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., in Gloucester Cathedral, an amount of offerings that added considerably to the splendour of the edifice.

Are any anecdotes or circumstances recorded, respecting the worship of this saint in later times, than I have referred to?

{183} What is the historic probability that the stone coffin, discovered in 1822, contained the remains of this remarkable man?

I have no doubt that much curious and valuable matter might be discovered, by pursuing into the remote receptacles of historical knowledge the lives and characters of persons who have become, in Catholic times, the unauthorised objects of popular religious reverence after death.

RICH.  MONCKTON MILNES.
26.  Pall Mall, Jan. 12th.

[To this interesting communication we may add that “The Office of St. Thomas of Lancaster,” which begins,

    “Gaude Thoma, ducum decus, lucerna Lancastriae,”

is printed in the volume of “Political Songs” edited by Mr. Wright for the Camden Society, from a Royal MS. in the British Museum.—­MS. Reg. 12.]

* * * * *

SHIELD OF THE BLACK PRINCE—­SWORD OF CHARLES I.

In Bolton’s Elements of Armories, 1610, p. 67., is an engraving of a very interesting shield, of the kind called “Pavoise,” which at that period hung over the tomb of Edward the Black Prince, at Canterbury, in addition to the shield still remaining there.  Bolton says, “The sayd victorious Princes tombe is in the goodly Cathedral Church erected to the honour of Christ, in Canterburie; there (beside his quilted coat-armour, with half-sleeves, Taberd fashion, and his triangular shield, both of them painted with the royall armories of our kings, and differenced with silver labels) hangs this kind of Pavis or Target, curiously (for those times) embost and painted, and the Scutcheon in the bosse being worne out, and the Armes (which, it seemes, were the same with his coate armour, and not any particular devise) defaced, and is altogether of the same kinde with that upon which (Froissard reports) the dead body of the Lord Robert of Dvras, and nephew to the Cardinall of Pierregoort, was laid, and sent unto that Cardinale, from the Battell of Poictiers, where the Blacke Prince obtained a Victorie, the renowne whereof is immortale.”