ns; but scarcely any record of these most interesting
occurrences has been preserved. At the time of Henry VIII.'s quarrel with
the dead archbishop--of which more anon--the name of St. Thomas and all
account of his deeds was erased from every book that the strictest
investigation could lay hands on. So thoroughly was this spiteful edict
carried out that the records of the greatest of English saints are
astonishingly meagre. A letter, however, has been preserved, written about
A.D. 1390 by Richard II. to congratulate the then archbishop, William
Courtenay, on a fresh miracle performed by St. Thomas: "_Litera domini
Regis graciosa missa domino archiepiscopo, regraciando sibi de novo
miraculo Sancti Thome Martiris sibi denunciato._" The letter refers, in
its quaint Norman-French, to the good influence that will be exercised by
such a manifestation, as a practical argument against the "various enemies
of our faith and belief"--_noz foie et creaunce ount plousours enemys_.
These were the Lollards, and the pious king says that he hopes and
believes that they will be brought back to the right path by the effect
of this miracle, which seems to have been worked to heal a distinguished
foreigner--_en une persone estraunge_.

Another document (dated A.D. 1455) preserves the story of the miraculous
cure of a young Scotsman, from Aberdeen, _Allexander Stephani filius in
Scocia, de Aberdyn oppido natus_. Alexander was lame, _pedibus contractus_,
from his birth, we are told that after twenty-four years of pain and
discomfort--_vigintiquatuor annis penaliter laborabat_--he made a
pilgrimage to Canterbury, and there "the sainted Thomas, the divine
clemency aiding him, on the second day of the month of May did straightway
restore his legs and feet, _bases et plantas_, to the same Alexander."

Other miracles performed by the saint are pictured in the painted windows
of Trinity Chapel, of which we shall treat fully later on. The fame of the
martyr spread through the whole of Christendom. Stanley tells us that
"there is probably no country in Europe which does not exhibit traces of
Becket. A tooth of his is preserved in the church of San Thomaso
Cantuariense at Verona, part of an arm in a convent at Florence, and
another part in the church of St. Waldetrude at Mons; in Fuller's time
both arms were displayed in the English convent at Lisbon; while Bourbourg
preserves his chalice, Douay his hair shirt, and St. Omer his mitre. The
cathedral of