Kentish miracle with a hope that something might come of it. A good deal actually did so come, but not greatly to the advantage of Roman Catholicism.

"Keep you," said he, " diligent accompt of all her utterances they come surely of God, and tell her that she is not to refuse or hide His goodness and works."

As a result of this ghostly advice of the Archbishop, Masters returned and persuaded Bailiff Cobb that pot-scouring and scullery-work were occupations distinctly beneath the dignity of one clearly the elect of the Holy Spirit, and she was promoted immediately to the place of an honoured guest in his house. At the same time she experienced a recovery, and became again the clumsy, big-footed country wench of yore. Meanwhile, however, the fame of her "prophecies" was bruited about in all that countryside the cunning Richard Masters saw to that—and Cobb's house became a place of pilgrimage. Some came for the merely vulgar purpose of having their fortunes told; others sought the laying on of hands, for one so gifted could surely cure the ailing; and all combined to make Cobb's life a misery.

None was more disappointed at her recovery and consequent descent from supernatural heights to her former commonplace level than Elizabeth herself, and she determined to simulate her former natural trances. This iniquity seems to have been suggested by the Church, in the persons of two monks sent by the Archbishop from Canterbury. Those worthies, the cellarer of the Priory of Christ Church, one Doctor Bocking, and Dan William Hadley-took her under instruction. They educated the previously ignorant girl in the marvellous legends of the old

Catholic female saints, taught her to believe herself one of that company, and coached her in all the abstruse doctrines of their religion. In her recurring cataleptic states, sometimes real, but oftener feigned, she re-delivered all these doctrines, and naturally astonished those who had known her for ignorant and absolutely without education, into a belief in her divine mission.

At this juncture it was thought desirable to transfer her to the neighbouring Chapel of Our

Lady, where she might not only work good to the Church in general, but attract pilgrims and their offerings to the shrine, which of late had been doing very bad business, and was scarcely selfsupporting. No one in our own times understands the art of advertisement better than did the religious of those days, and the occasion of her transference from Cobb's Hall to the Chapel was made the occasion for a great ceremonial. She had given out that she "would never take health of her body till such time as she had visited the image of Our Lady" at that place, and, indeed, declared that the

Virgin had appeared to her and promised recovery on her obedience.

On that great day-the thing had been made so public-there were over two thousand persons present to witness the promised miracle, the whole concourse singing the Litany and repeating psalms and orations while Elizabeth was borne to the spot on a litter, acting to perfection the part of one possessed, "her face wondrously disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes being in a manner plucked out and lying upon her cheeks.

There was then heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had been in a tunne, her lips not greatly moving; she all that while continuing by the space of three hours or more in a trance. The which voice, when it told anything of the joys of Heaven, spake so sweetly and so heavenly that every man was ravished with the hearing thereof; and contrarywise, when it told anything of Hell, it spake so horribly and terribly that it put the hearers in a great fear. It spake also many things for the confirmation of pilgrimages and trentals, hearing of masses and confession, and many other such things. And after she had lyen there a long time, she came to herself again, and was perfectly whole"; and no wonder, for she was shamming all the while, with the aid of a cunning ventriloquist, who thus spoke so sweetly of Heaven and so horribly of Hell.

But this "miracle so successfully imposed upon the people that she was, without exception, regarded as a saint. The Virgin, on second thoughts, personally desired her not to take up her residence in the Chapel, but to take Dr. Bocking for her spiritual father, to assume the name of Sister

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 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,