ught offerings to the shrines where it was supposed that the relics were
of greatest potency. The clergy, to secure the offerings, invented the
relics, and invented the stories of the wonders which had been worked by
them. The greatest exposure of these things took place at the visitation of
the religious houses. In the meantime, Bishop Shaxton's unsavoury inventory
of what passed under the name of relics in the diocese of Salisbury, will
furnish an adequate notion of these objects of popular veneration. There
"be set forth and commended unto the ignorant people," he said, "as I
myself of certain which be already come to my hands, have perfect
knowledge, stinking boots, mucky combes, ragged rochettes, rotten girdles,
pyl'd purses, great bullocks' horns, locks of hair, and filthy rags,
gobbetts of wood, under the name of parcels of the holy cross, and such
pelfry beyond estimation."[555] Besides matters of this kind, there were
images of the Virgin or of the Saints; above all, roods or crucifixes, of
especial potency, the virtues of which had begun to grow uncertain,
however, to sceptical Protestants; and from doubt to denial, and from
denial to passionate hatred, there were but a few brief steps. The most
famous of the roods was that of Boxley in Kent, which used to smile and
bow, or frown and shake its head, as its worshippers were generous or
closehanded. The fortunes and misfortunes of this image I shall by and bye
have to relate. There was another, however, at Dovercourt, in Suffolk, of
scarcely inferior fame. This image was of such power that the door of the
church in which it stood was open at all hours to all comers, and no human
hand could close it. Dovercourt therefore became a place of great and
lucrative pilgrimage, much resorted to by the neighbours on all occasions
of difficulty.

Now it happened that within the circuit of a few miles there lived four
young men, to whom the virtues of the rood had become greatly questionable.
If it could work miracles, it must be capable, so they thought, of
protecting its own substance; and they agreed to apply a practical test
which would determine the extent of its abilities. Accordingly (about the
time of Bainham's first imprisonment), Robert King of Dedham, Robert
Debenham of Eastbergholt, Nicholas Marsh of Dedham, and Robert Gardiner of
Dedham, "their consciences being burdened to see the honour of Almighty God
so blasphemed by such an idol," started off "on a wondrous