first summer pilgrimage to the new shrine of St Thomas we have
very full accounts. It was the most glorious and the most extraordinary
assemblage that had perhaps ever been seen in England. The Archbishop
had given two years' notice of the event, and this had been circulated
not only in all England, but throughout Europe. "Orders had been issued
for maintenance to be provided for the vast multitude not only in the
city of Canterbury itself, but on the various roads by which the
pilgrims would approach. During the whole celebration along the whole
way from London to Canterbury, hay and provender were given to all who
asked, and at each gate of Canterbury in the four quarters of the city
and in the four licensed cellars, were placed tuns of wine to be
distributed gratis, and on the day of the festival, wine ran freely
through the gutters of the streets." In the presence of the young
Henry III., too young himself to bear a part, the coffin in which lay
the relics of St Thomas was borne on the shoulders of the Papal
Legate, the Archbishop Stephen Langton, the Grand Justiciary Hubert de
Burgh, and the Archbishop of Rheims, from the crypt up to the Trinity
Chapel in the presence of every Bishop and Abbot of England, of the
great officials of the kingdom and of the special ambassadors of every
state in Europe.

Of bishops and abbots, prior and parsons,
Of earls and of barons and of many knights thereto,
Of sergeants and of squires and of his husbandmen enow,
And of simple men eke of the land--so thick hither drew.

So was St Thomas vindicated and God avenged. And St Thomas reigned as
was thought for ever on high, in the new sanctuary of his Cathedral
Church.

I say he reigned on high. The choir and sanctuary of Canterbury had
even in St Anselm's time as we have seen, been high above the nave.
William of Sens designed the new choir, as high as the old, but very
nobly raised still higher, the great altar, and higher yet the Chapel
of the Trinity in which stood the shrine. St Thomas had an especial
devotion to the Holy Trinity. It was in a former Trinity Chapel that
he had said his first Mass, and whether on this account or another,
his devotion was such that it was he who first established that Feast,
till then merely the octave of Whitsunday. His shrine then was well
placed in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity.

In examining the church to-day one can well understand the beauty of
William of