Henry and all his court were horrified when the news was brought of the archbishop’s martyrdom, for all the people proclaimed the murdered prelate a saint and a martyr, and “a martyr he clearly was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the rights of the see of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as opposed to violence.”[20] Had St. Thomas yielded in the matter of the excommunicated bishops, and sought favour with the king at the expense of the liberties and discipline of the Church, and had he given way to the savage, lawless turbulence of the king’s knights, he would not only have escaped a violent death, but might have lived long in the sunshine of the royal pleasure. He chose the rougher, steeper road, daring all to save the Church and the mass of the English people from being brought under the iron heel of a king’s absolute rule, and he paid the penalty, pouring out his blood on the stones of the minster at Canterbury to seal the vows he had taken when he first entered the city as archbishop. In his dying St. Thomas was even stronger than in his life. Henry hastened to beg the forgiveness of Rome for his rash words that had provoked the murder, and in the presence of the pope’s legates in Normandy promised to give up the Constitutions of Clarendon and to stand by the papacy against the emperor. Nor did he make any further attempt in his reign to bring the Church under the subjection of the crown, but built up a great system of legal administration, which in substance exists to-day. St. Thomas was canonised four years after his death. “There was no shadow of doubt in men’s minds that here was one who was a martyr as fully as any martyr of the catacombs and the Roman persecutions.” (R. H. Benson, _St. Thomas of Canterbury_.) Countless miracles were alleged to prove the sanctity of the dead hero, and pilgrims from all parts made their way to the shrine of the “blessful martyr” at Canterbury. Not only in England, but in France and Flanders, and particularly in Ireland was there an outburst of devotion to St. Thomas. The shrine at Canterbury was destroyed by Henry VIII., who after a mock trial of the archbishop slain more than 300 years earlier, declared that “Thomas, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, had been guilty of contumacy, treason and rebellion,” and “was no saint, but rather a rebel and traitor to his prince.”