"The sacred shrine of holy S. Cuthbert was defaced at the visitation held at Durham, by Dr. Lee, Dr. Henly, and Mr. Blithman. They found many valuable jewels. After the spoil of his ornaments, they approached near to his body, expecting nothing but dust and ashes; but perceiving the chest he lay in strongly bound with iron, the goldsmith, with a smith's great forge hammer, broke it open, when they found him lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth, and all the vestments about him, as he was accustomed to say mass. When the goldsmith perceived he had broken one of his legs in breaking open the chest, he was sore troubled at it, and cried, 'Alas! I have broken one of his legs'; which Dr. Henly hearing, called to him, and bade him cast down his bones. The other answered, he could not get them asunder, for the sinews and skin held them so that they would not separate. Then Dr. Lee stept up to see if it were so, and turning about, spake in Latin to Dr. Henly that he was entire, though Dr. Henly, not believing his words, called again to have his bones cast down. Dr. Lee answered, 'If you will not believe me, come up yourself and see him.' Then Dr. Henly stept up to him, and handled him, and found he lay whole; then he commanded them to take him down, and so it happened, that not only his body was whole and uncorrupted, but the vestments wherein his body lay, and wherein he was accustomed to say mass, were fresh, safe, and not consumed. Whereupon the visitors commanded him to be carried into the revestry, till the king's pleasure concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof, the prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his shrine was exalted." Harpsfield, who flourished at the time, and who was a most faithful and zealous Catholic, gives a similar account; he, however, does not say that the leg bone was broken, but that the flesh was wounded; and that the body was entire except that "the prominent part of the nose, I know not why, was wanting." And he adds that, "a grave was made in the ground, in that very spot previously occupied by his precious shrine, and there the body was deposited. And not only his body, but even the vestments in which it was clothed, were perfectly entire, and free from all taint and decay. There was upon his finger a ring of gold, ornamented with a sapphire, which I myself once saw and handled and kissed. There were present, among others, when this sacred body was exposed to daylight, Doctor Whithead, the president of the monastery, Dr. Sparke, Dr. Tod, and William Wilam, the keeper of the sacred shrine. And thus it is abundantly manifest, that the body of S. Cuthbert remained inviolate and uncontaminated eight hundred and forty years."