Elizabeth, and to proceed to the Priory of St. Sepulchre, in Canterbury. The blasphemies easy to the Catholics of that time could not possibly be better shown than by this narration.

Her progress of impudent imposture at Canterbury is more than surprising-it astounds the inquirer. She delivered oracles, which were printed and commanded a large sale, and to her, for advice on the religious questions then agitating the realm, resorted many of the noblest and best in the land. Of course, with the tuition and under the protection of the Church, her opinions and advice were distinctly against the King, whom she grew so rash as to threaten, on the question of his divorce and re-marriage. Nay, more, she found it possible to admonish the Pope. Sir Thomas More believed in her holy mission; Catherine of Aragon, the divorced Queen, supported her; Henry alone cared not a rap for her prophecies of disaster. She actually forced a way into his presence at Canterbury, on his return from France. He should not, she declared, reign a month after he married Anne Boleyn, and "should die a villain's death"; but he married her and nothing happened. Strange to say-strange, after all we have heard of Henry's ferocity-nothing either happened at that time to the "Holy Maid" herself. She postponed the date of the coming disaster-put it forward a monthand still nothing happened. Greatly to the surprise of many, the King still reigned and seemed happy enough.

Meanwhile the most extravagant claims were made for the "Holy Maid." Once every fortnight, from the chapel in the Priory, she was, amidst celestial

melodies, taken up to Heaven, to God and the saints. Her passage to the chapel lay through the monks' dormitory, and, according to the acts of accusation levelled against her, her pilgrimages to that chapel were not altogether so innocent of carnal things as could have been desired. Angels constantly visited her in her cell, and when they had departed came the Devil himself, horned, hoofed. and breathing sulphureous fumes, in manner appropriate. Accounts the monks gave of this last visitor were, however, not always received with that respectful belief anticipated, and so the Maid submitted to a hole being burnt in her hand, to convince the incredulous that Old Nick had come and attempted her virtue. It is impossible to quote the grossly indecent monkish stories; but they are ingenious, as also was their practice of escorting pilgrims to the outside of her cell when the Evil One was supposed to be present. The visitors observed with their own physical eyes, and smelt, with their own nostrils, the "great stinking smokes, savouring grievously," that then issued from the crevices of the door; and went away, fearing greatly. Later, when she was arrested, a stock of brimstone and assafoetida was discovered in her apartment, and these diabolical stinks found ready explanation.

She ran a course of three years' blasphemous deception before the Act of Attainder was prepared, under which she and several of her accomplices were arrested, found guilty of high treason, and executed at Tyburn. That same Richard Masters who discovered her existence to the religious world, Dr. Bocking, and four others suffered with her,

own interest.

on April 21st, 1534. Her last words have their "Hither," said she, addressing the people, “I am come to die. I have been not only the cause of mine own death, which most justly I have deserved, but am also the cause of the death of all these persons which at this time here suffer. And yet I am not so much to be blamed, considering that it was well known unto these learned men that I was a poor wench without learning; and therefore they might have easily perceived that the things which were done by me could not proceed in no such sort; but their capacities and learning could right well judge that they were altogether feigned. But because the things which I feigned were profitable unto them, therefore they much praised me, and bare me in hand that it was the Holy Ghost, and not I that did them. And I, being puffed up with their praises, fell into a proud and foolish fantasye with myself, and thought I might feign what I would, which thing hath brought me to this case, and for the which I now cry to God and the King's Highness most heartily mercy, and desire all you good people to pray to God to have mercy on me, and all them that here suffer with me."

"If," says Lambarde, who was amused by the Maid's impudent career-" if these companions could have let the King of the land alone, they might have plaied their pageants as freely as others have been permitted, howsoever it tended to the dishonour of the King of Heaven."

CHAPTER XI

FROM HYTHE TO ASHFORD (continued)

"COBB'S HALL" stands prominently to the left of the road, after passing by the village of Aldington, and is a very noticeable old half-timbered rustic

dwelling-house, now interiorly divided into two cottages. In the up-stairs bedroom of one may be seen the remains of a fine decorative plaster ceiling and a strange pictorial plaster frieze surmounting a blocked-up fireplace. This singular design is old enough to have been here in Elizabeth Barton's

time, and she must have been familiar with its representations of Adam and Eve and their highly problematical surroundings of queer birds and beasts, not modelled from the life, and now, after centuries of wear and many coats of paint, so blunted and battered that it is difficult to tell certainly whether any particular plaster protuberance is intended for an elephant, a sheep, or a crow.

To the left of Aldington, on a road through the

alder thickets, hugging the edge of the cliffs, is Aldington Knoll, a very remarkable hillock rising boldly and bare from above the surrounding brushwood and coppices. In the legend of "The Leech of Folkestone" it is described as "a sort of woody promontory, in shape almost conical, its sides covered with thick underwood, above which is seen a bare and brown summit, rising like an Alp in miniature." To this spot it was that Master Marsh resorted, at the rising of the moon, for his meeting with the