Jusserand tells us that the royal fee on such occasions was seven shillings; the ordinances of Edward the Second make especial mention of the sum. It does not seem munificent, when we remember that Canute took off his crown and laid it on St. Edmund's shrine; but there were occasions when even seven shillings were notably lacking. The Chronicles of Jocelin of Brakelond, quoted by Carlyle in "Past and Present," relate minutely how King John came to St. Edmundsbury with a large retinue, how he gave the abbot thirteen pence, beseeching in return a Mass, and presented to the shrine a silken cloak, which was carried promptly away by one of his followers, so that the monks beheld it no more. When Henry the Eighth and Catharine of Aragon visited Walsingham, the king hung around the statue's neck a string of pearls and golden beads, and perhaps was not unmoved subsequently by a desire to have it back again.
"Of all our Ladyes, I love best our Lady of Walsyngham," says Sir Thomas More in one of his "Dyalogues," reflecting the common sentiment of the past three hundred years, and
