"Whanne that April with his showres sote The droughte of March hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veine in swiche licour, Of whiche vertue engendred is the flour; When Zephyrus eke with his sote brethe Enspired hath in every holt and hethe The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne, And smale foules maken melodie That slepen alle night with open eye, So priketh hem nature in hir corages; Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages And palmeres for to seken strange strondes To serve hauves couthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Englelonde, to Canterbury they wende The holy blissful martyr for to seke, That hem hath holpen when that they were seke."
The miracles performed by the bones of the blessed martyr are stated by contemporary writers to have been extraordinarily numerous. We have it on the authority of Gervase that two volumes full of these marvels were preserved at Canterbury, and in those days a volume meant a tome of formidable dimensions; but scarcely any record of these most interesting occurrences has been preserved. At the time of Henry VIII.'s quarrel with the dead archbishop--of which more anon--the name of St. Thomas and all account of his deeds was erased from every book that the strictest investigation could lay hands on. So thoroughly was this spiteful edict carried out that the records of the greatest of English saints are astonishingly meagre. A letter, however, has been preserved, written about A.D. 1390 by Richard II. to congratulate the then archbishop, William Courtenay, on a fresh miracle performed by St. Thomas: "_Litera domini Regis graciosa missa domino archiepiscopo, regraciando sibi de novo miraculo Sancti Thome Martiris sibi denunciato._" The letter refers, in its quaint Norman-French, to the good influence that will be exercised by such a manifestation, as a practical argument against the "various enemies of our faith and belief"--_noz foie et creaunce ount plousours enemys_. These were the Lollards, and the pious king says that he hopes and believes that they will be brought back to the right path by the effect of this miracle, which seems to have been worked to heal a distinguished foreigner--_en une persone estraunge_.