fragment meant wealth to the owner. Any relic of the body itself had still greater value, its efficacy in curing the multifarious ailments of the pilgrims who began to flock to Canterbury being immeasurable. And when the neighbouring monastery of St. Augustine burned with desire to possess a relic of St. Thomas they offered Roger, the keeper of the "Altars of the Martyrdom," the position of Abbot of their own abbey if he would contrive to bring with him a portion of Becket's skull. Roger had been specially chosen to guard this relic, but he succumbed to the temptation offered by the rival establishment outside the city walls, and having purloined the coveted fragment of the martyr, was duly installed in the highest office of St. Augustine's. Whether the whole affair was public property at the time does not fully appear, but those who recorded events at St. Augustine's did not hesitate to glory in the success of their scheme!

So great was the popular execration of the murder that the autocratic Archbishop who had not inspired universal admiration in his lifetime was soon to become the most frequently invoked of all the calendar of saints, and the King himself, finding that his submission to the Papal legate at Avranches, two years after the crime, was not sufficient to avert the wrath of Heaven, which seemed to be visiting him in the form of rebellions and disasters in every part of his dominions, came to Canterbury in 1174 and went through a penance of extreme severity. Landing at Southampton, he came by the Pilgrims' Way to Harbledown, and so entered the ancient city. At the church of St. Dunstan, outside the walls, he took off his ordinary dress and walked barefoot through the streets to the monastery of Christ Church. It was a wet day, but being in the month of July the wearing of a shirt only with a cloak to keep off the rain could not have been the cause of very great physical discomfort apart from the cutting of his feet by stones on the road. At the Cathedral they took Henry to the tomb of the man whose death he had caused, and there he knelt and shed bitter tears, groaning and lamenting. After again regretting his rash words in an address read by Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, and promising to restore the rights and property of the Church, the King, kneeling at the tomb, wearing a hair-shirt with a woollen one above it, placed his head and shoulders in one of the openings in the tomb and there received five strokes with a monastic rod from each of the bishops and abbots present, and afterwards the eighty monks each administered three strokes. Henry was now quite absolved, but he remained for the whole night with his bare feet still muddy and in the same penitential garb.

THE SCENE OF THE MARTYRDOM IN THE NORTH-WEST TRANSEPT OF THE CATHEDRAL.
Since the tragic death of Becket in 1170 practically everything in this portion of the Cathedral has been re-constructed.

Arriving in London, the King took to his bed, suffering from a dangerous fever, but a few days later, hearing from Richmond in Yorkshire that the Scots had been defeated and driven north, he recovered rapidly, believing implicitly, after the manner of his age, that this success was attributable to the penance he had undergone on the day before the battle.

And so, through the savage murder of an archbishop and the severe penance of a king the archiepiscopal capital of England began to resound all over Europe, and the annual procession of pilgrims commenced to traverse the hills along the old road from Winchester to the little Norman city. Not by that way only did the vast crowds reach Canterbury, for there was scarcely a road that at some period of the year did not send its contribution to the throng which jostled through the gates into the narrow streets leading to the monastery gateway. Year after year wealth poured into the Cathedral coffers, and pilgrims went away lighter in spirits and in purse, but each carrying with them the little leaden bottle in which the infinitely diluted blood of the martyr mixed with water was distributed.

Scarcely two months after Henry's penance the splendid choir of the Cathedral caught fire, and the townsfolk, in a state between grief and rage, found themselves unable to stay the progress of the flames until nearly everything that could burn had vanished. The nave suffered less than Conrad's splendid choir, and in that less ruined portion of the building a temporary altar was erected. But for this fire it might have been possible for the modern pilgrim to see the building as it appeared during the stirring events just recounted; for, notwithstanding the wealth of the monastery of Christ Church, it would have probably been thought desirable to retain the fabric as much as possible as it appeared in Becket's time. The fire came, however, and the choir was to a great extent rebuilt, but fortunately the chapels were only slightly affected.

After careful inquiry the monastery decided to employ William of Sens as architect for the reconstruction, and the excellent work of this clever Norman craftsman lives to-day in the eastern portion of the cathedral church. He set to work soon after the fire; but, after four years of labour, was so much injured by a fall from the scaffolding that he was obliged to abandon his unfinished work and return to his native Normandy. Upon an Englishman named William devolved the task of completing the work.

Either following the Frenchman's plans or adapting them to his own ideas, he finished the eastern parts of the church as they stand to-day in the year 1184. To one or both of these architects is due the unusual device of narrowing the choir to avoid altering the site of the Trinity Chapel of Becket's time. When the reconstruction of Conrad's Norman choir began, the Gothic style was just beginning to appear—an incipient tendency towards a pointed arch here and there which grew into what is called the Transitional Period; and to this style—in between the Romanesque semicircular arch, with its accompanying massiveness, and the first style of Gothic known as Early English, distinguished by the pointed arch, detached pillars decorating the triforium and clerestory, and elaborate mouldings and capitals—the choir belongs.

When the whole of the east end of the cathedral was finished, nearly two centuries elapsed before any further change took place beyond the beginning of the chapter-house. At the commencement of that period, however, one of Canterbury's most magnificent scenes of ecclesiastical pomp occurred in connection with the remains of Becket. The summer of 1220 saw the completion of the new shrine, and on July 7, the translation of the saint's remains was accomplished amid scenes of the most astonishing splendour, described by those who were present as being without a parallel in the history of England, the crowds including people from many foreign countries. Money was spent so lavishly on the entertainment of the innumerable persons of distinction who were present or took part in the great ceremony that for several years the finances of the see were unpleasantly reminiscent of the vast expenditure. Henry III. was present, but he was not old enough to be a bearer of the great iron-bound chest containing the poor remnants of Becket's human guise. In the presence of nearly every ecclesiastical dignitary in the land the remains were placed in the newly finished shrine all aglow with jewels set in gold and silver.

Throughout the centuries succeeding this crowning glory of Canterbury, the little walled city saw many great functions apart from the yearly stream of pilgrims of every grade of society, and the huge doles of food and drink given away by the two great monasteries and the lesser houses of the city