There remained at the end of the fifteenth century but one thing
needed--the central Tower. This, as it happened, was to be the last
great Gothic work undertaken in this country, and in every way it is
one of the most impressive and successful. Begun in 1475 and finished
in 1503, the Angel Steeple is the last of Catholicism in England, and
I like to think of it towering as it does over that dead city, and the
low hills of Kent, over all that was once so sacred and is now
nothing, as a kind of beacon, a sign of hope until it shall ring the
Angelus again and once more the sons of St Benedict shall chant the
Mass of St Thomas before the shrine new made: _Gaudeamus omnes in
Domino, diem festum celebrantes, sub honore beati Thomae Martyris, de
cujus passione gaudent angeli et collaudant filium Dei_.
For the great shrine, which for so long had been the loftiest beacon
in England of the Christian Faith, was destroyed. It was the first
work of the last Henry to avenge his namesake, and having made another
Thomas martyr in the same cause, to wipe out for ever all memory of
the first who had steadfastly withstood his predecessor.
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