William Thomas the secretary of Edward VI. in his work entitled "Il Pelerino Inglese." * The fact probably was, that the "holy head" (surmised not to have really belonged to Becket, inasmuch as his skull was nearly complete in the shrine,) was burnt, as a mere relique," but that the bones of the saint taken from the shrine were buried near the spot where the shrine had stood, as was done with the remains of saint Swithin at Winchester, saint Hugh at Lincoln, and in other cases. In the next century, however, the Arms of saint Thomas were shown in Portugal, a circumstance upon which Fuller makes these quaint but pertinent remarks: "The English nuns at Lisbon do pretend (Anatomy of the Nuns of Lisbon) that they have both the arms of Thomas Becket archbishop of Canterbury; and yet pope Paul III. in a public bull set down by Sanders (De Schismate Anglicano, lib. i. p. 171) doth pitifully complain of the cruelty of king Henry VIII. for causing the bones of Becket to be burned, and the ashes scattered in the wind the solemnity whereof is recorded in our chronicles. And how his arms should escape that bonefire, is to me incredible."-Church History, book vi. Neither is the martyr's Skull even yet entirely at rest. * "Butt this is true that the bones are spred amongest the bones of so many dead men, that, without some greate miracle they wyll not be founde agayne."-Il Pelerino Inglese, MS. Cotton. Vesp. D. XVIII. In a recent number of the Tablet (the London newspaper of the Romanists) it has been stated by Mr. Talbot that he has brought from Verona a piece of the skull, given him by the bishop of that city, and he proposes to offer it to the new church of Saint George, in St. George's Fields, provided he receives subscriptions sufficient to have a reliquary made "worthy to receive so valuable a relic as part of the skull of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, one of the patrons of England, and her most glorious martyr." PROCEEDINGS OF HENRY VIII. AGAINST SAINT The noble author of the recent biography of the Lord Chancellors, who (as before remarked) has almost literally followed Dr. Lingard in his notices of Becket, has stated that Henry VIII. in the case of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, proceeded as if against a living party, instructing his attorney-general to file a quo warranto information against him for usurping the office of a saint, and formally citing him to appear in court to answer the charge. The legal biographer adds, that "judgment of ouster would have happened against him by default, had not the king, to show his impartiality and great regard for the due administration of justice, assigned him counsel at the public expense; when, the cause being called, and the attorney-general and the advocate for the accused being fully heard, with such proofs as were offered on both sides, sentence was pronounced that Thomas sometime archbishop of Canterbury had been guilty of contumacy, treason, and rebellion : that his bones should be publicly burnt, to admonish the living of their duty by the punishment of the dead; and that the offerings made by the shrine should be forfeited to the Crown. A proclamation followed," &c. Now all this, until we come to the proclamation, appears to be an historical romance, put together, according to the opinion of Archdeacon Todd in his Life of Cranmer, by Chrysostom Henriquez in his Phoenix Reviviscens, 1626, from the fictions of Sanders and Pollini: notwithstanding that Sanders has assigned a date (24 April, 1536) for the citation; another (11 June, 1538) for the trial; and Pollini adds that the order for the destruction of the shrine was made on the 11th August, 1538, and carried into execution on the 19th of the same month. The privy-council books of the period are not extant, and there is no certainty how far Pollini may not have obtained some information not now apparent; but Dr. Todd remarks that the bull of pope Paul III. issued in 1538, would suggest to Sanders sufficient hints for the story, to which his own imagination supplied the fictitious circumstances. That bull contains the following passage with regard to king Henry : -etiam in mortuos, et eos quidem quos in sanctorum numerum relatos universalis ecclesia pluribus seculis venerata est, feritatem exercere non expavit: divi enim Thomæ Cantuar. archiepiscopi, cujus ossa quæ in dicto regno Angliæ potissimum ob innumera ab omnipotenti Deo illic perpetrata miracula summa cum veneratione in arca aurea in civitate Cantuarien. servabantur, postquam ipsum divum Thomam, ad majorem religionis contemptum, in judicium vocari et tanquam contumacem damnari et proditorem declarari fecerat, exhumari et comburi et cineres in ventum spargi jussit; omne plane cunctarum gentium crudelitatem superans, cum ne in bello quidem hostes victores sævire in mortuorum cadavera soliti sunt; ad hæc, omnia ex diversorum regum etiam Anglorum et aliorum principum liberalitate donaria, ipsi arcæ appensa, quæ multa et maximi pretii erant, sibi usurpavit; &c. (Bullæ, Romæ, 1673, vol. i. f. 701; Wilkins, Concilia, iii. 841.) But the "Declaration of Faith," issued by royal authority in 1539, contains a contradictory statement as to the burning of the bones, and does not at all confirm the supposed proceedings by quo warranto. The whole passage, written in justification of the destruction of shrines and reliquaries, is here given : "As for shrines, capses, and reliquaries of saints so called, although the most were nothing less,* for as much as his highness hath found other † idollatry or detestable superstition used thereabouts, and perceived that they were for the most part feigned things; as the Blood of Christ, so called, in some place was but a piece of red sylke, inclosed in a piece of thyck glass of chrystalline, in an other place, oyle colloured of sanguinis drachonis; instead of the Mylk of our Lady, a piece of chalk or of ceruse; our Lady's Girdle, and other innumerable illusions, superstitions, and apparent deceipts; and more of the Holy Crosse than three waines may carry. His majestye, therefore, hath caused the same to be taken away, and the abusyve pieces thereof to be burnt, the doubtfull to be sett and hidden honestly away, for fear of idollatry. "As for the shryne of Thomas Beckett, sometime archbishop of Canterbury, which they called Saint Thomas, by approbations it appeareth clearly that his common legend is false; and that at the time of his death, and long afore, he was reconciled to king Henry II. king of this realme, duke of Normandy and Guyene, and had no quarrell directly with him, but only against the archbishop of York, which arose from proud preheminences between them; and by the strife thereof procured frowardly his own death, which they untruly call martyrdome; and happened upon the arrest of a * i. e. anything but saints. + i. e. either. |