mber
1172, Canterbury cathedral was once more solemnly opened, amid the cries
of a vast multitude of people, "Avenge, O Lord, the blood which has been
poured out!" On the anniversary of the Christmas Day when Thomas had
launched his last excommunications, the excited people noted "a great
thunder sudden and horrible in Ireland, in England, and in all the
kingdoms of the French." Very soon mighty miracles were wrought by the
name of the martyr throughout the whole of Europe. The metal phials
which hung from the necks of pilgrims to the shrine of Canterbury became
as famous as the shell and palm branch which marked the pilgrims to
Compostella and Jerusalem. Before ten years were passed the King of
France, the Count of Nevers, the Count of Boulogne, the Viscount of
Aosta, the Archbishop of Reims, had knelt at his shrine among English
prelates, nobles, knights, and beggars. The feast of the Trinity which
Thomas had appointed to be observed on the anniversary of his consecration
spread through the whole of Christendom. Henry, in fact, had to bear the
full storm of scorn and hatred that falls on every statesman who stands in
advance of the public opinion of his day. But his seeming surrender at
Avranches won for the politic king immediate and decisive advantages. All
fear of excommunication and interdict had passed away. The clergy were no
longer alienated from him. The ecclesiastical difficulties raised by the
coronation, and the jealousies of Louis, were set at rest. The alliance
of the Pope was secured. The conquest of Ireland was formally approved.
Success seemed to crown Henry's scheme for the building up of his empire.
Britanny had been secured for Geoffrey in 1171; in June 1172 Richard was
enthroned as Duke of Aquitaine; in the following August Henry was crowned
for the second time King of England. Only the youngest child, scarcely
five years old, was still "John Lackland," and in this same year Henry
provided a dominion for John by a treaty of marriage between him and the
heiress of the Count of Maurienne. Her inheritance stretched from the Lake
of Geneva almost to the Gulf of Genoa; and the marriage would carry the
Angevin dominions almost from the Atlantic to the Alps, and give into
Henry's control every pass into Italy from the Great St. Bernard to the
Col di Tenda, and all the highways by which travellers from Geneva and
German lands beyond it, from Burgundy or from Gaul, made their way to Rome.
To celebrate such a