surpassed by a ruby, not larger than a thumb-nail, which is fixed at
the right of the altar. The church is somewhat dark and particularly in
the spot where the shrine is placed, and when we went to see it the sun
was near setting and the weather cloudy; nevertheless I saw the ruby as
if I had it in my hand. They say it was given by a king of France."

To carry out the theft with impunity it was first of all necessary to
degrade the great national hero and saint and expose his memory to
ridicule. In November 1538 St Thomas was declared a traitor, every
representation of him was ordered to be destroyed, and his name was
erased from all service books, antiphones, collects and prayers under
pain of his Majesty's indignation, and imprisonment at his Grace's
pleasure. The saint indeed is said to have been cited to appear at
Westminster for treason, and there to have been tried and condemned.
That seems, too superstitiously insolent even for such a thing as
Henry. But we may believe Marillac, the French Ambassador, when he
tells us "St Thomas is declared a traitor _because_ his relics and
bones were adorned with gold and stones."

So perished the shrine and memory of St Thomas, and with it the
thousand year old religion of England to be replaced by one knows not
what.

With the destruction of religion went the destruction of the religious
houses. Of these the chief was the Benedictine monastery of Christ
Church which lay to the north of the Cathedral and whose monks from St
Augustine's time had always served it. Almost nothing remains of this,
save the Cloister and Chapter House and Treasury attached to the
Cathedral, the Castellum Aquae, now called the Baptistery, the Prior's
Chapel, now the Chapter Library, the Deanery, once part of the Prior's