England -- Description and travel; England -- Social life and customs
If religious progress and development is of special interest to him the
student of England will first visit Canterbury, because of its association
with St. Augustine, Lanfranc, and Saint Thomas à Becket. It is still the
seat of the Primate of the Church of England. From Canterbury he might well
follow the old "Pilgrims' Way," which runs through Kent, Surrey, and
Hampshire towards Southampton, a much-favoured ancient port of
communication with the Continent. At Southampton landed many a company of
holy palmers from Europe to walk their devout way to the tomb of À Becket.
On the way from Canterbury, through Kent, near Shoreham (the inland
village, not the seaside Shoreham), will be found the ruins of two castles
connected with the story of his sad murder. Then a student of Church
history might go to Worcester, the scene of the first Church Congress in
England, that which attempted to settle the differences between the Church
in England and the Church in Wales. At Worcester, too, died Prince Arthur,
a death of great moment in Church history. If he had lived (a pious young
man he was, and much beloved of the monks), then a certain Henry, who
afterwards became Henry VIII., would never have been King of England, never
have married his deceased brother's widow, never have had an uneasy
conscience as that lady's charms were supplanted in his impressionable
heart by a younger damosel, never have had his quarrel with the Pope; and
the whole course of history would have been, perhaps, different. But Prince
Arthur died at Worcester, and events moved to their appointed end.
Then a visit to Glastonbury in Somersetshire must be made, site of the
famous old abbey now being excavated and in a measure restored. There lived
St. Dunstan of august memory. So much is certain; but legend would bring to
Glastonbury even greater claims to reverence if legend had its way. There,
tradition says, King Arthur was buried. To probe the truth of this
tradition excavations were made in the reign of Henry II., and beneath the
old foundations and seven feet beneath the surface, according to Giraldus
Cambrensis, was found a broad stone bearing the name of Arthur; yet nine
feet lower was found the body of Arthur, enclosed in the trunk of a tree,
and beside him the body of Guinevere, The King's skeleton, says the
chronicler, was of extraordinary size, and the skull was covered with
wounds; the body of Guinevere was well preserved, and the colour of her
hair was of that burnished gold which ensnared more than one devout knight
to be her lover.
Yet with all that honour Glastonbury is not content, and will have it that
on its soil was erected the oldest Christian Church in England, by no less
renowned a man than St. Joseph of Arimathea, who brought to his Glastonbury
Church the Holy Grail, the cup from which the Divine Redeemer drank at the
Last Supper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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