Southampton, a much-favoured ancient port of communication with the Continent. At Southampton landed many a company of holy palmers from Europe to walk their devout way to the tomb of À Becket. On the way from Canterbury, through Kent, near Shoreham (the inland village, not the seaside Shoreham), will be found the ruins of two castles connected with the story of his sad murder. Then a student of Church history might go to Worcester, the scene of the first Church Congress in England, that which attempted to settle the differences between the Church in England and the Church in Wales. At Worcester, too, died Prince Arthur, a death of great moment in Church history. If he had lived (a pious young man he was, and much beloved of the monks), then a certain Henry, who afterwards became Henry VIII., would never have been King of England, never have married his deceased brother's widow, never have had an uneasy conscience as that lady's charms were supplanted in his impressionable heart by a younger damosel, never have had his quarrel with the Pope; and the whole course of history would have been, perhaps, different. But Prince Arthur died at Worcester, and events moved to their appointed end.
Then a visit to Glastonbury in Somersetshire must be made, site of the famous old abbey now being excavated and in a measure restored. There lived St. Dunstan of august memory. So much is certain; but legend would bring to Glastonbury even greater claims to reverence if legend had its way. There, tradition says, King Arthur was buried. To probe the truth of this tradition excavations were made in the reign of Henry II., and beneath the old foundations and seven feet beneath the surface, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, was found a broad stone bearing the name of Arthur; yet nine feet lower was found the body of Arthur, enclosed in the trunk of a tree, and beside him the body of Guinevere, The King's skeleton, says the chronicler, was of extraordinary size, and the skull was covered with wounds; the body of Guinevere was well preserved, and the colour of her hair was of that burnished gold which ensnared more than one devout knight to be her lover.
Yet with all that honour Glastonbury is not content, and will have it that on its soil was erected the oldest Christian Church in England, by no less renowned a man than St. Joseph of Arimathea, who brought to his Glastonbury Church the Holy Grail, the cup from which the Divine Redeemer drank at the Last Supper.
Canterbury, Worcester, Glastonbury and York (of which something was said in a previous chapter) visited, the lover of Church history will then turn to London to do reverence to Westminster Abbey, one of the most sacred fanes of Christendom. There is a legend of the Abbey having been consecrated by St. Peter himself, a legend which Matthew Arnold incorporates in one of his poems. Some Thames fishermen are making for home on a winter's eve; one lags behind—
His mates are gone, and he
For mist can scarcely see
A strange wayfarer coming to his side—
Who bade him loose his boat, and fix his oar,
And row him straightway to the further shore,
And wait while he did there a space abide.
The fisher awed obeys,
That voice had note so clear of sweet command;
Through pouring tide he pulls, and drizzling haze,
And sets his freight ashore on Thorney strand.
The Minster's outlined mass
Rose dim from the morass,
And thitherward the stranger took his way.
Lo, on a sudden all the pile is bright!
Nave, choir, and transept glorified with light,
While tongues of fire on coign and carving play!
And heavenly odours fair
Come streaming with the floods of glory in,
And carols float along the happy air,
As if the reign of joy did now begin.