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IN REGARD TO THE MURDER OF THOMAS A’BECKET;
From "Abbey’s And Castles of England, by John Timbs and Alexander Gunn.
It is worth while here to note an instance of the supernaturalism
related as a judgment upon the murderers of Becket, at Canterbury,
and known as a popular tradition at South Malling as late as the
fourteenth century. It is thus concisely narrated by Dean Stanley
in his Memorials of Canterbury:-"They (the murderers) rode to
Saltwood the night of the deed; the next day (thirty miles by the
coast) to South Malling. On entering the house they threw off their
arms and trappings on the dining-table, which stood in the hall, and
after supper gathered round the blazing hearth. Suddenly the table
started back and threw its burthen to the ground. The attendants,
roused by the crash, rushed in with lights, and replaced the arms.
But a second and still louder crash was heard, and various articles
were thrown still further off. Soldiers and servants with torches
scrambled in vain under the solid table to find the cause of the
convulsions, till one of the conscience-stricken knights suggested
that it was indignantly refusing to bear the sacrilegious burthen of
their arms - the earliest and most memorable instance," says
Dr. Stanley, "of a rapping, leaping, and moving table."