In the chapter-house Henry caused each of the clergy present, to the number of eighty, to strike him over the shoulders with a knotted cord, and afterward spent the whole night beside the tomb. He heard mass the next morning, and returned to London.
A few years after, Louis VII. came to pray at the tomb of his friend for the recovery of his son Philippe Auguste, who was ill of a fever. He made splendid gifts to the cathedral, and in especial a very large diamond, and a golden cup. In Italy Thomas was equally honored. William the Good, of Sicily, who married Joan, daughter to Henry II., placed a colossal statue of St. Thomas of Canterbury in his new foundation, the Church of Monreale; and at Agnani there is still preserved a richly-embroidered cope, presented by Pope Innocent III., bearing thirty-six different scenes in delicate needlework, and among them the death of the English Archbishop. There are also many German and French representations of the subject; the murderers, in the more ancient ones, carefully distinguished by their shields: Morville, _fretty fleur-de-lis_; Tracy, _two bars gules_; Brito, _three bears, heads muzzled_; Fitzurse, _three bears passant_.
In Henry III.'s reign a new shrine was built at Canterbury, and the Archbishop's relics were thither translated. No saint in England was more popular than St. Thomas of Canterbury, and frequent pilgrimages were made to his shrine. The Canterbury Pilgrims of Chaucer are thither journeying, and Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop killed by Wat Tyler's mob, is said to have made himself unpopular by rebuking the superstition that made the ignorant believe in the efficacy of these pilgrimages.
Then came the reaction. Henry VIII., little able to endure such a saint as Becket, sent the spoilers to Canterbury. Lord Cromwell burnt his relics, and carried off the treasures of gold and jewels, which filled two chests, so heavy that six or eight men were wanted to carry each of them. Henry wore Louis VII.'s diamond in a ring. The costly shrine was destroyed, and the pavement, worn by the knees of the pilgrims, alone remained to show where Becket's tomb had been. In London, the house of Gilbert a Becket, in Southwark, where the Saracen lady had ended her toilsome journey, and where Thomas had been born, had, in Henry III.'s reign, been made a hospital; Edward VI. granted it for the same use; and thus it still remains, by its old name of St. Thomas's Hospital, which perhaps would not so generally be given it, if it were known after what saint it was so called. His likeness was destroyed in every church and public building, so that but one head of St. Thomas a Becket is known to exist in England-namely, one in stained glass, at the village of Horton, in Ribblesdale-and even in missals and breviaries it was defaced.
No one has met with more abuse than Becket, ever since the Reformation. Proud, ostentatious, hypocritical, and rebellious-these are the terms usually bestowed on him. How far he deserves them, may be judged from a life detailed with unusual minuteness by three intimate companions, none of them treating him as faultless. Of the rights of the struggle we will not speak. No one can doubt that Becket gave his life for the cause which, in all sincerity, he deemed that of the Church against the World.
The fate of the murderers has been questioned in later times. It is said that they died at home, in peace and fair prosperity; but the evidence on either side is nearly balanced.
CAMEO XXII. THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. (1172)
Few histories are more strange and confused than the Irish. The inhabitants of Ierne, or Erin, as far as anything credible can be discovered about them, were of three different nations, who had in turn subdued the island before the beginning of history. These were the Tuath de Dunans, the Firbolg, and the Scots, or Milesians. Who the two first were, we will not attempt to say, though Irish traditions declare that some of them were there before the Flood, and that one Fintan was saved by being transformed into a salmon, and so swimming about till the water subsided, after which he resumed the human form, and lived so long that the saying was, "I could tell you much, if I was as old as Fintan."
The Milesians are not much behind their predecessors in their claim, for they say they are descended from a son of Japhet, and first discovered writing, and all the arts commonly said to have been derived from Egypt, but which they assert were carried thither by one Neill, who gave his name to the river Nile, as well as to his sons, all the O'Neills of Ireland.
It is more certain that these Milesians were Kelts, and were in early times called Scots. A colony of them conquered the Picts; drove the Caledonians into Galway, and gave North Britain, or Albin the name of Lesser Scotland, while their own country, or Greater Scotia, returned to its former name of Erin, called by the Romans Hibernia, and by the English, Ireland.
The Erse tongue is nearly the same as the Gaelic, and there was much in the Irish and Highland institutions showing their common origin. The clan system prevailed in Ireland, the clans being called Septs, and all having, as a surname, the name of the common ancestor. His representative, the chief, was known as the Carfinny; but the succession was not determined by the rules of primogeniture. It was always in one family, but the choice was made by election of the next heir. When a Carfinny died, another came into office who had been chosen on his accession as heir, or Tanist, and at the same time another Tanist was chosen to succeed him as Carfinny at his death. The land was the property of the tribe, divided into holdings; and whenever the death of a considerable proprietor took place, there was a fresh allotment of the whole, which, of course, as well as the choice of a Tanist, set the whole population at war.
There were four kingdoms-Ulster, Munster, Leinster, and Connaught-to which the chiefs succeeded by tanistry, besides Meath, another kingdom which always belonged to the principal king, or Toparch, who was in like manner elected as Tanist on each new accession; and the number of battles and murders among these wild Irish princes is beyond all estimate. Out of 178 kings, 71 were slain in battle, and 60 murdered.
Christianity was brought to Ireland about the year 400, by St. Colman and St. Patrick. It does not seem to have materially softened the manners of the people at large, whose wars went on as fiercely as ever; but the churches were seats of peace and learning, whence teachers went forth in numbers into Gaul, and among the heathen Saxons of England. The Roman calender shows so many names of Irish hermits, priests, and nuns, that we do not wonder Erin once was known as the Isle of Saints.
The Northmen made their cruel inroads on Ireland, and swept away much of the beginnings of civilization. Turges, a Danish chief, was, in 815, King of all Ireland; and having forced Melachlin, or Malachy, King of Meath, to give up his daughter to him, Melachlin sent with her, in the disguise of female attendants, sixteen young men armed with skeynes, or long knives. They killed Turges, and brought the princess back to her father, who was waiting in ambush at no great distance with his armed men, set upon the Danes, defeated them, and, being joined by the other Irish princes, destroyed them all.