n: PLAN OF CANTERBURY, SHOWING THE CHIEF STREETS AND THE
MOST INTERESTING BUILDINGS.
REFERENCE
A. Mercery Lane.
B. St. Peter's Church.
C. All Saints' Church.
D. St. Margaret's Church.
E. Poor Priests' Hospital.
F. St. Margarets Street.
G. Green Court.
H. Archbishops' Palace.
J. Norman Staircase.
K. St. George's Church.
L. Site Of Roman Gate.
M. Greyfriars.
N. Christ Church Gate.
O. St. Alphege's Church.
P. St. Mary Bredin Church]

CHAPTER I

THE PILGRIM'S APPROACH TO THE CITY

It was on April 24, 1538, that a writ of summons was sent forth in the
name of Henry VIII., "To thee, Thomas Becket, some time Archbishop of
Canterbury"--who had then been dead for 368 years--"to appear within
thirty days to answer to a charge of treason, contumacy, and rebellion
against his sovereign lord, King Henry II." But the days passed, and no
spirit having stirred the venerated bones of the wonder-working saint,
on June 10 judgment was given in favour of Henry, and it was decreed
that the Archbishop's bones were to be burnt, and his world-famous
shrine overlaid with gold and sparkling with jewels was to be
forfeited to the Crown. Further than this went the sentence, for
Thomas of Canterbury was to be a saint no longer, and his name and
memory were to be wiped out. The remains were not burned, but
throughout the land every statue, wall-painting, and window to the
said Thomas Becket was rigorously searched out and destroyed, and from
every record his name was carefully erased. And so it came about that
the year 1538 saw the last pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas the
Martyr.

A growing incredulity had prepared the way for this wave of
iconoclasm, and the shrine once destroyed ended for ever this first
phase of the Canterbury pilgrimages. It might have been truly thought,
if anyone ever gave a moment to such speculations a century ago, when
Englishmen cared little for the landmarks of their island story, that
the last pilgrim who would ever wend his way along the old road to
Canterbury had died in the sixteenth century, and yet how profoundly
untrue would that impression have been in the light of the new
enthusiasm for the site of the shrine! A considerable literature on
the Pilgrims' Way from Winchester has already sprung up, and this
little book is itself a souvenir for the pilgrim to carry away as
evidence of the journey he has made, provided he cares to write
inside