Béarn and the Pyrenees : $b A legendary tour to the country of Henri QuatreCostello, Louisa Stuart
History
Béarn and the Pyrenees : $b A legendary tour to the country of Henri Quatre
Costello, Louisa Stuart
Béarn (France) -- Description and travel; Pyrenees -- Description and travel
"When I, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, exiled from England, took
refuge with Pope Alexander, who was also fugitive, in the town of Sens,
and there represented to him the bad habits and abuses that the King of
England had introduced into the Church; one night as I was in the church
of Sainte Colombe, engaged in prayer, supplicating the Queen of Virgins
that she would vouchsafe grace to the King of England and his
successors, that they might have power and will to be obedient to the
Church as her children, and that our Lord Jesus Christ would cause them
more fully to love the said Church, suddenly appeared to me the Blessed
Virgin Mary, having on her breast a drop of water, glittering like fine
gold, and holding in her hand a little vial (_ampoule_) of stone. And
after she had taken from her breast the drop of water and put it in the
vial, she spoke to me these words: 'This is the unction with which the
kings of England shall be anointed; _not those who reign now, but those
who are to reign_; for those who reign now are wicked, and so will be
their successors, and, for their iniquity shall lose many things.
However, kings of England shall come, and shall be anointed with this
unction, and shall be benign and obedient to the Church, and shall not
possess their lands or lordships until they are so anointed. The first
of these shall recover, without violence, the countries of Normandy and
Aquitaine, which their predecessors had lost. This king shall be great
amongst kings, and it will be he who shall re-edify many churches in the
Holy Land, and drive all the pagans from Babylon, where he shall erect
rich monasteries, and put all the enemies of religion to flight. And
when he wears about his neck this drop of golden water, he shall be
victorious and augment his kingdom. _As for thee, thou shall die a
martyr for sustaining the rights of the Church._' I then prayed the holy
and sacred Lady to tell me in what sanctuary I should place this sacred
deposit; and she replied, that there was in this city a monk of the
monastery of St. Cyprian of Poitiers, named Babilonius, who had been
unjustly driven forth by his abbot, where he desired to be reinstated by
apostolic authority; to him I was ordered to give this vial, in order
that he might carry it to the city of Poitiers, and place it in the
church of St. Gregory, which is near the church of St. Hilaire, and put
it at the extremity of the said church, towards the east, under a great
stone, _where it would be found_ when the proper hour arrived to anoint
the kings of England, and _that the chief of the Pagans should be the
cause of the discovery of the said golden drop_. Accordingly I enclosed
this treasure in a leaden vessel, and gave it to the said monk,
Babilonius, to bear to the church of St. Gregory, as it was commanded."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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