In the first of the six panels devoted to Eilward of Westoning’s story, the most famous and fantastic miracle of Becket’s early cult, a judge points at two men who are holding a third – Eilward – prisoner. Eilward had taken some humble items out of the home of his neighbor, Fulk, because Fulk had refused to repay a debt of a penny. Fulk chased after Eilward, hit him on the head, and tied him up.
The second panel of Eilward’s story, with its image of Becket coming out of a shrine in the background and a sleeping man in the foreground, has long enthralled and exasperated viewers. In his sole venture into print, the glazier George Austin Jr claimed that this panel pictures THE shrine, the one that held Becket’s relics in the cathedral from 1220 to 1539, and that the man in the foreground is Benedict the miracle collector (see Arthur J. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury, note by “G.A.”).
The third scene is bloodcurdling. Eilward lies on the ground in the seconds before he is blinded and castrated for theft. A seated judge points at a man who is about to blind Eilward with a pointed stake. This man straddles a large green plank placed across Eilward's chest to hold him down. To the right, the man about to castrate Eilward holds up a knife and reaches for Eilward's privates. In the middle of the panel, a man holds onto the ropes binding Eilward's hands, and in the background are four witnesses who look on in horror.
After his blinding and castration, Eilward forgave those who injured him, promised to go on pilgrimage to Canterbury, nearly died from loss of blood, and was cared for by his twelve-year-old daughter and a kindly man in Bedford named Eilbrict. The glaziers skipped over this part of the story to show the main event in the fourth panel: Becket appearing to Eilward in a vision and healing his blinded eyes. The saint is showing making the sign of the cross over Eilward’s forehead and eye sockets with his pastoral staff.
The fifth panel is a marvelous, multi-layered image that shows Eilward on pilgrimage to Canterbury. He points at his new eyes with his left hand. With his right hand, he gives a disabled man a coin. The inscription reads “With the right hand he distributes, with the left he points out the renewed” (this inscription has been restored with backplating).
If Eilward hadn’t been miraculously healed, he would almost certainly have had to beg for a living, as does the disabled man so sensitively pictured in the fifth scene of the story. Instead, Eilward can see his way to Canterbury, and in this final panel, he bows low over Becket’s tomb and he gives thanks to the saint for restoring the body parts he had lost. Two men look on behind him, their hands held out in wonder. Though this panel is heavily restored, the inscription is well preserved.