enter into the port of everlasting felicity, through Christ our LORD.

"O GOD, Who broughtest Thy servant Abraham from Ur of the Chaldæans, and didst protect him through all the way in which he went, and among all the people through whom he passed; be unto us, we pray Thee, in our preparation a Support, in our journey a Solace, in the heat a Shadow, in the storm a Covering, in weariness a Consolation, in rough places a Staff, in shipwreck a Port; that so we may by Thy guidance return in peace unto our own homes.

"Assist us mercifully, O LORD, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of Thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by Thy most gracious and ready help.

"Grant to us, we pray Thee, Almighty God, that this Thy Family may walk in the way of Salvation, and following the example of blessed John, Thy forerunner, may finally attain to that place whereof he taught, through JESUS CHRIST Our LORD, Who with Thee and the HOLY GHOST, liveth and reigneth, One GOD, world without end. Amen.

"Let us set forth," he continued, "in peace."

"In the name of the LORD," chanted the Choir. "Amen."

In half-an-hour, the vessel that bore the Arch

bishop to his home, was bounding towards England. Let us leave her to pursue her easy voyage, and to land him on the following day at Sandwich; while we remain in France, to trace the schemes of his enemies.

Sir William de Tracy had used all his influence with the King to induce him, if possible, to compel Becket to free those from his anathema who persisted in their sacrilege. But Henry, though sorely chafed at this new proof of the Primate's firmness, was not willing to engage in a dispute where the right so evidently lay on his adversary's side; though at the same time he made no scruple of declaring that the firmness of those who retained the possessions of the church of Canterbury was by no means unpleasant to him. De Tracy, in writing to his friend Sir Ranulph de Broc, used every effort to excite him to perseverance: he represented that the Primate was odious to nearly all the Barons; that the two excommunicated Bishops had a strong party in their favour; that the high hand with which Church censures were carried would disgust many who had been previously partizans of Archbishop Becket; that the King's cause would finally prevail; and that a little firmness would enable him to retain that for which he had already suffered so much. It was not De Tracy's hatred to the Archbishop alone that induced him to bestow so much pains in keeping back these manors; he wished to support his own character, which was none of the best, by the

co-operation of one which stood so high as did that of Sir Ranulph de Broc; and to do this, he wished to engage the latter in an implacable feud with the Archbishop. Agnes, meanwhile, had returned to the Nunnery of S. Mary, and there, in sorrow and trembling, awaited the issue; fully determined that she would never give herself to Sir Ranulph, till he had made full and free reparation to the Church.

De Tracy, who had long borne the most mortal hatred to the Archbishop, from having been, some years previously to the commencement of our tale, excommunicated by him for some unjust dealing, and not restored till he had made due amends, had determined, from the time of the Primate's disgrace, to take on him the fullest and most ample revenge. After sounding several of those who were most rancorous against him, he at length darkly hinted to Sir Reginald Fitz-Urse, a man almost as abandoned as himself, only as much his superior in brute courage as his inferior in cunning, that the death of the Primate would be the only means by which the difficult and tedious dispute would be settled. He further asserted, that though the King could not but express his horror of the deed before it were committed, nothing could in fact be more grateful to him when once performed; and to prove this, he strung together the many expressions of anger into which at various times he had burst, when mentioning the Archbishop's name. Fitz-Urse, as soon as there was any prospect of reward, willingly lent himself to

the scheme; and having mentioned Sir Richard de Brito as one likely to join in it, he was accordingly admitted into the plot; and the co-operation of Sir Hugh de Morville, to a certain extent (how far, the course of our tale will shew), was secured. The names of the conspirators are curiously introduced in an allegorical, moral, and historical poem, composed by a contemporary author on the Death of the Martyr:

Tres sunt: Mortis villicus, Thrax, et Urso natus ;

Ut sit tetras, tribus est Brito sociatus:

Paria rebus nomina facit hic reatus ;

Truces et mortiferos, brutos, ursi status.

It was agreed between the three principal workers of this deed of darkness, that the first violent action on the part of their great enemy, or the first expression of anger from the King which could by any possibility be construed to an approval of their design, should be his death-warrant.

So stood matters for the present. In the meanwhile the Primate had arrived in England, and had landed in the very port of Sandwich, whence, six years and three weeks before, he had sailed to his exile. On his first landing he was exposed to much danger from the shouts and threats of the rabble, who demanded with loud cries the restoration of the excommunicated Bishops; and he was indebted to the friendly interference of his old enemy, John of Oxford, for his escape. That same night he reached Canterbury. The monks of S. Augustine's,

M

with Abbat Odo at their head, went forth chanting the Confitemini Domino, the cxviiith Psalm, telling how it is better to trust in the LORD than to put any confidence in man; better to trust in the LORD than to put any confidence in princes; how the Right Hand of the LORD doeth valiantly, the Right Hand of the LORD bringeth mighty things to pass; how the stone which the builders refused was become the Headstone of the corner; how it was the LORD's doing, and marvellous in their eyes. "Help," they continued, "O LORD! O LORD, send us now prosperity! Blessed be he that cometh in the Name of the LORD: we have wished you good luck, ye that are of the House of LORD!" And Canterbury poured out her citizens by thousands, to welcome in her Prelate. Mayor and aldermen in their robes of office, yeomen and merchants, mechanics and handicraftsmen, free and bond, serf and noble, Saxon and Norman, vied to do homage to the constancy and the victory of the returning Confessor. Fair faces and bright eyes lined the narrow windows; the bells from S. Mary in the Castle, and S. George the Martyr, and S. Dunstan, and S. Alphege, pealed continuously; above the rest, S. Ethelbert's Tower and S. Augustine's Cathedral thundered their welcome; rushes, and such winter flowers as the season afforded, willingly offered from the land of the knight and the garden of the peasant, strewed the way. Thus, with triumph and rejoicings, went Thomas of Canterbury on the way that he was

never to return.