HOLY MAID OF KENT

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 108, 2 November 1929, Page 20

HOLY MAID OF KENT

A TRADITION THAT LIVES

Just where'the- Weald of Kent is bounded on themorth by aline of grassy cliff, near the Lympno Aerodrome and Sir Philip Sassobn's beautiful gardens there stands a. little, roofless, weed-cov-ered ruin, the Ghapel of Our Lady in Court-at-street,- writes a correspondent in the "Daily Telegraph." Its walls are built of hard, grey stone dug from the surrounding soil, and nearby watereresses grow; freely in a lonely pond, around which, sheep browse and rabbits burrow. undisturbed above the marsh that stretches, hazy and silent, to the sea. There was a tinid when this hillside was crowded with hundreds of peasantfolk from far and near, and among them moved a woman, Elizabeth Barton, "the Maid of K>nt." She was in the service of one, Thomas Cobb, whose house, a mile away, afc Aldington, is conspicuous with rows of dark oak beams down its white-washed front. Pictures come before the niind—of the Maid pouring iorth' xher frenzied utterances against vice and sin; or her "inspired" political prophecies; and of the gentler side of her nature when she laid her hands ,'tpon the sick and healed them; and then -of a confession of fraud and.her execution because she had forecast evil to King Henry. VIII. if he divorced Catherine. There is no'•'•doubt .that Elizabeth was physically and mentally abnormal. The monks who took charge of her when she had begun to attract attention were certainly guilty of. using her prophetic arid' curative"-powers for their own ends. ;! .-; '■■ /. ■ .'."... ■ ' ; Though, it may; seem incredible that anyone to-day .Bhouid care, about the words of this poor, scullery-wench, or her drastic heaven and hell, if a stranger were to ask for somo watercress from the stream near the ruined chapel the answer, would certainly.be, "No one eats the cress from that pond/ for there'the Holy Maid was wont to wash the pilgrims' feet." Sho still lives, honoured in. local tradition, who was condemned by the Star Chamber as a heretic and hanged at Tyburn 400 years ago.