But these "old, unhappy far-off things" were before the existence of the present beautiful Perpendicular gatehouse, depicted in our illustration. Its Norman predecessor was still standing, lower, plainer, grimmer, like most Norman buildings. Prior Goldston did not finish this one till 1517. In 1520, when its carvings were fresh and the stone bright in the sunshine, and the great statue of Our Lord looked down from over the archway, and the octagonal side-turrets, like those of St. Augustine's, were not within three hundred years of being pulled down that bank-clerks might see the Cathedral clock from the other end of Mercery Lane--then there came to the last of the Great Pardons, with trumpetings and gorgeous retinue, two great kings riding under one canopy. One was Henry VIII and the other the mightiest monarch in Christendom, Charles V the Emperor of Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, President of the Diet which tried to murder Luther, as the Council of Constance had murdered Huss; but a far better man than Henry, and uncle of Henry's Queen, Katherine. Before them rode Cardinal Wolsey, and there were Spanish Grandees, and English Nobles, and Queen Katherine herself. "The streets", says Dr. Cox, "were lined with priests and clerks from all the parishes within twenty miles of the city, with censers, crosses, surplices, and copes of the richest sort. At the great west doors of the church (still opened only for royalties and archbishops) they were met by the Archbishop, and after saying their devotions they proceeded to Wareham's Palace. On one evening of that week Wareham gave a great ball in the hall of the Palace, when the Emperor danced with the then Queen of England, and Henry with the Queen of Aragon, the Emperor's mother." [Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM CHRIST CHURCH GATE (_Page 24_)] Henry, as we know, had a taste for cloth of gold, and the affair must have been sufficiently sumptuous. This was perhaps the last of the great pageants.