Henry wore Louis VII.'s diamond in a ring. The costly shrine was
destroyed, and the pavement, worn by the knees of the pilgrims, alone
remained to show where Becket's tomb had been. In London, the house of
Gilbert a Becket, in Southwark, where the Saracen lady had ended her
toilsome journey, and where Thomas had been born, had, in Henry III.'s
reign, been made a hospital; Edward VI. granted it for the same use; and
thus it still remains, by its old name of St. Thomas's Hospital, which
perhaps would not so generally be given it, if it were known after what
saint it was so called. His likeness was destroyed in every church and
public building, so that but one head of St. Thomas a Becket is known
to exist in England--namely, one in stained glass, at the village of
Horton, in Ribblesdale--and even in missals and breviaries it was
defaced.
No one has met with more abuse than Becket, ever since the Reformation.
Proud, ostentatious, hypocritical, and rebellious--these are the terms
usually bestowed on him. How far he deserves them, may be judged from a
life detailed with unusual minuteness by three intimate companions, none
of them treating him as faultless. Of the rights of the struggle we will
not speak. No one can doubt that Becket gave his life for the cause
which, in all sincerity, he deemed that of the Church against the World.
The fate of the murderers has been questioned in later times.
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