Page:History of england froude.djvu/341

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1531.]
CHURCH AND STATE
319

thing to the income of the priest; and if, by a fresh demonstration of the Virgin's presence at the favoured spot, the number of these pilgrims could be increased, they would add more. For both reasons, therefore, the miracle was desired; and the priest and the monk were agreed that any means were justifiable which would encourage the devotion of the people.[1] Accordingly, the girl announced, in one of her trances, that 'she would never take health of her body till such time as she had visited the image of our Lady' in that chapel. The Virgin had herself appeared to her, she said, and had fixed a day for her appearance there, and had promised that on her obedience she would present herself in person and take away her disorder.[2] The day came; and as (under the circumstances) there was no danger of failure, the holy fathers had collected a vast concourse of people to witness the marvel. The girl was conducted to the chapel by a procession of more than two thousand persons, headed by the monk, the clergyman, and many other religious persons, the whole multitude 'singing the litany and saying divers psalms and orations by the way.'

'And when she was brought thither[3] and laid before the image of our Lady, her face was wonderfully disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes being in a manner plucked out and laid upon her cheeks, and so greatly deformed. There was then heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had been in a tonne, her lips

  1. 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Cranmer's Letter, Ellis, third series, vol. iii. p. 315.