In his dying St. Thomas was even stronger than in his life. Henry hastened to beg the forgiveness of Rome for his rash words that had provoked the murder, and in the presence of the pope’s legates in Normandy promised to give up the Constitutions of Clarendon and to stand by the papacy against the emperor. Nor did he make any further attempt in his reign to bring the Church under the subjection of the crown, but built up a great system of legal administration, which in substance exists to-day.
St. Thomas was canonised four years after his death. “There was no shadow of doubt in men’s minds that here was one who was a martyr as fully as any martyr of the catacombs and the Roman persecutions.” (R. H. Benson, St. Thomas of Canterbury.) Countless miracles were alleged to prove the sanctity of the dead hero, and pilgrims from all parts made their way to the shrine of the “blessful martyr” at Canterbury. Not only in England, but in France and Flanders, and particularly in Ireland was there an outburst of devotion to St. Thomas.
The shrine at Canterbury was destroyed by Henry VIII., who after a mock trial of the archbishop slain more than 300 years earlier, declared that “Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of contumacy, treason and rebellion,” and “was no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor to his prince.”
But though Thomas, canonised by the pope on the prayers of the people of England, could be struck out of the calendar of the Church of England by the arbitrary will of King Henry VIII., as an enemy of princes, and his shrine destroyed, it is beyond the power of a king to reverse the sentence of history or to blast for ever the fame of a great and courageous champion of the poor of this land. Time makes little of the insults of Henry VIII. Thomas of Canterbury died for the religion that in his day protected the people against the despotism of the crown. “He was always a hater of liars and slanderers and a kind friend to dumb beasts (hence his rage with De Broc for mutilating a horse) and all poor and helpless folk.” (F. York Powell.)
That Henry II. strove to make law predominant in the spirit of a great statesman is as true as that Thomas strove to mitigate the harshness of the law. As a writer of the twelfth century put it: “Nothing is more certain than that both strove earnestly to do the will of God, one for the sake of his realm, the other on behalf of his Church. But whether of the two was zealous in wisdom is not plain to man, who is so easily mistaken, but to the Lord, who will judge between them at the last day.”
William FitzOsbert, called Longbeard
The First English Agitator 1196
Authorities: Roger of Hoveden; William of Newburgh; Gervase of Canterbury; Matthew Paris; Ralph Diceto; (Rolls Series); Rotuli Curiæ Regis (Sir F. Palgrave. Vol. I.).