To King Ethelbert, a heathen, and to Bertha, his queen, a Christian, came Augustine to preach the gospel; and Christian worship he found carried on by Lindhard, the queen’s French chaplain, in a small chapel standing outside the city walls, the present church of St Martin, altered in aspect, but the “mother church of England.” Through the mists of centuries we cannot clearly see; we know not how far well or ill disposed toward Christianity the King may have been; at any rate, as he permitted his queen to follow her creed, his disposition cannot have been actively evil. The King met the band of missionaries in the Isle of Thanet, promised not to molest them, and to give them all that was needed for their support, with permission to make all the converts they could. From the island Augustine and his comrades crossed to Richborough, the old Roman fortress of Rutupiæ, and so on by the Roman road toward Canterbury. On the slope of St Martin’s Hill the welcome sight of a Christian place of worship met their eyes, light amid darkness. As Augustine stood on the height, looking over the rude city on the islands of the Stour, did any prophetic vision come to him? His heart was doubtless high with hope, but he dared not have dreamed that the future was to be so glorious as we know it to have been. Then came the baptism of Ethelbert on Whitsunday in the year 597, in St Martin’s Church, and as usual, even in later days, the example of a king soon set a fashion. Of St Pancras’ Church we already know the story. Of the first cathedral in Canterbury no stone remains. When the saint died he was buried not far from the roadside, the Kent and Canterbury Hospital occupying the ground where his bones rested—until they were translated to the church of the monastery he had founded but had not lived to see completed. It is told of a stern soldier that he desired to be buried by the roadside, so that he might hear the tramp of the troops as they marched by to war; is it too far-fetched to think of the missionary Augustine lying asleep somewhere near by the college that has succeeded to his monastery, comforted by the sound of voices that like his are to preach the gospel to the heathen? Indeed, Canterbury is a city of great memories.
Augustine was, of course, the monastery’s chief treasure, and next came the body of St Mildred which was given to the house by Canute. It must never be forgotten by those who would look at things mediæval with mediæval eyes, that in those days the dead were more powerful than the living; even kings humbled themselves before the bones of dead saints. This relic worship became almost a madness, and the rage seized upon monks and their rulers, who stooped to the meanest thefts in order to possess themselves of such valuables. It is related that the monks of St Augustine’s Abbey offered to make Roger, the keeper of the altar of the Martyrdom, their abbot, if only he would steal for them the fragment of Becket’s skull which was entrusted to his charge. He fell to the temptation, and rose to be ruler of the rival house. For many a long year indeed St Augustine’s dominated and domineered over Christ Church; and for more than one reason. The former was an abbey, the latter but a mere priory; in the precincts of the former was buried England’s apostle Augustine, and Ethelbert, Augustine’s successor Lawrence—indeed, the first eight occupants of the archiepiscopal throne. How could a poor cathedral with never an archbishop’s bones hope to contend with such favoured rivalry? So St Cuthbert, the ninth archbishop, came to the rescue, preferring to lay his bones in his own cathedral rather than in the church of the rival establishment. He foresaw the difficulties that would arise; provided against them by procuring from the King of Kent and from the Pope an authorisation to be buried within the city walls, which he handed to the sorrowing monks as he lay adying, bidding them also to bury him first and toll the bell afterward. So it came to pass that when Abbot Aldhelm and the monks of St Augustine’s came to claim their lawful prey, they were defeated and retired in dismay. They struggled once more over the body of the succeeding Archbishop Bregwin, and then succumbed to the inevitable. The glory of the Cathedral waxed; it covered the graves of St Dunstan, St Alphege, and St Anselm; then came St Thomas and eclipse to St Augustine.
Of the church but a few fragments remain, though at the beginning of last century Ethelbert’s Tower, built about 1047, was still standing. South of the church are the remains of St Pancras’ Church, where excavations have revealed much of interest.
After the heavy hand of Henry VIII. had fallen on it, the abbey served him as a palace, afterward coming into the possession of many owners, and at length reaching a deep depth of degradation and ruin. From this it was rescued by Mr A. J. Beresford Hope in 1844, and was eventually incorporated as a college to provide “an education to qualify young men for the service of the Church in the distant dependencies of the British Empire, with such strict regard to economy and frugality of habit as may fit them for the special duties to be discharged, the difficulties to be encountered, and the hardships to be endured.” The college buildings were designed by Mr Butterfield, and opened in 1848 on St Peter’s Day. Of the old abbey, several buildings have been “worked into” the new college; one of the most important is the fourteenth century gateway, which is the main entrance, and above the archway of which is the State bedchamber, in which Elizabeth and other monarchs have rested their royal bones. The College Hall is the old Guesten Hall, and retains the ancient open-work roof.
But somehow there does not shimmer round St Augustine’s the romance of history; it is too closely in touch with to-day to allow us to dream of its yesterday. We meet no shadowy figures there of abbot or monk, of prince or soldier, hear no echoes of the clash of arms or of the voices of singers. It is as dead to us as the Cathedral and the quaint streets near by are alive.
From the city the Longport Road leads up a gentle ascent to St Martin’s. To whom this church was first dedicated is uncertain. Of the Roman building only some of the bricks remain; it was to some extent restored by the Normans, and to a great extent rebuilt in the thirteenth century.
The first feeling as we enter the churchyard and look upon this famous House of God is one of disappointment; there is something rough and homely about the clumsy walls of stones, flint, and Roman tiles, and the squat tower, creeper clad. But the associations of the little building render it lovely to us. No matter what the faith may be of him who stands in this seemly God’s-acre, he cannot but be profoundly impressed by the view as he turns first to the spot where Augustine baptised the heathen king, and then toward the soaring Cathedral tower, beneath whose shadow lie buried so many Christian kings and rulers. The very building “has had a remarkable history, surviving
