Well, eighteen years later, the King, who had knelt before Becket's bones, was engaged in uprooting the ancient faith, and his fury was naturally felt more acutely here, on this the most sacred spot of English soil. Becket was proclaimed a traitor, and in April, 1538, the martyr, dead three hundred and sixty-eight years, was summoned to appear in Court to show reason why his shrine should not be destroyed and his name blotted out from the records of the English Church. Thirty days were allowed "Thomas Becket" (thus the Royal Proclamation styled him, without title or handle of any sort to his name) to appear, and when he failed to present himself, sentence was pronounced against him by default. The sentence was that his bones should be burnt and scattered to the winds; a poor and inadequate kind of revenge. More to the point, perhaps, was the spoliation of the shrine of the Blessed Thomas; for the Royal Commissioners sent to strip it, loaded twenty-six carts with the valuables that had accumulated here during all those centuries, in addition to two coffers of jewels and gold containing the ransom of kings. [Sidenote: THE "REGALE" RUBY] The King kept some of the jewels for his own personal use. Louis the Seventh of France had, a few years after the murder of Becket, visited the Shrine of St. Thomas, and had left there a magnificent ruby. Not merely had he left it; for the ruby--the "Regale of France," it was called--left itself, so to speak. In point of fact, it had been suggested to the French king that he should present that magnificent stone to the Shrine, and he was objecting to do so, when the great ruby leapt from the ring he was wearing and affixed itself to the Saint's reliquary, where it remained "shining so brightly that it was impossible to look steadily at it." So the visitor went away without that gorgeous stone, marvelling greatly, as we do, some seven hundred and fifty years after the event. The ruby, indifferently described as being "as large as a hen's egg," and "as large as a man's thumb-nail," was appropriated by Henry the Eighth.