Pilgrim

I have been off-blog for a few days because we had a much looked forward to trip to Canterbury last week. Unfortunately, a migraine came with me, a really vicious Richter Scale migraine. I don't like to over-use my little pink pills. I was so concerned not to over-use them that I took one much too late, and the migraine stormed along for days.

Pilgrims used to come to Canterbury to visit the tomb of St Thomas a Becket, which was supposed to be a good place for miracles. As he died from severe injuries to the skull he should be sympathetic to people with headaches, so maybe I should have asked him for a favour. But I don't know where he is just now. Nobody does!
Here's a very brief outline of the story.

Thomas a Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry II, 'Curtmantle'. They were both determined and powerful men, and were great friends apart from their clashes over Church and State. At the height of one of his rages one Christmas, Henry II shouted 'will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?', and four knights took him at his word. They rode to Canterbury, burst into the cathedral, set on Thomas and killed him before the altar.

It was an act that brought horror on the country and shame on those four men. Henry himself was overcome with guilt, and made regular pilgrimages to Thomas's tomb. Soon, there were tales of prayers being granted and miracles occurring at Canterbury. Pilgrims swarmed there, and the tomb of St Thomas a Becket became one of the most famous sites in Christendom - until Henry VIII had his Great Tantrum and holy sites all over the country were destroyed. The shrine was broken up and the bones of Thomas Becket were reportedly burned.

To this day, there are those who doubt that this actually happened. Some say that the monks secretly hid the bones of their saint before the king's men arrived, and subsituted a skeleton from their own burial ground. So when you go to Canterbury today, you can stand at the place where he died. You can visit the first and second places where his tomb was placed. But his grave isn't there.

Or is it? Does he still lie in some hidden place in his cathedral? Or, as I like to think, are his ashes mixed with the earth around it?

Many years ago, when Tony had stood up to somebody who needed it, he was referred to as 'that turbulent young priest'. It was one of the proudest moments of my life.