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Next morning, as I crossed Sturry bridge, I saw a grey tower dominating the landscape: Canterbury — England’s premier showplace for tourists of the world. Compared to Salisbury, the Cathedral is a magnificent jumble; the ground plan, which hangs in the nave, shows an asymmetrical maze of Nave, Transepts, Enclosed Choir, Choir Aisles, Chapels, Chantries, Corona, Libraries, Chapter House, Crypt and Water Tower, dating from early Saxon to Victorian Gothic. But this jumble is the jumble of our own history since the Cross of Christ was carried on shore at Pegwell Bay. To criticise Canterbury is to criticise England, and make Englishmen annoyed.
… In fact, our English pride in Canterbury is not altogether justified. The foundations were laid by a Roman missionary, Augustine, on the site of an earlier Roman church, and Augustine became Canterbury’s first Archbishop and Saint. The “glorious choir”, now the heart of the whole Anglican church, was probably the conception of a French mason, William of Sens, and is for the greater part based on the superb cathedral of that town. Historically, the city would have sunk to minor importance but for the assassination in the actual precincts of a truculent priest of French parentage. Previous to this murder (an episode that ranks with the regicide in Sarajevo as an example of how history can be written by any fool’s haphazard act), Canterbury had been superseded in importance by the royal city of Westminster, and even Winchester, and was little heard of. It now became Europe’s most popular sacred shrine.
For the next three centuries Christians dribbled along the three grassy tracks from London, Winchester and the port of Dover, until they became Pilgrims’ Roads; year after year they dribbled up the nave and through the choir aisles until their feet left grooves in the hard Caen stone; day after day the great frescoed wooden canopy was hauled up by unseen ropes, revealing the glittering shrine — all papered with gold leaf, strewn with gold rings, peppered with diamonds, rubies, carbuncles and pearls. In the centre rested “a chest of iron contained the bones of Thomas à Becket, skull and all, with the wounds of his death, and the piece out of his skull. As all fell on their knees, the prior came forward and touched the several jewels with a White Wand, naming the giver of each. One was supposed to be the finest in England. It was a great carbuncle or diamond, as large as a hen’s egg, called ‘The Regale of France’ and presented by Louis VII. of France, who, said the legend, was unwilling to part with so great a treasure; but the stone leapt from the ring in which he wore it, and fastened itself firmly into the shrine — a miracle against which there was no striving” (Stowe and Murray).
Richard Cœur de Lion came here walking barefooted from Sandwich — a distance of twelve miles — to give thanks to St. Thomas for his release from an Austrian prison. Edward I. came here to offer the crown of Scotland; Henry V. to thank Becket for his victory at Agincourt. Among distinguished foreign pilgrims were Manuel, Emperor of the East, Sigismund, Emperor of the West, and the Emperor Charles V. of Spain who rode with Henry VIII from Dover. “Under the same canopy were seen both youthful sovereigns; Cardinal Wolsey was directly in front; on the right and left were the proud nobles of Spain and England . . .” (Stanley).
Eighteen years later Henry VIII. showed a sudden and profitable change of mind. Whatever his faults, one must admire his enlightened disregard of mediæval superstition — even his adoption of it to his own ends. The defunct Becket was charged with treason. For thirty days the summons was read out at his shrine, and when he failed to appear, his case was argued at Westminster. The Attorney-General represented the defunct Henry II. Becket’s advocate, an obscure lawyer, lost his case, which was not surprising since he was appointed by Henry VIII. The shrine was dismantled; the saint’s bones burnt; the offerings of three hundred and fifty years forfeited to the Crown.
—Sussex, Kent & Surrey 1939 (originally published as Last Look Round, 1940)
… In fact, our English pride in Canterbury is not altogether justified. The foundations were laid by a Roman missionary, Augustine, on the site of an earlier Roman church, and Augustine became Canterbury’s first Archbishop and Saint. The “glorious choir”, now the heart of the whole Anglican church, was probably the conception of a French mason, William of Sens, and is for the greater part based on the superb cathedral of that town. Historically, the city would have sunk to minor importance but for the assassination in the actual precincts of a truculent priest of French parentage. Previous to this murder (an episode that ranks with the regicide in Sarajevo as an example of how history can be written by any fool’s haphazard act), Canterbury had been superseded in importance by the royal city of Westminster, and even Winchester, and was little heard of. It now became Europe’s most popular sacred shrine.
For the next three centuries Christians dribbled along the three grassy tracks from London, Winchester and the port of Dover, until they became Pilgrims’ Roads; year after year they dribbled up the nave and through the choir aisles until their feet left grooves in the hard Caen stone; day after day the great frescoed wooden canopy was hauled up by unseen ropes, revealing the glittering shrine — all papered with gold leaf, strewn with gold rings, peppered with diamonds, rubies, carbuncles and pearls. In the centre rested “a chest of iron contained the bones of Thomas à Becket, skull and all, with the wounds of his death, and the piece out of his skull. As all fell on their knees, the prior came forward and touched the several jewels with a White Wand, naming the giver of each. One was supposed to be the finest in England. It was a great carbuncle or diamond, as large as a hen’s egg, called ‘The Regale of France’ and presented by Louis VII. of France, who, said the legend, was unwilling to part with so great a treasure; but the stone leapt from the ring in which he wore it, and fastened itself firmly into the shrine — a miracle against which there was no striving” (Stowe and Murray).
Richard Cœur de Lion came here walking barefooted from Sandwich — a distance of twelve miles — to give thanks to St. Thomas for his release from an Austrian prison. Edward I. came here to offer the crown of Scotland; Henry V. to thank Becket for his victory at Agincourt. Among distinguished foreign pilgrims were Manuel, Emperor of the East, Sigismund, Emperor of the West, and the Emperor Charles V. of Spain who rode with Henry VIII from Dover. “Under the same canopy were seen both youthful sovereigns; Cardinal Wolsey was directly in front; on the right and left were the proud nobles of Spain and England . . .” (Stanley).
Eighteen years later Henry VIII. showed a sudden and profitable change of mind. Whatever his faults, one must admire his enlightened disregard of mediæval superstition — even his adoption of it to his own ends. The defunct Becket was charged with treason. For thirty days the summons was read out at his shrine, and when he failed to appear, his case was argued at Westminster. The Attorney-General represented the defunct Henry II. Becket’s advocate, an obscure lawyer, lost his case, which was not surprising since he was appointed by Henry VIII. The shrine was dismantled; the saint’s bones burnt; the offerings of three hundred and fifty years forfeited to the Crown.
—Sussex, Kent & Surrey 1939 (originally published as Last Look Round, 1940)
