"King Henry had given peace to the realm and had been as a father to his people, but now was the whole kingdom thrown into trouble and confusion."
Westminster suffered many things at the king's hands, for he forced on the monastery an Abbot, Gervase de Blois, who "managed very ill, disposing of many Abbey lands, and being so lavish with the goods of the monastery, that the monks were afraid he would have made away even with the regalia," while many Abbey lands were ravished and laid bare as the result of the civil warfare between the Empress Maud and Stephen.
At last a compact was made that Stephen should reign for his lifetime, and that Maud's son, Henry of Anjou, should succeed him; and one year after this had been agreed upon, Stephen died, lamented by no one. Henry was a strong character, a great lover of justice and order; indeed, he may be called the father of English law, and to him we owe the system of trial by jury. He found two great powers in the land, the Church and the Barons, and he determined to hold in check the influence of both.
Westminster was fortunate in having for Abbot, Lawrence, a man of much learning, and what was even more important, of much tact, for he managed to keep on excellent terms with the king, whom he persuaded to repair and cover with lead the roofs of the building. It was he who gained for the Abbey the great honour for which the whole nation had been longing, and as the result of a sermon he preached before the king, the nobles, and a great assembly of people, an embassy was sent to Rome, praying that Edward the Confessor might be raised to the honour of a saint. More than once had this appeal been made and refused, but now the Pope, who feared Henry and had a great regard for Lawrence, decreed that "this glorious light was to be no more hid from the world."
Perhaps, too, the large sum of money, willingly offered by pious Englishmen, carried some little weight.
At midnight on October 13, 1163, Abbot Lawrence with the Archbishop Thomas à Beckett opened the grave of Edward, and the "body of the glorious king, who was henceforth to be honoured on earth as he was glorified in heaven," was removed into a "precious coffin," made ready by the order of Henry II. The celebrated "pilgrim ring" Lawrence drew from his finger to keep in the monastery as a precious relic, and the anniversary of this day was solemnly kept for many a long year.