In the center of this chapel, and between these two monuments, formerly stood Thomas a Becket’s famous shrine.  The chapel was added to the cathedral for the express purpose of receiving his remains.  At the height of the pilgrimages, about 100,000 people are said to have visited it every year.  The steps that lead to it show how they were deeply worn by pilgrims, who ascended in pairs on their knees.  Where stood the shrine the pavement has also been worn deeply down to the shape of the human knee by pilgrims while in prayer.  Each pilgrim brought an offering, and nothing less than gold was accepted.  Not alone the common people, but princes, kings and great church dignitaries from foreign lands came with gifts.  Erasmus was here in 1510 and wrote of the Becket shrine that it “shone and glittered with the rarest and most precious jewels of an extraordinary largeness, some larger than the egg of a goose.”

The brilliant duration of these pilgrimages came finally to a sudden end.  During the Reformation, Henry VIII. seized and demolished the shrine.  The treasure, filling two large chests, and which eight men could with difficulty carry, was seized, and on the adjoining pavement the bones of the saint were burned.  Not a single relic of Becket now remains in Canterbury.  With no ordinary feeling does one stand amid the scene of this most interesting and curious chapter in church history.  Not far from the shrine is the place where the murder of Becket was committed.  You are shown the actual stone that was stained with his blood.  A piece of this stone, about four inches square, was cut out of the pavement at the time of the murder and sent to Rome, where it is still preserved.  Among many interesting tombs not already referred to are those of the great St. Dunstan; of Admiral Rooke, the hero of Gibraltar; of Stephen Langton (immortal with Magna Charta), and of Archbishop Pole, of Mary Tudor’s time, who died the same day as that queen, and thus made clear Elizabeth’s path to a restoration of Protestantism.

After the cathedral, the most interesting place in Canterbury is St. Martin’s Church.  With few exceptions—­including, perhaps, a very early and well-preserved church in Ravenna—­it is doubted if an older Christian church now remains in Europe.  There certainly is none that can claim more interest for Englishmen and for descendants of Englishmen in the New World.  St. Martin’s is somewhat removed from the town, where it stands alone on a sloping knoll, and is very simple in form.  The tower that rises over the doorway is built of plain Roman brick and broken flint stones, and has occasionally a piece of drest stone on corners.  The tower is square and rises about ten feet above the roof.  Almost any mason could have built this church.  A luxuriant growth of ivy covers nearly all its parts.  Rude in outline and finish are all its parts, ivy has added to St. Martin’s the only beauty it could possibly claim.