The chapel was constructed and officiated in till the
dissolution of the monasteries; the image in St. Paul's was always
regarded with special affection; and the cognomen of _Saint_ Thomas
of Lancaster was generally accepted and understood.
Five hundred years after the execution of the Earl of Lancaster, a
large stone coffin, massive and roughly hewn, was found in a field
that belonged of old to the Priory of Pomfret, but at least a
quarter of a mile distant from the hill where the chapel stood.
Within was the skeleton of a full-grown man, partially preserved;
the skull lay between the thighs. There is no record of the
decapitation of any person at Pomfret of sufficient dignity to have
been interred in a manner showing so much care for the preservation
of the body, except the Earl of Lancaster. The coffin may have been
removed here at the time the opposite party forbade its veneration,
from motives of precaution for its safety.
Now, I shall be much obliged for information on the following
points:--
Is any thing known, beyond what I have stated, as to the
communications with Rome on the subject of his canonization, or as
to the means by which he was permitted by the English church to
become a fit object for invocation and veneration?
What are the chief historical grounds that endeared his memory to
the Church or the people? The compassion for his signal fall can
hardly account for this, although a similar motive was sufficient to
bring to the tomb of Edward II.
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