The Mirror & the Light (Thomas Cromwell, #3)

by Hilary Mantel

Now down to dust with them go all the Glastonbury relics, two saints called Benignus and two kings called Edmund, a queen called Bathilde, Athelstan the half-king, Brigid and Crisanta and the broken head of Bede. Farewell, Guthlac and Gertrude, Hilda and Hubertus, two abbots called Seifridus and a Pope called Urbanus. Adieu, Odilia, Aiden and Alphege, Wenta, Walburga, and Cesarius the martyr: sink from man’s sight, with your muddles and your mistranscriptions, with the shaking of your flaky fingerbones and the compound jumble of your skulls. Let us bury them once and for all, the skeletons of mice that mingle with holy dust; the ragged pieces of your tunics, your hair shirts clumped with blood, your snippets and your off-cuts and the crisp charred clothing of the three men who escaped from the Burning Fiery Furnace. That lily has faded, that the Virgin held on the day the angel came.