Page:The religious life of King Henry VI.djvu/112

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86
THE CANONIZATION OF

in many cases with minute details of persons, circumstances, and times, had been undertaken in order that it might be submitted to the judgement of ecclesiastical authority; and from the marginal annotations in another contemporary hand—"probatum," "nullius effectus," "non reperitur," "non probatum,"—it is clear that an attempt to weigh the evidence was in fact made. The earliest miracle recorded is assigned to 148 1; the last is dated July 1 500.

The permission granted by Pope Alexander VI for the translation of the body of Henry VI to Westminster was not acted upon at the time, and in 1502 King Henry VII began to prepare for the building of the celebrated chapel at Westminster which goes by his name. The foundation stone was laid "at a quarter of an houre afore three of the clock, at afternoon" on 24th January 1503. He intended that it should contain the body of his saintly predecessor, and in fact the shrine that he prepared for the relics remains to attest his veneration and his firm expectation that his petition for Henry's canonization would most certainly be ultimately granted.

Time went on, and for one reason or another