creditor on account of his pledge.

* Herbert, p. 431, 432. Stowe, p. 575.

** Goodwin's Annals. Stowe, p. 575. Herbert. Baker, p. 286.

But of all the instruments of ancient superstition, no one was so
zealously destroyed as the shrine of Thomas a Becket, commonly called
St. Thomas of Canterbury. This saint owed his canonization to the
zealous defence which he had made for clerical privileges; and on
that account also the monks had extremely encouraged the devotion of
pilgrimages towards his tomb, and numberless were the miracles which
they pretended his relics wrought in favor of his devout votaries. They
raised his body once a year; and the day on which this ceremony was
performed, which was called the day of his translation, was a general
holiday: every fiftieth year there was celebrated a jubilee to his
honor, which lasted fifteen days: plenary indulgences were then granted
to all that visited his tomb; and a hundred thousand pilgrims have been
registered at a time in Canterbury. The devotion towards him had quite
effaced in that place the adoration of the Deity; nay, even that of the
Virgin. At God's altar, for instance, there were offered in one year
three pounds two shillings and sixpence; at the Virgin's, sixty-three
pounds five shillings and sixpence; at St. Thomas's, eight hundred and
thirty-two pounds twelve shillings and threepence. But next year the
disproportion was still greater; there was not a penny offered at God's
altar; the Virgin's gained only four pounds one shilling and eight
pence; but St. Thomas had got for his share nine hundred and fifty-four
pounds six shillings and threepence.[*] Lewis VII. of France had made
a pilgrimage to this miraculous tomb, and had bestowed on the shrine a
jewel, esteemed the richest in Christendom. It is evident how obnoxious
to Henry a saint of this character must appear, and how contrary to all
his projects for degrading the authority of the court of Rome. He not
only pillaged the rich shrine dedicated to St. Thomas; he made the saint
himself be cited to appear in court, and be tried and condemned as
a traitor: he ordered his name to be struck out of the calendar; the
office for his festival to be expunged from all breviaries; his bones to
be burned, and the ashes to be thrown in the air.

On the whole, the king at different times suppressed six hundred and
forty-five monasteries; of which twenty-eight had abbots that enjoyed a
seat in parliament. Nin