And it came to pass in those days, that \when/ Simon \used/ took the hair shirt, about which I already remarked, that you might at that time hear serious and religious men of various orders throughout England saying (and some of them who came to Scotland used to say the same thing), that after \his/death, they would no less prefer to choose to visit his tomb than to travel overseas to Jerusalem for the purpose of praying to the Most High. This was on account of the austerity of Simon’s life, in the haircloth which he wore, for those who shared his quarters with him had made it known among some of their more intimate friends that Simon used a shirt of hair, and so Simon it was found out; ‘for there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed.’¹ Another reason was that he had taken in hand the most righteous cause of defending the native-born people of England. There were others who said, that if Simon had already died then for the sake of justice (as he afterwards did), they would as readily go to his tomb to pray to God there, as to the great shrine of the holy martyr Thomas in which he rests at Canterbury, /\ adorned with \many/ \very many/ almost innumerable precious stones, *.² And so, this was the kind of reasoning they would make for themselves when they talked with each other, that Simon died for no less a just cause—the legitimate possessions of England—than had Thomas died for in times past—for the lawful cause of the churches of England. Both of them had died lawfully in their own day, clothed in the penance of haircloth—a penance which sooner than any other leads a man to God—that they might \the more easily/ deserve to gain the clothing of eternal incorruption³ through the penitence which, justly inspired by God, they willingly embraced for the sake of justice. After Simon’s descent into a precious death, the Friars Minor, whom he had loved in religious manner, and who have themselves been privy to the inmost thoughts of his heart in many respects, in in taking the subject matter from his life out of his outstanding deeds an esteemed Historia about him, namely lections, responsories, verses, a hymn,⁴ and the other things appropriate to the glory and honour of one martyr. But while Edward remains alive it is expected that this [office] shall not be solemnly sung in God’s Church . Several who belittled this holy man after his death earned an ignominious death. One of them was a canon of Alnwick, who, after he had excessively and unnecessarily denigrated Simon one day (for [the relic of] his foot had not yet reached that monastery), the next morning, when he had to rise from his bed, found no eye in his accursed head, for the previous day he had falsely sworn ‘by God’s eyes’ that Simon was a traitor to the king of England and his chief men; and so it is no wonder his eyes fell out of his head on their own; divine vengeance was punishing him on Simon’s account; indeed, in place of each eye there was found a deep