Canterbury, England, August 24.
This little city of 25,000 inhabitants is the ecclesiastical capital of England, and has been for over a thousand years. Some time before the year 600 Queen Bertha, wife of the Saxon king, became a Christian and built a small church in Canterbury. Then when St. Augustine came in 597 and took the king and all his army into the church at one big baptizing, the king gave him the palace and the heathen church, and they were converted into a cathedral and monastery. St. Augustine and succeeding archbishops were the heads of the church in England, and when the Normans came in 1066 they continued the rule. The first Norman archbishop began the construction of the present cathedral, and as money was plenty and labor cheap, it was built magnificently. The Archbishop of Canterbury received the title of Primate of All England, and he wears it to this day. The English Church is a government institution, the archbishop is a member of the House of Lords, and the position is easily the greatest in the Protestant world.
The murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, in 1170, was the greatest thing that ever happened for Canterbury. He was in a controversy with King Henry, and made life so uncomfortable for the king that Henry remarked to some of his followers that if he had a few real friends there would be no Thomas Becket to worry him. Henry was probably drunk when he made this talk, although it doubtless was an expression of his real feelings. Four of his knights took him at his word, hiked to Canterbury, and killed the archbishop right in the cathedral. The murder was a shock to Christendom. The dead archbishop was canonized as a saint, and the people generally refused to believe Henry’s statement that he didn’t mean what he said. Everything went wrong with Henry, and the sacrilegious act was held responsible. Two years later the king went to Canterbury and took a whipping on his bare back as a penance for his remarks, and for years pilgrims came to Canterbury, miracles were reported wrought by the relics, and the cathedral and Canterbury got rich from the pilgrim business and the valuable gifts showered upon the shrine of St. Thomas.
It is customary to consider Thomas Becket a martyr to the cause of liberty and to indulge in great eulogy of him as a saint. But he was really a plain man like the rest of us. His trouble with the king came because Henry wanted to recognize some other bishops, and Thomas, who was proud and stubborn, claimed that he alone had the power. It was really a conflict of authority between the church and the state, and a good deal to be said on both sides. Thomas abused the king viciously and had several bishops excommunicated because they agreed with Henry. He also threatened the king, and the disagreement was all over jobs and money. Those were tough times, and the usual way to get rid of an enemy was to kill him if you could. Unfortunately for Henry, his self-appointed friends did a bungling job, Thomas became a saint, and the king had to concede to the church all the privileges that had been claimed. Three hundred years later King Henry the Eighth, in order to secure a divorce and a new queen, overthrew the authority of the church, made himself the head of it, and incidentally sent to Canterbury, took all the valuables that had been placed on the shrine of St. Thomas, and put them in the national treasury, that is, his own pocket.
But during that 300 years the supremacy of Canterbury as the religious head of the nation became fixed. The archbishops generally had to go into politics, many of them achieved greatness, and some were executed publicly. The cathedral was added to, “restored,” improved, and is now one of the very finest cathedrals in Europe. To an Englishman or an American it is more interesting than any other church in England, except perhaps Westminster Abbey. It has specimens of all kinds of architecture in its different parts, but they have been so harmoniously put together that the edifice is imposing on the outside and most impressive on the inside.
Canterbury itself is a sleepy old town, very full of quaint houses and with plenty of tradition to make things interesting. Chaucer, Dickens, Thackeray and other English writers have woven Canterbury into their stories, and on every side you are shown the places where heroes and heroines of fiction made their homes. But this week Canterbury is busy. The last game of the cricket season is being played, and Canterbury is as crazy over cricket as Hutchinson was over baseball when in the Western Association. The cricket association of England is made up of the counties, and I had the opportunity of seeing the game between Kent and Yorkshire. Fully ten thousand people attended, and I suppose they enjoyed the game, though English cricket is as tame to an American as the moo of a cow would seem to a roaring lion, or as spring-water lemonade would taste to a colonel from Kentucky. The game began at 10 o’clock in the morning, with Yorkshire, the visiting team, at the bat. At one o’clock the Yorks were put out after making 75 runs. Then there was lunch, and the crowd stayed on the field and under the trees for what looked to me like a harvest home picnic in Kansas. At 2 o’clock play was resumed, and continued till 4 o’clock, when the game stopped for the players and spectators to have tea. Yes, tea! Imagine an American ball game suspended for a half-hour while the ball-players enjoyed tea and sandwiches! It was too much for me. I saw the last half of the first inning would not be ended in one day, so I quit the cricketers and their tea and went off to look at an old church, which was more exciting.