LIFE OF THOMAS À BECKET.

[SN: Legend.]

Popular poetry, after the sanctification of Becket, delighted in

throwing the rich colors of marvel over his birth and parentage. It

invented, or rather interwove with the pedigree of the martyr, one of

those romantic traditions which grew out of the wild adventures of the

crusades, and which occur in various forms in the ballads of all

nations. That so great a saint should be the son of a gallant champion

of the cross, and of a Saracen princess, was a fiction too attractive

not to win general acceptance. The father of Becket, so runs the legend,

a gallant soldier, was a captive in the Holy Land, and inspired the

daughter of his master with an ardent attachment. Through her means he

made his escape; but the enamored princess could not endure life without

him. She too fled and made her way to Europe. She had learned but two

words of the Christian language, London and Gilbert. With these two

magic sounds upon her lips she reached London; and as she wandered

through the streets, constantly repeating the name of Gilbert, she was

met by Becket's faithful servant. Becket, as a good Christian, seems to

have entertained religious scruples as to the propriety of wedding the

faithful, but misbelieving, or, it might be, not sincerely believing

maiden. The case was submitted to the highest authority, and argued

before the Bishop of London. The issue was the baptism of the princess,

by the name of Matilda (that of the empress queen,) and their marriage

in St. Paul's, with the utmost publicity and splendor.

But of this wondrous tale, not one word had reached the ears of any of

the seven or eight contemporary biographers of Becket, most of them his

most intimate friends or his most faithful attendants.[2] It was neither

known to John of Salisbury, his confidential adviser and correspondent,

nor to Fitz-Stephen, an officer of his court in chancery, and dean of

his chapel when archbishop, who was with him at Northampton, and at his

death; nor to Herbert de Bosham, likewise one of his officers when

chancellor, and his faithful attendant throughout his exile; nor to the

monk of Pontigny, who waited upon him and enjoyed his most intimate

confidence during his retreat in that convent; nor to Edward Grim, his

standard-bearer, who on his way from Clarendon, reproached him with his

weakness, and having been constantly attached to his person, finally

interposed his arm between his master and the first blow of the

assassin. Nor were these ardent admirers of Becket silent from any

severe aversion to the marvelous; they relate, with unsuspecting faith,

dreams and prognostics which revealed to the mother the future greatness

of her son, even his elevation to the see of Canterbury.[3]

To the Saxon descent of Becket, a theory in which, on the authority of

an eloquent French writer,[4] modern history has seemed disposed to

acquiesce, these biographers not merely give no support, but furnish

direct contradiction. The lower people no doubt admired during his life,

and worshiped after death, the blessed Thomas of Canterbury, and the

people were mostly Saxon. But it was not as a Saxon, but as a Saint,

that Becket was the object of unbounded popularity during his life, of

idolatry after his death.

[SN: Parentage and education.]

The father of Becket, according to the distinct words of one

contemporary biographer, was a native of Rouen, his mother of Caen.[5]

Gilbert was no knight-errant, but a sober merchant, tempted by

commercial advantages to settle in London: his mother neither boasted of

royal Saracenic blood, nor bore the royal name of Matilda: she was the

daughter of an honest burgher of Caen. His Norman descent is still

further confirmed by his claim of relationship, or connexion at least,

as of common Norman descent, with Archbishop Theobald.[6] The parents of

Becket, he asserts himself, were merchants of unimpeached character, not

of the lowest class. Gilbert Becket is said to have served the

honorable office of sheriff, but his fortune was injured by fires and

other casualties.[7] [SN: Born A. D. 1118.] The young Becket received

his earliest education among the monks of Merton in Surrey, towards whom

he cherished a fond attachment, and delighted to visit them in the days

of his splendor. The dwelling of a respectable London merchant seems to

have been a place where strangers of very different pursuits, who

resorted to the metropolis of England, took up their lodging: and to

Gilbert Becket's house came persons both disposed and qualified to

cultivate in various ways the extraordinary talents displayed by the

youth, who was singularly handsome, and of engaging manners.[8] A

knight, whose name, Richard de Aquila, occurs with distinction in the

annals of the time, one of his father's guests, delighted in initiating

the gay and spirited boy in chivalrous exercises, and in the chase with

hawk and hound. On a hawking adventure the young Becket narrowly escaped

being drowned in the Thames. At the same time, or soon after, he was

inured to business by acting as clerk to a wealthy relative, Osborn

Octuomini, and in the office of the Sheriff of London.[9] His

accomplishments were completed by a short residence in Paris, the best

school for the language spoken by the Norman nobility. To his father's

house came likewise two learned civilians from Bologna, no doubt on some

mission to the Archbishop of Canterbury. They were so captivated by

young Becket, that they strongly recommended him to Archbishop

Theobald, whom the father of Becket reminded of their common honorable

descent from a knightly family near the town of Thiersy.[10] Becket was

at once on the high road of advancement. [SN: In the household of the

Archbishop.] His extraordinary abilities were cultivated by the wise

patronage, and employed in the service of the primate. Once he

accompanied that prelate to Rome;[11] and on more than one other

occasion visited that great centre of Christian affairs. He was

permitted to reside for a certain time at each of the great schools for

the study of the canon law, Bologna and Auxerre.[12] He was not,

however, without enemies. Even in the court of Theobald began the

jealous rivalry with Roger, afterwards Archbishop of York, then

Archdeacon of Canterbury.[13] Twice the superior influence of the

archdeacon obtained his dismissal from the service of Theobald; twice he

was reinstated by the good offices of Walter, Bishop of Rochester. At

length the elevation of Roger to the see of York left the field open to

Becket. He was appointed to the vacant archdeaconry, the richest

benefice, after the bishoprics, in England. From that time he ruled

without rival in the favor of the aged Theobald. Preferments were heaped

upon him by the lavish bounty of his patron.[14] During his exile he

was reproached with his ingratitude to the king, who had raised him from

poverty. "Poverty!" he rejoined; "even then I held the archdeaconry of

Canterbury, the provostship of Beverley, a great many churches, and

several prebends."[15] The trial and the triumph of Becket's precocious

abilities was a negotiation of the utmost difficulty with the court of

Rome. The first object was to obtain the legatine power for Archbishop

Theobald; the second tended, more than almost all measures, to secure

the throne of England to the house of Plantagenet. Archbishop Theobald,

with his clergy, had inclined to the cause of Matilda and her son; they

had refused to officiate at the coronation of Eustace, son of King

Stephen. Becket not merely obtained from Eugenius III. the full papal

approbation of this refusal, but a condemnation of Stephen (whose title

had before been sanctioned by Eugenius himself,) as a perjured

usurper.[16]

[SN: Accession of Henry II. Dec. 19, 1154.]

But on the accession of Henry II., the aged Archbishop began to tremble

at his own work; serious apprehensions arose as to the disposition of

the young king towards the Church. His connexion was but remote with the

imperial family (though his mother had worn the imperial crown, and some

imperial blood might flow in his veins); but the Empire was still the

implacable adversary of the papal power. Even from his father he might

have received an hereditary taint of hatred to the Church, for the Count

of Anjou had on many occasions shown the utmost hostility to the

Hierarchy, and had not scrupled to treat churchmen of the highest rank

with unexampled cruelty. In proportion as it was important to retain a

young sovereign of such vast dominions in allegiance to the Church, so

was it alarming to look forward to his disobedience. The Archbishop was

anxious to place near his person some one who might counteract this

suspected perversity, and to prevent his young mind from being alienated

from the clergy by fierce and lawless counselors. He had discerned not

merely unrivaled abilities, but with prophetic sagacity, his

Archdeacon's lofty and devoted churchmanship. Through the recommendation

of the primate, Becket was raised to the dignity of chancellor,[17] an

office which made him the second civil power in the realm, inasmuch as

his seal was necessary to countersign all royal mandates. Nor was it

without great ecclesiastical influence, as in the chancellor was the

appointment of all the royal chaplains, and the custody of vacant

bishoprics, abbacies, and benefices.[18]

[SN: Becket Chancellor.]

But the Chancellor, who was yet, with all his great preferments, only in

deacon's orders, might seem disdainfully to throw aside the habits,

feelings, restraints of the churchman, and to aspire as to the plenitude

of secular power, so to unprecedented secular magnificence.[19] Becket

shone out in all the graces of an accomplished courtier, in the bearing

and valor of a gallant knight; though at the same time he displayed the

most consummate abilities for business, the promptitude, diligence, and

prudence of a practiced statesman. The beauty of his person, the

affability of his manners, the extraordinary acuteness of his

senses,[20] his activity in all chivalrous exercises, made him the

chosen companion of the king in his constant diversions, in the chase

and in the mimic war, in all but his debaucheries. The king would

willingly have lured the Chancellor into this companionship likewise;

but the silence of his bitterest enemies, in confirmation of his own

solemn protestations, may be admitted as conclusive testimonies to his

unimpeached morals.[21] The power of Becket throughout the king's

dominions equaled that of the king himself--he was king in all but name:

the world, it was said, had never seen two friends so entirely of one

mind.[22] The well-known anecdote best illustrates their intimate

familiarity. As they rode through the streets of London on a bleak

Winter day they met a beggar in rags. "Would it not be charity," said

the king, "to give that fellow a cloak, and cover him from the cold?"

Becket assented; on which the king plucked the rich furred mantle from

the shoulders of the struggling Chancellor and threw it, to the

amazement and admiration of the bystanders, no doubt to the secret envy

of the courtiers at this proof of Becket's favor, to the shivering

beggar.[23]

But it was in the graver affairs of the realm that Henry derived still

greater advantage from the wisdom and the conduct of the Chancellor.[24]

To Becket's counsels his admiring biographers attribute the pacification

of the kingdom, the expulsion of the foreign mercenaries who during the

civil wars of Stephen's reign had devastated the land and had settled

down as conquerors, especially in Kent, the humiliation of the

refractory barons and the demolition of their castles. The peace was so

profound that merchants could travel everywhere in safety, and even the

Jews collect their debts.[25] The magnificence of Becket redounded to

the glory of his sovereign. In his ordinary life he was sumptuous beyond

precedent; he kept an open table, where those who were not so fortunate

as to secure a seat at the board had clean rushes strewn on the floor,

on which they might repose, eat, and carouse at the Chancellor's

expense. His household was on a scale vast even for that age of

unbounded retainership, and the haughtiest Norman nobles were proud to

see their sons brought up in the family of the merchant's son. [SN:

Ambassador to Paris A. D. 1160.] In his embassy to Paris to demand the

hand of the Princess Margaret for the king's infant son, described with

such minute accuracy by Fitz-Stephen,[26] he outshone himself, yet might

seem to have a loyal rather than a personal aim in this unrivaled pomp.

The French crowded from all quarters to see the splendid procession

pass, and exclaimed, "What must be the king, whose Chancellor can

indulge in such enormous expenditure?"

[SN: War in Toulouse.]

Even in war the Chancellor had displayed not only the abilities of a

general, but a personal prowess, which, though it found many precedents

in those times, might appear somewhat incongruous in an ecclesiastic,

who yet held all his clerical benefices. In the expedition made by King

Henry to assert his right to the dominions of the Counts of Toulouse,

Becket appeared at the head of seven hundred knights who did him

service, and foremost in every adventurous exploit was the valiant

Chancellor. Becket's bold counsel urged the immediate storming of the

city, which would have been followed by the captivity of the King of

France. Henry, in whose character impetuosity was strangely molded up

with irresolution, dared not risk this violation of feudal allegiance,

the captivity of his suzerain. The event of the war showed the policy as

well as the superior military judgment of the warlike Chancellor. At a

period somewhat later, Becket, who was left to reduce certain castles

which held out against his master, unhorsed in single combat and took

prisoner a knight of great distinction, Engelran de Trie. He returned to

Henry in Normandy at the head of 1200 knights and 4000 stipendiary

horsemen, raised and maintained at his own charge. If indeed there were

grave churchmen even in those days who were revolted by these

achievements in an ecclesiastic (he was still only in deacon's orders),

the sentiment was by no means universal, nor even dominant. With some

his valor and military skill only excited more ardent admiration. One of

his biographers bursts out into this extraordinary panegyric on the

Archdeacon of Canterbury: "Who can recount the carnage, the desolation,

which he made at the head of a strong body of soldiers? He attacked

castles, razed towns and cities to the ground, burned down houses and

farms without a touch of pity, and never showed the slightest mercy to

any one who rose in insurrection against his master's authority."[27]

[SN: Wealth of Becket.]

The services of Becket were not unrewarded; the love and gratitude of

his sovereign showered honors and emoluments upon him. Among his grants

were the wardenship of the Tower of London, the lordship of the castle

of Berkhampstead and the honor of Eye, with the service of a hundred and

forty knights. Yet there must have been other and more prolific sources

of his wealth, so lavishly displayed. Through his hands as Chancellor

passed almost all grants and royal favors. He was the guardian of all

escheated baronies and of all vacant benefices. It is said in his

praise that he did not permit the king, as was common, to prolong those

vacancies for his own advantage, that they were filled up with as much

speed as possible; but it should seem, by subsequent occurrences, that

no very strict account was kept of the king's monies spent by the

Chancellor in the king's service and those expended by the Chancellor

himself. This seems intimated by the care which he took to secure a

general quittance from the chief justiciary of the realm before his

elevation to the archbishopric.

But if in his personal habits and occupations Becket lost in some degree

the churchman in the secular dignitary, was he mindful of the solemn

trust imposed upon him by his patron the archbishop, and true to the

interests of his order? Did he connive at, or at least did he not

resist, any invasion on ecclesiastical immunities, or, as they were

called, the liberties of the clergy? did he hold their property

absolutely sacred? It is clear that he consented to levy the scutage,

raised on the whole realm, on ecclesiastical as well as secular

property. All that his friend John of Salisbury can allege in his

defence is, that he bitterly repented of having been the minister of

this iniquity.[28] "If with Saul he persecuted the Church, with Paul he

is prepared to die for the Church." But probably the worst effect of

this conduct as regards King Henry was the encouragement of his fatal

delusion that, as archbishop, Becket would be as submissive to his

wishes in the affairs of the Church as had been the pliant Chancellor.

It was the last and crowning mark of the royal confidence that Becket

was intrusted with the education of the young Prince Henry, the heir to

all the dominions of the king.

[SN: April, 1161.]

Six years after the accession of Henry II. died Theobald Archbishop of

Canterbury. On the character of his successor depended the peace of the

realm, especially if Henry, as no doubt he did, already entertained

designs of limiting the exorbitant power of the Church. Becket, ever at

his right hand, could not but occur to the mind of the king. Nothing in

his habits of life or conduct could impair the hope that in him the

loyal, the devoted, it might seem unscrupulous subject, would

predominate over the rigid churchman. With such a prime minister,

attached by former benefits, it might seem by the warmest personal love,

still more by this last proof of boundless confidence, to his person,

and as holding the united offices of Chancellor and Primate, ruling

supreme both in Church and State, the king could dread no resistance, or

if there were resistance, could subdue it without difficulty.

Rumor had already designated Becket as the future primate. A churchman,

the Prior of Leicester, on a visit to Becket, who was ill at Rouen,

pointing to his apparel, said, "Is this a dress for an Archbishop of

Canterbury?" Becket himself had not disguised his hopes and fears.

"There are three poor priests in England, any one of whose elevation to

the see of Canterbury I should wish rather than my own. I know the very

heart of the king; if I should be promoted, I must forfeit his favor or

that of God."[29]

The king did not suddenly declare his intentions. The see was vacant for

above a year,[30] and the administration of the revenues must have been

in the department of the Chancellor. At length as Becket, who had

received a commission to return to England on other affairs of moment,

took leave of his sovereign at Falaise, Henry hastily informed him that

those affairs were not the main object of his mission to England--it was

for his election to the vacant archbishopric. Becket remonstrated, but

in vain; he openly warned, it is said, his royal master that as Primate

he must choose between the favor of God and that of the king--he must

prefer that of God.[31] In those days the interests of the clergy and of

God were held inseparable. Henry no doubt thought this but the decent

resistance of an ambitious prelate. The advice of Henry of Pisa, the

Papal Legate, overcame the faint and lingering scruples of Becket: he

passed to England with the king's recommendation, mandate it might be

called, for his election.

All which to the king would designate Becket as the future Primate could

not but excite the apprehensions of the more rigorous churchmen. The

monks of Canterbury, with whom rested the formal election, alleged as an

insuperable difficulty that Becket had never worn the monastic habit, as

almost all his predecessors had done.[32] The suffragan bishops would no

doubt secretly resist the advancement, over all their heads, of a man

who, latterly at least, had been more of a soldier, a courtier, and a

lay statesman. Nor could the prophetic sagacity of any but the wisest

discern the latent churchmanship in the ambitious and inflexible heart

of Becket. It is recorded on authority, which I do not believe doubtful

as to its authenticity, but which is the impassioned statement of a

declared enemy, that nothing but the arrival of the great justiciary,

Richard de Luci, with the king's peremptory commands, and with personal

menaces of proscription and exile against the more forward opponents,

awed the refractory monks and prelates to submission.

[SN: Gilbert Foliot.]

At Whitsuntide Thomas Becket received priest's orders, and was then

consecrated Primate of England with great magnificence in the Abbey of

Westminster. The see of London being vacant, the ceremony was performed

by the once turbulent, now aged and peaceful, Henry of Winchester, the

brother of King Stephen. One voice alone, that of Gilbert Foliot, Bishop

of Hereford,[33] broke the apparent harmony by a bitter sarcasm--"The

king has wrought a miracle; he has turned a soldier and a layman into an

archbishop." Gilbert Foliot, from first to last the firm and unawed

antagonist of Becket, is too important a personage to be passed lightly

by.[34] This sally was attributed no doubt by some at the time, as it

was the subject afterwards of many fierce taunts from Becket himself,

and of lofty vindication by Foliot, to disappointed ambition, as though

he himself aspired to the primacy. Nor was there an ecclesiastic in

England who might entertain more just hopes of advancement. He was

admitted to be a man of unimpeachable life, of austere habits, and great

learning. He had been Abbot of Gloucester and then Bishop of Hereford.

He was in correspondence with four successive Popes, Coelestine II.,

Lucius II., Eugenius III., Alexander, and with a familiarity which

implies a high estimation for ability and experience. He is interfering

in matters remote from his diocese, and commending other bishops,

Lincoln and Salisbury, to the favorable consideration of the Pontiff.

All his letters reveal as imperious and conscientious a churchman as

Becket himself, and in Becket's position Foliot might have resisted the

king as inflexibly.[35] He was, in short, a bold and stirring

ecclesiastic, who did not scruple to wield, as he had done in several

instances, that last terrible weapon of the clergy which burst on his

own head, excommunication.[36] It may be added that, notwithstanding his

sarcasm, there was no open breach between him and Becket. The primate

acquiesced in, if he did not promote, the advancement of Foliot to the

see of London;[37] and during that period letters of courtesy which

borders on adulation were interchanged at least with apparent

sincerity.[38]

The king had indeed wrought a greater miracle than himself intended, or

than Foliot thought possible. Becket became at once not merely a decent

prelate, but an austere and mortified monk: he seemed determined to make

up for his want of ascetic qualifications; to crowd a whole life of

monkhood into a few years.[39] Under his canonical dress he wore a

monk's frock, haircloth next his skin; his studies, his devotions, were

long, regular, rigid. At the mass he was frequently melted into

passionate tears. In his outward demeanor, indeed, though he submitted

to private flagellation, and the most severe macerations, Becket was

still the stately prelate: his food, though scanty to abstemiousness,

was, as his constitution required, more delicate; his charities were

boundless. Archbishop Theobald had doubled the usual amount of the

primate's alms, Becket again doubled that; and every night in privacy,

no doubt more ostentatious than the most public exhibition, with his

own hands he washed the feet of thirteen beggars. His table was still

hospitable and sumptuous, but instead of knights and nobles, he admitted

only learned clerks, and especially the regulars, whom he courted with

the most obsequious deference. For the sprightly conversation of former

times were read grave books in the Latin of the Church.

But the change was not alone in his habits and mode of life. The King

could not have reproved, he might have admired, the most punctilious

regard for the decency and the dignity of the highest ecclesiastic in

the realm. But the inflexible churchman began to betray himself in more

unexpected acts. While still in France Henry was startled at receiving a

peremptory resignation of the chancellorship, as inconsistent with the

religious functions of the primate. This act was as it were a bill of

divorce from all personal intimacy with the king, a dissolution of their

old familiar and friendly intercourse. It was not merely that the holy

and austere prelate withdrew from the unbecoming pleasures of the court,

the chase, the banquet, the tournament, even the war; they were no more

to meet at the council board, and the seat of judicature. It had been

said that Becket was co-sovereign with the king, he now appeared (and

there were not wanting secret and invidious enemies to suggest, and to

inflame the suspicion) a rival sovereign.[40] The king, when Becket met

him on his landing at Southampton, did not attempt to conceal his

dissatisfaction; his reception of his old friend was cold.

It were unjust to human nature, to suppose that it did not cost Becket a

violent struggle, a painful sacrifice, thus as it were to rend himself

from the familiarity and friendship of his munificent benefactor. It was

no doubt a severe sense of duty which crushed his natural affections,

especially as vulgar ambition must have pointed out a more sure and safe

way to power and fame. Such ambition would hardly have hesitated between

the ruling all orders through the king, and the solitary and dangerous

position of opposing so powerful a monarch to maintain the interests and

secure the favor of one order alone.

[SN: Becket at Tours. May 19, 1163.]

Henry was now fully occupied with the affairs of Wales. Becket, with the

royal sanction, obeyed the summons of Pope Alexander to the Council of

Tours. Becket had passed through part of France at the head of an army

of his own raising, and under his command; he had passed a second time

as representing the king; he was yet to pass as an exile. At Tours,

where Pope Alexander now held his court, and presided over his council,

Becket appeared at the head of all the Bishops of England, except those

excused on account of age or infirmity. So great was his reputation,

that the Pope sent out all the cardinals except those in attendance on

his own person to escort the primate of England into the city. In the

council at Tours not merely was the title of Alexander to the popedom

avouched with perfect unanimity, but the rights and privileges of the

clergy asserted with more than usual rigor and distinctness. Some

canons, one especially which severely condemned all encroachments on

the property of the Church, might seem framed almost with a view to the

impending strife with England.

[SN: Beginning of strife.]

That strife, so impetuous might seem the combatants to join issue, broke

out, during the next year, in all its violence. Both parties, if they

did not commence, were prepared for aggression. The first occasion of

public collision was a dispute concerning the customary payment of the

ancient Danegelt, of two shillings on every hide of land, to the

sheriffs of the several counties. The king determined to transfer this

payment to his own exchequer: he summoned an assembly at Woodstock, and

declared his intentions. All were mute but Becket; the archbishop

opposed the enrolment of the decree, on the ground that the tax was

voluntary, not of right. "By the eyes of God," said Henry, his usual

oath, "it shall be enrolled!" "By the same eyes, by which you swear,"

replied the prelate, "it shall never be levied on my lands while I

live!"[41] On Becket's part, almost the first act of his primacy was to

vindicate all the rights, and to resume all the property which had been

usurped, or which he asserted to have been usurped, from his see.[42] It

was not likely that, in the turbulent times just gone by, there would

have been rigid respect for the inviolability of sacred property. The

title of the Church was held to be indefeasible. Whatever had once

belonged to the Church might be recovered at any time; and the

ecclesiastical courts claimed the sole right of adjudication in such

causes. The primate was thus at once plaintiff, judge, and carried into

execution his own judgments. The lord of the manor of Eynsford in Kent,

who held of the king, claimed the right of presentation to that

benefice. Becket asserted the prerogative of the see of Canterbury. On

the forcible ejectment of his nominee by the lord, William of Eynsford,

Becket proceeded at once to a sentence of excommunication, without

regard to Eynsford's feudal superior the king. [SN: Claims of Becket.]

The primate next demanded the castle of Tunbridge from the head of the

powerful family of De Clare; though it had been held by De Clare, and it

was asserted, received in exchange for a Norman Castle, since the time

of William the Conqueror. The attack on De Clare might seem a defiance

of the whole feudal nobility: a determination to despoil them of their

conquests, or grants from the sovereign.

[SN: Immunities of the clergy.]

The king, on his side, wisely chose the strongest and more popular

ground of the immunities of the clergy from all temporal jurisdiction.

He appeared as guardian of the public morals, as administrator of equal

justice to all his subjects, as protector of the peace of the realm.

Crimes of great atrocity, it is said, of great frequency, crimes such as

robbery and homicide, crimes for which secular persons were hanged by

scores and without mercy, were committed almost with impunity, or with

punishment altogether inadequate to the offence by the clergy; and the

sacred name of clerk, exempted not only bishops, abbots, and priests,

but those of the lowest ecclesiastical rank from the civil power. It was

the inalienable right of the clerk to be tried only in the court of his

bishop; and as that court could not award capital punishment, the utmost

penalties were flagellation, imprisonment, and degradation. It was only

after degradation, and for a second offence (for the clergy strenuously

insisted on the injustice of a second trial for the same act,)[43] that

the meanest of the clerical body could be brought to the level of the

most highborn layman. But to cede one tittle of these immunities, to

surrender the sacred person of a clergyman, whatever his guilt, to the

secular power, was treason to the sacerdotal order: it was giving up

Christ (for the Redeemer was supposed actually to dwell in the clerk,

though his hands might be stained with innocent blood) to be crucified

by the heathen.[44] To mutilate the person of one in holy orders was

directly contrary to the Scripture (for with convenient logic, while the

clergy rejected the example of the Old Testament as to the equal

liability of priest and Levite with the ordinary Jew to the sentence of

the law, they alleged it on their own part as unanswerable.) It was

inconceivable, that hands which had but now made God should be tied

behind the back, like those of a common malefactor, or that his neck

should be wrung on a gibbet, before whom kings had but now bowed in

reverential homage.[45]

The enormity of the evil is acknowledged by Becket's most ardent

partisans.[46] The king had credible information laid before him that

some of the clergy were absolute devils in guilt, that their wickedness

could not be repressed by the ordinary means of justice, and were daily

growing worse.

Becket himself had protected some notorious and heinous offenders. A

clerk of the diocese of Worcester had debauched a maiden and murdered

her father. Becket ordered the man to be kept in prison, and refused to

surrender him to the king's justice.[47] Another in London, guilty of

stealing a silver goblet, was claimed as only amenable to the

ecclesiastical court. Philip de Brois, a canon of Bedford, had been

guilty of homicide. The cause was tried in the bishop's court; he was

condemned to pay a fine to the kindred of the slain man. Some time

after, Fitz-Peter, the king's justiciary, whether from private enmity or

offence, or dissatisfied with the ecclesiastical verdict, in the open

court at Dunstable, called De Brois a murderer. De Brois broke out into

angry and contumelious language against the judge. The insult to the

justiciary was held to be insult to the king, who sought justice, where

alone he could obtain it, in the bishop's court. Philip de Brois this

time incurred a sentence, to our notions almost as disproportionate as

that for his former offence. He was condemned to be publicly whipped,

and degraded for two years from the honors and emoluments of his

canonry. But to the king the verdict appeared far too lenient; the

spiritual jurisdiction was accused as shielding the criminal from his

due penalty.

[SN: Character of the King.]

Such were the questions on which Becket was prepared to confront and to

wage war to the death with the king; and all this with a deliberate

knowledge both of the power and the character of Henry, his power as

undisputed sovereign of England and of continental territories more

extensive and flourishing than those of the king of France. These

dominions included those of the Conqueror and his descendants, of the

Counts of Anjou, and the great inheritance of his wife, Queen Eleanor,

the old kingdom of Aquitaine; they reached from the borders of Flanders

round to the foot of the Pyrenees. This almost unrivaled power could not

but have worked with the strong natural passions of Henry to form the

character drawn by a churchman of great ability, who would warn Becket

as to the formidable adversary whom he had undertaken to oppose,--"You

have to deal with one on whose policy the most distant sovereigns of

Europe, on whose power his neighbors, on whose severity his subjects

look with awe; whom constant successes and prosperous fortune have

rendered so sensitive, that every act of disobedience is a personal

outrage; whom it is as easy to provoke as difficult to appease; who

encourages no rash offence by impunity, but whose vengeance is instant

and summary. He will sometimes be softened by humility and patience, but

will never submit to compulsion; everything must seem to be conceded by

his own free will, nothing wrested from his weakness. He is more

covetous of glory than of gain, a commendable quality in a prince, if

virtue and truth, not the vanity and soft flattery of courtiers, awarded

that glory. He is a great, indeed the greatest of kings, for he has no

superior of whom he may stand in dread, no subject who dares to resist

him. His natural ferocity has been subdued by no calamity from without;

all who have been involved in any contest with him, have preferred the

most precarious treaty to a trial of strength with one so pre-eminent

in wealth, in the number of his forces, and the greatness of his

puissance."[48]

A king of this character would eagerly listen to suggestions of

interested or flattering courtiers, that unless the Primate's power were

limited, the authority of the king would be reduced to nothing. The

succession to the throne would depend entirely on the clergy, and he

himself would reign only so long as might seem good to the Archbishop.

Nor were they the baser courtiers alone who feared and hated Becket.

The nobles might tremble from the example of De Clare, with whose

powerful house almost all the Norman baronage was allied, lest every

royal grant should be called in question.[49] Even among the clergy

Becket had bitter enemies; and though at first they appeared almost as

jealous as the Primate for the privileges of their order, the most able

soon espoused the cause of the King; those who secretly favored him were

obliged to submit in silence.

[SN: Parliament of Westminster.]

The King, determined to bring these great questions to issue summoned a

Parliament at Westminster. He commenced the proceedings by enlarging on

the abuses of the archidiaconal courts. The archdeacons kept the most

watchful and inquisitorial superintendence over the laity, but every

offence was easily commuted for a pecuniary fine, which fell to them.

The King complained that they levied a revenue from the sins of the

people equal to his own, yet that the public morals were only more

deeply and irretrievably depraved. He then demanded that all clerks

accused of heinous crimes should be immediately degraded and handed over

to the officers of his justice, to be dealt with according to law; for

their guilt, instead of deserving a lighter punishment, was doubly

guilty: he demanded this in the name of equal justice and the peace of

the realm. Becket insisted on delay till the next morning, in order that

he might consult his suffragan bishops. This the King refused: the

bishops withdrew to confer upon their answer. The bishops were disposed

to yield, some doubtless impressed with the justice of the demand, some

from fear of the King, some from a prudent conviction of the danger of

provoking so powerful a monarch, and of involving the Church in a

quarrel with Henry at the perilous time of a contest for the Papacy

which distracted Europe. Becket inflexibly maintained the inviolability

of the holy persons of the clergy.[50] The King then demanded whether

they would observe the "customs of the realm." "Saving my order,"

replied the Archbishop. That order was still to be exempt from all

jurisdiction but its own. So answered all the bishops except Hilary of

Chichester, who made the declaration without reserve.[51] The King

hastily broke up the assembly, and left London in a state of

consternation, the people and the clergy agitated by conflicting

anxieties. He immediately deprived Becket of the custody of the Royal

Castles, which he still retained, and of the momentous charge, the

education of his son. The bishops entreated Becket either to withdraw or

to change the offensive word. At first he declared that if an angel from

Heaven should counsel such weakness, he would hold him accursed. At

length, however, he yielded, as Herbert de Bosham asserts out of love

for the King,[52] by another account at the persuasion of the Pope's

Almoner, said to have been bribed by English gold.[53] He went to Oxford

and made the concession.

[SN: Jan. 1164.]

[SN: Council of Clarendon.]

The King, in order to ratify with the utmost solemnity the concession

extorted from the bishops, and even from Becket himself, summoned a

great council of the realm to Clarendon, a royal palace between three

and four miles from Salisbury. The two archbishops and eleven bishops,

between thirty and forty of the highest nobles, with numbers of inferior

barons, were present. It was the King's object to settle beyond dispute

the main points in contest between the Crown and the Church; to

establish thus, with the consent of the whole nation, an English

Constitution in Church and State. Becket, it is said, had been assured

by some about the King that a mere assent would be demanded to vague and

ambiguous, and therefore on occasion disputable customs. But when these

customs, which had been collected and put in writing by the King's

order, appeared in the form of precise and binding laws, drawn up with

legal technicality by the Chief Justiciary, he saw his error, wavered,

and endeavored to recede.[54] The King broke out into one of his

ungovernable fits of passion. One or two of the bishops who were out of

favor with the King and two knights Templars on their knees implored

Becket to abandon his dangerous, fruitless, and ill-timed resistance.

The Archbishop took the oath, which had been already sworn to by all the

lay barons. He was followed by the rest of the bishops, reluctantly

according to one account, and compelled on one side by their dread of

the lay barons, on the other by the example and authority of the

Primate, according to Becket's biographers, eagerly and of their own

accord.[55]

[SN: Constitutions of Clarendon.]

These famous constitutions were of course feudal in their form and

spirit. But they aimed at the subjection of all the great prelates of

the realm to the Crown to the same extent as the great barons. The new

constitution of England made the bishops' fiefs to be granted according

to the royal will, and subjected the whole of the clergy equally with

the laity to the common laws of the land.[56] I. On the vacancy of every

archbishopric, bishopric, abbey, or priory, the revenues came into the

King's hands. He was to summon those who had the right of election,

which was to take place in the King's Chapel, with his consent, and the

counsel of nobles chosen by the King for this office. The prelate elect

was immediately to do homage to the King as his liege lord, for life,

limb, and worldly honors, excepting his order. The archbishops, bishops,

and all beneficiaries, held their estates on the tenure of baronies,

amenable to the King's justice, and bound to sit with the other barons

in all pleas of the Crown, except in capital cases. No archbishop,

bishop, or any other person could quit the realm without royal

permission, or without taking an oath at the King's requisition, not to

do any damage either going, staying, or returning, to the King or the

kingdom.

II. All clerks accused of any crime were to be summoned before the

King's Courts. The King's justiciaries were to decide whether it was a

case for civil or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Those which belonged to

the latter were to be removed to the Bishops' Court. If the clerk was

found guilty or confessed his guilt, the Church could protect him no

longer.[57]

III. All disputes concerning advowsons and presentations to benefices

were to be decided in the King's Courts; and the King's consent was

necessary for the appointment to any benefice within the King's

domain.[58]

IV. No tenant in chief of the King, none of the officers of the King's

household, could be excommunicated, nor his lands placed under

interdict, until due information had been laid before the King; or, in

his absence from the realm, before the great Justiciary, in order that

he might determine in each case the respective rights of the civil and

ecclesiastical courts.[59]

V. Appeals lay from the archdeacon to the bishop, from the bishop to the

Archbishop. On failure of justice by the Archbishop, in the last resort

to the King, who was to take care that justice was done in the

Archbishop's Court; and no further appeal was to be made without the

King's consent. This was manifestly and avowedly intended to limit

appeals to Rome.

All these statutes, in number sixteen, were restrictions on the

distinctive immunities of the clergy; one, and that unnoticed, was

really an invasion of popular freedom; no son of a villein could be

ordained without the consent of his lord.

Some of these customs were of doubtful authenticity. On the main

question, the exorbitant powers of the ecclesiastical courts and the

immunity of the clergy from all other jurisdiction, there was an

unrepealed statute of William the Conqueror. Before the Conquest the

bishop sate with the alderman in the same court. The statute of William

created a separate jurisdiction of great extent in the spiritual court.

This was not done to aggrandize the Church, of which in some respects

the Conqueror was jealous, but to elevate the importance of the great

Norman prelates whom he had thrust into the English sees. It raised

another class of powerful feudatories to support the foreign throne,

bound to it by common interest as well as by the attachment of race. But

at this time neither party took any notice of the ancient statute. The

King's advisers of course avoided the dangerous question; Becket and the

Churchmen (Becket himself declared that he was unlearned in the

customs), standing on the divine and indefeasible right of the clergy,

could hardly rest on a recent statute granted by the royal will, and

therefore liable to be annulled by the same authority. The Customs, they

averred, were of themselves illegal, as clashing with higher

irrepealable laws.

To these Customs Becket had now sworn without reserve. Three copies were

ordered to be made--one for the Archbishop of Canterbury, one for York,

one to be laid up in the royal archives. To these the King demanded the

further guarantee of the seal of the different parties. The Primate,

whether already repenting of his assent, or under the vague impression

that this was committing himself still further (for oaths might be

absolved, seals could not be torn from public documents), now

obstinately refused to make any further concession. The refusal threw

suspicion on the sincerity of his former act. The King, the other

prelates, the nobles, all but Becket,[60] subscribed and sealed the

Constitutions of Clarendon as the laws of England.

[SN: April 1.]

As the Primate rode from Winchester in profound silence, meditating on

the acts of the council and on his own conduct, one of his attendants,

who has himself related the conversation, endeavored to raise his

spirits. "It is a fit punishment," said Becket, "for one who, not

trained in the school of the Saviour, but in the King's court, a man of

pride and vanity, from a follower of hawks and hounds, a patron of

players, has dared to assume the care of so many souls."[61] De Bosham

significantly reminded his master of St. Peter, his denial of the Lord,

his subsequent repentance. On his return to Canterbury Becket imposed

upon himself the severest mortification, and suspended himself from his

function of offering the sacrifice on the altar. He wrote almost

immediately to the Pope to seek counsel and absolution from his oath. He

received both. The absolution restored all his vivacity.

But the King had likewise his emissaries with the Pope at Sens. He

endeavored to obtain a legatine commission over the whole realm

of England for Becket's enemy, Roger Archbishop of York, and a

recommendation from the Pope to Becket to observe the "customs" of the

realm. Two embassies were sent by the King for this end: first the

Bishops of Lisieux and Poitiers; then Geoffrey Ridel, Archdeacon of

Canterbury (who afterwards appears so hostile to the Primate as to be

called by him that archdevil, not archdeacon), and the subtle John of

Oxford. The embarrassed Pope (throughout it must be remembered that

there was a formidable Antipope), afraid at once of estranging Henry,

and unwilling to abandon Becket, granted the legation to the Archbishop

of York. To the Primate's great indignation, Roger had his cross

borne before him in the province of Canterbury. On Becket's angry

remonstrance, the Pope, while on the one hand he enjoined on Becket the

greatest caution and forbearance in the inevitable contest, assured him

that he would never permit the see of Canterbury to be subject to any

authority but his own.[62]

Becket secretly went down to his estate at Romney, near the sea-coast,

in the hope of crossing the straits, and so finding refuge and

maintaining his cause by his personal presence with the Pope. Stormy

weather forced him to abandon his design. He then betook himself to the

King at Woodstock. He was coldly received. The King at first dissembled

his knowledge of the Primate's attempt to cross the sea, a direct

violation of one of the constitutions; but on his departure he asked

with bitter jocularity whether Becket had sought to leave the realm

because England could not contain himself and the King.[63]

The tergiversation of Becket, and his attempt thus to violate one of the

Constitutions of Clarendon, to which he had sworn, showed that he was

not to be bound by oaths. No treaty could be made where one party

claimed the power of retracting, and might at any time be released from

his covenant. In the mind of Henry, whose will had never yet met

resistance, the determination was confirmed, if he could not subdue the

Prelate, to crush the refractory subject. Becket's enemies possessed

the King's ear. Some of those enemies no doubt hated him for his former

favor with the King, some dreaded lest the severity of so inflexible a

prelate should curb their license, some held property belonging to or

claimed by the Church, some to flatter the King, some in honest

indignation at the duplicity of Becket and in love of peace, but all

concurred to inflame the resentment of Henry, and to attribute to Becket

words and designs insulting to the King and disparaging to the royal

authority. Becket, holding such notions as he did of Church power, would

not be cautious in asserting it; and whatever he might utter in his

pride would be embittered rather than softened when repeated to the

King.

Since the Council of Clarendon Becket stood alone. All the higher

clergy, the great prelates of the kingdom, were now either his open

adversaries or were compelled to dissemble their favor towards him.

Whether alienated, as some declared, by his pusillanimity at Clarendon,

bribed by the gifts or overawed by the power of the King, whether

conscientiously convinced that in such times of schism and division it

might be fatal to the interests of the Church to advance her loftiest

pretensions, all, especially the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of

London, Salisbury and Chichester, were arrayed on the King's side.

Becket himself attributed the chief guilt of his persecution to the

bishops. "The King would have been quiet if they had not been so tamely

subservient to his wishes."[64]

[SN: Parliament at Northampton. Oct. 6, 1164.]

Before the close of the year Becket was cited to appear before a great

council of the realm at Northampton. All England crowded to witness

this final strife, it might be between the royal and the ecclesiastical

power. The Primate entered Northampton with only his own retinue; the

King had passed the afternoon amusing himself with hawking in the

pleasant meadows around. The Archbishop, on the following morning after

mass, appeared in the King's chamber with a cheerful countenance. The

King gave not, according to English custom, the kiss of peace.

The citation of the Primate before the King in council at Northampton

was to answer a charge of withholding justice from John the Marshall

employed in the king's exchequer, who claimed the estate of Pagaham from

the see of Canterbury. Twice had Becket been summoned to appear in the

king's court to answer for this denial of justice: once he had refused

to appear, the second time he did not appear in person. Becket in vain

alleged an informality in the original proceedings of John the

Marshall.[65] The court, the bishops, as well as the barons, declared

him guilty of contumacy; all his goods and chattels became, according to

the legal phrase, at the king's mercy.[66] The fine was assessed at 500

pounds. Becket submitted, not without bitter irony: "This, then, is one

of the new customs of Clarendon." But he protested against the

unheard-of audacity that the bishops should presume to sit in judgment

on their spiritual parent; it was a greater crime than to uncover their

father's nakedness.[67] Sarcasms and protests passed alike without

notice. But the bishops, all except Foliot, consented to become sureties

for this exorbitant fine. [SN: Demands on Becket.] Demands rising one

above another seemed framed for the purpose of reducing the Archbishop

to the humiliating condition of a debtor to the King, entirely at his

disposal. First 300 pounds were demanded as due from the castles of Eye

and Berkhampstead. Becket pleaded that he had expended a much larger sum

on the repairs of the castles: he found sureties likewise for this

payment, the Earl of Gloucester, William of Eynsford, and another of

"his men." The next day the demand was for 500 pounds lent by the King

during the siege of Toulouse, Becket declared that this was a gift, not

a loan;[68] but the King denying the plea, judgment was again entered

against Becket. At last came the overwhelming charge, an account of all

the monies received during his chancellorship from the vacant

archbishopric and from other bishoprics and abbeys. The debt was

calculated at the enormous sum of 44,000 marks. Becket was astounded at

this unexpected claim. As chancellor, in all likelihood, he had kept no

very strict account of what was expended in his own and in the royal

service; and the King seemed blind to this abuse of the royal right, by

which so large a sum had accumulated by keeping open those benefices

which ought to have been instantly filled. Becket, recovered from his

first amazement, replied that he had not been cited to answer on such

charge; at another time he should be prepared to answer all just demands

of the Crown. He now requested delay, in order to advise with his

suffragans and the clergy. He withdrew; but from that time no single

baron visited the object of the royal disfavor. Becket assembled all the

poor, even the beggars, who could be found, to fill his vacant board.

[SN: Takes counsel with the bishops.]

In his extreme exigency the Primate consulted separately first the

bishops, then the abbots. Their advice was different according to their

characters and their sentiments towards him. He had what might seem an

unanswerable plea, a formal acquittance from the Chief Justiciary De

Luci, the King's representative, for all obligations incurred in his

civil capacity before his consecration as archbishop.[69] The King,

however, it was known, declared that he had given no such authority.

Becket had the further excuse that all which he now possessed was

the property of the Church, and could not be made liable for

responsibilities incurred in a secular capacity. The bishops, however,

were either convinced of the insufficiency or the inadmissibility of

that plea. Henry of Winchester recommended an endeavor to purchase the

King's pardon; he offered 2000 marks as his contribution. Others urged

Becket to stand on his dignity, to defy the worst, under the shelter of

his priesthood; no one would venture to lay hands on a holy prelate.

Foliot and his party betrayed their object.[70] They exhorted him as the

only way of averting the implacable wrath of the King at once to resign

his see. "Would," said Hilary of Chichester, "you were no longer

archbishop, but plain Thomas. Thou knowest the King better than we do;

he has declared that thou and he cannot remain together in England, he

as King, thou as Primate. Who will be bound for such an amount? Throw

thyself on the King's mercy, or to the eternal disgrace of the Church

thou wilt be arrested and imprisoned as a debtor to the Crown." The next

day was Sunday; the Archbishop did not leave his lodgings. On Monday the

agitation of his spirits had brought on an attack of a disorder to which

he was subject: he was permitted to repose. On the morrow he had

determined on his conduct. At one time he had seriously meditated on a

more humiliating course: he proposed to seek the royal presence

barefooted with the cross in his hands, to throw himself at the King's

feet, appealing to his old affection, and imploring him to restore peace

to the Church. What had been the effect of such a step on the violent

but not ungenerous heart of Henry? But Becket yielded to the haughtier

counsels more congenial to his own intrepid character. He began by the

significant act of celebrating, out of its due order, the service of

St. Stephen, the first martyr. It contained passages of holy writ (as no

doubt Henry was instantly informed) concerning "kings taking counsel

against the godly." The mass concluded; in all the majesty of his holy

character, in his full pontifical habits, himself bearing the

archiepiscopal cross, the Primate rode to the King's residence, and

dismounting entered the royal hall. [SN: Becket in the King's hall.] The

cross seemed, as it were, an uplifting of the banner of the Church, in

defiance of that of the King, in the royal presence;[71] or it might be

in that awful imitation of the Saviour, at which no scruple was ever

made by the bolder churchmen--it was the servant of Christ who himself

bore his own cross. "What means this new fashion of the Archbishop

bearing his own cross?" said the Archdeacon Lisieux. "A fool," said

Foliot, "he always was and always will be." They made room for him; he

took his accustomed seat in the centre of the bishops. Foliot endeavored

to persuade him to lay down the cross. "If the sword of the King and the

cross of the Archbishop were to come in conflict, which were the more

fearful weapon?" Becket held the cross firmly, which Foliot and the

Bishop of Hereford strove, but in vain, to wrest from his grasp.

The bishops were summoned into the King's presence: Becket sat alone in

the outer hall. The Archbishop of York, who, as Becket's partisans

asserted, designedly came later that he might appear to be of the

King's intimate council, swept through the hall with his cross borne

before him. Like hostile spears cross confronted cross.[72]

During this interval De Bosham, the archbishop's reader, who had

reminded his master that he had been standard-bearer of the King of

England, and was now the standard-bearer of the King of the Angels, put

this question, "If they should lay their impious hands upon thee, art

thou prepared to fulminate excommunication against them?" Fitz-Stephen,

who sat at his feet, said in a loud clear voice, "That be far from thee;

so did not the Apostles and Martyrs of God: they prayed for their

persecutors and forgave them." Some of his more attached followers

burst into tears. "A little later," says the faithful Fitz-Stephen of

himself, "when one of the King's ushers would not allow me to speak to

the Archbishop, I made a sign to him and drew his attention to the

Saviour on the cross."

[SN: Condemnation of Becket.]

The bishops admitted to the King's presence announced the appeal of the

Archbishop to the Pope, and his inhibition to his suffragans to sit in

judgment in a secular council on their metropolitan.[73] These were

again direct infringements on two of the constitutions of Clarendon,

sworn to by Becket in an oath still held valid by the King and his

barons. The King appealed to the council. Some seized the occasion of

boldly declaring to the King that he had brought this difficulty on

himself by advancing a low-born man to such favor and dignity. All

agreed that Becket was guilty of perjury and treason.[74] A kind of low

acclamation followed which was heard in the outer room and made Becket's

followers tremble. The King sent certain counts and barons to demand of

Becket whether he, a liegeman of the King, and sworn to observe the

constitutions of Clarendon, had lodged this appeal and pronounced this

inhibition? The Archbishop replied with quiet intrepidity. In his long

speech he did not hesitate for a word; he pleaded that he had not been

cited to answer these charges; he alleged again the Justiciary's

acquittance; he ended by solemnly renewing his inhibition and his

appeal: "My person and my Church I place under the protection of the

sovereign Pontiff."

The barons of Normandy and England heard with wonder this defiance of

the King. Some seemed awe-struck and were mute; the more fierce and

lawless could not restrain their indignation. "The Conqueror knew best

how to deal with these turbulent churchmen. He seized his own brother,

Odo Bishop of Bayeux, and chastised him for his rebellion; he threw

Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, into a fetid dungeon. The Count of

Anjou, the King's father, treated still worse the bishop elect of Seez

and many of his clergy: he ordered them to be shamefully mutilated and

derided their sufferings."

The King summoned the bishops, on their allegiance as barons, to join in

sentence against Becket. But the inhibition of their metropolitan had

thrown them into embarrassment, and perhaps they felt that the offence

of Becket, if not capital treason, bordered upon it. It might be a

sentence of blood, in which no churchman might concur by his

suffrage--they dreaded the breach of canonical obedience. They entered

the hall where Becket sat alone. The gentler prelates, Robert of Lincoln

and others, were moved to tears; even Henry of Winchester advised the

archbishop to make an unconditional surrender of his see. The more

vehement Hilary of Chichester addressed him thus: "Lord Primate, we have

just cause of complaint against you. Your inhibition has placed us

between the hammer and the anvil: if we disobey it, we violate our

canonical obedience; if we obey, we infringe the constitutions of the

realm and offend the King's majesty. Yourself were the first to

subscribe the customs at Clarendon, you now compel us to break them. We

appeal, by the King's grace, to our lord the Pope." Becket answered "I

hear."

They returned to the King, and with difficulty obtained an exemption

from concurrence in the sentence; they promised to join in a

supplication to the Pope to depose Becket. The King permitted their

appeal. Robert Earl of Leicester, a grave and aged nobleman, was

commissioned to pronounce the sentence. Leicester had hardly begun when

Becket sternly interrupted him. "Thy sentence! son and Earl, hear me

first! The King was pleased to promote me against my will to the

archbishopric of Canterbury. I was then declared free from all secular

obligations. Ye are my children; presume ye against law and reason to

sit in judgment on your spiritual father? I am to be judged only, under

God, by the Pope. To him I appeal, before him I cite you, barons and my

suffragans, to appear. Under the protection of the Catholic Church and

the Apostolic See I depart!"[75] He rose and walked slowly down the

hall. A deep murmur ran through the crowd. Some took up straws and threw

them at him. One uttered the word "Traitor!" The old chivalrous spirit

woke in the soul of Becket. "Were it not for my order, you should rue

that word." But by other accounts he restrained not his language to this

pardonable impropriety--he met scorn with scorn. One officer of the

King's household he upbraided for having had a kinsman hanged. Anselm,

the King's brother, he called "bastard and catamite." The door was

locked, but fortunately the key was found. He passed out into the

street, where he was received by the populace, to whom he had endeared

himself by his charities, his austerities, perhaps by his courageous

opposition to the king and the nobles, amid loud acclamations. They

pressed so closely around him for his blessing that he could scarcely

guide his horse. He returned to the church of St. Andrew, placed his

cross by the altar of the Virgin. "This was a fearful day," said

Fitz-Stephen. "The day of judgment," he replied, "will be more fearful."

After supper he sent the Bishops of Hereford, Worcester, and Rochester

to the King to request permission to leave the kingdom: the King coldly

deferred his answer till the morrow.

[SN: Flight of Becket. Oct. 13.]

Becket and his friends no doubt thought his life in danger: he is said

to have received some alarming warnings.[76] It is reported, on the

other hand, that the King, apprehensive of the fierce zeal of his

followers, issued a proclamation that no one should do harm to the

archbishop or his people. It is more likely that the King, who must have

known the peril of attempting the life of an archbishop, would have

apprehended and committed him to prison. Becket expressed his intention

to pass the night in the church: his bed was strewn before the altar. At

midnight he rose, and with only two monks and a servant stole out of the

northern gate, the only one which was not guarded. He carried with him

only his archiepiscopal pall and his seal. The weather was wet and

stormy, but the next morning they reached Lincoln, and lodged with a

pious citizen--piety and admiration of Becket were the same thing. At

Lincoln he took the disguise of a monk, dropped down the Witham to a

hermitage in the fens belonging to the Cistercians of Sempringham;

thence by crossroads, and chiefly by night, he found his way to Estrey,

about five miles from Deal, a manor belonging to Christ Church in

Canterbury. He remained there a week. On All Souls Day he went on board

a boat, just before morning, and by the evening reached the coast of

Flanders. To avoid observation he landed on the open shore near

Gravelines. His large, loose shoes made it difficult to wade through the

sand without falling. He sat down in despair. After some delay was

obtained for a prelate, accustomed to the prancing war-horse or stately

cavalcade, a sorry nag without a saddle, and with a wisp of hay for a

bridle. But he soon got weary and was fain to walk. He had many

adventures by the way. He was once nearly betrayed by gazing with

delight on a falcon upon a young squire's wrist: his fright punished him

for his relapse into his secular vanities. The host of a small inn

recognized him by his lofty look and the whiteness of his hands. At

length he arrived at the monastery of Clair Marais, near St. Omer: he

was there joined by Herbert de Bosham, who had been left behind to

collect what money he could at Canterbury; he brought but 100 marks and

some plate. While he was in this part of Flanders the Justiciary,

Richard de Luci, passed through the town on his way to England. He tried

in vain to persuade the archbishop to return with him: Becket suspected

his friendly overtures, or had resolutely determined not to put himself

again in the King's power.

In the first access of indignation at Becket's flight the King had sent

orders for strict watch to be kept in the ports of the kingdom,

especially Dover. The next measure was to pre-occupy the minds of the

Count of Flanders, the King of France, and the Pope against his fugitive

subject. Henry could not but foresee how formidable an ally the exile

might become to his rivals and enemies, how dangerous to his extensive

but ill-consolidated foreign dominions. He might know that Becket would

act and be received as an independent potentate. The rank of his

ambassadors implied the importance of their mission to France. They were

the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Exeter, Chichester, and

Worcester, the Earl of Arundel, and three other distinguished nobles.

The same day that Becket passed to Gravelines, they crossed from Dover

to Calais.[77]

[SN: Becket in exile.]

The Earl of Flanders, though with some cause of hostility to Becket, had

offered him a refuge; yet perhaps was not distinctly informed or would

not know that the exile was in his dominions.[78] He received the King's

envoys with civility. The King of France was at Compiègne. The strongest

passions in the feeble mind of Louis VII. were jealousy of Henry of

England, and a servile bigotry to the Church, to which he seemed

determined to compensate for the hostility and disobedience of his

youth. Against Henry, personally, there were old causes of hatred

rankling in his heart, not the less deep because they could not be

avowed. [SN: From 1152 to 1164.] Henry of England was now the husband of

Eleanor, who, after some years of marriage, had contemptuously divorced

the King of France as a monk rather than as a husband, had thrown

herself into the arms of Henry and carried with her a dowry as large as

half the kingdom of France. There had since been years either of fierce

war, treacherous negotiations, or jealous and armed peace, between the

rival sovereigns.

[SN: Louis of France.]

Louis had watched, and received regular accounts of the proceedings in

England; his admiration of Becket for his lofty churchmanship and

daring opposition to Henry was at its height, scarcely disguised. He

had already in secret offered to receive Becket, not as a fugitive, but

as the sharer in his kingdom. The ambassadors appeared before Louis and

presented a letter urging the King of France not to admit within his

dominions the traitor Thomas, late Archbishop of Canterbury. "Late

Archbishop! and who has presumed to depose him? I am a king, like my

brother of England; I should not dare to depose the meanest of my

clergy. Is this the King's gratitude for the services of his Chancellor,

to banish him from France, as he has done from England?"[79] Louis wrote

a strong letter to the Pope, recommending to his favor the cause of

Becket as his own.

[SN: Ambassadors at Sens.]

The ambassadors passed onwards to Sens, where resided the Pope

Alexander III., himself an exile, and opposing his spiritual power to

the highest temporal authority, that of the Emperor and his subservient

Antipope. Alexander was in a position of extraordinary difficulty: on

the one side were gratitude to King Henry for his firm support, and the

fear of estranging so powerful a sovereign, on whose unrivaled wealth he

reckoned as the main strength of his cause; on the other, the dread of

offending the King of France, also his faithful partisan, in whose

dominions he was a refugee, and the duty, the interest, the strong

inclination to maintain every privilege of the hierarchy. To Henry

Alexander almost owed his pontificate. His first and most faithful

adherents had been Theobald the primate, the English Church, and Henry

King of England; and when the weak Louis had entered into dangerous

negotiations at Lannes with the Emperor; when at Dijon he had almost

placed himself in the power of Frederick, and his voluntary or enforced

defection had filled Alexander with dread, the advance of Henry of

England with a powerful force to the neighborhood rescued the French

king from his perilous position. And now, though Victor the Antipope was

dead, a successor, Guido of Crema, had been set up by the imperial

party, and Frederick would lose no opportunity of gaining, if any

serious quarrel should alienate him from Alexander, a monarch of such

surpassing power. An envoy from England, John Cummin, was even now at

the imperial court.[80]

Becket's messengers, before the reception of Henry's ambassadors by Pope

Alexander, had been admitted to a private interview. The account of

Becket's "fight with beasts" at Northampton, and a skillful parallel

with St. Paul, had melted the heart of the Pontiff, as he no doubt

thought himself suffering like persecutions, to a flood of tears. How in

truth could a Pope venture to abandon such a champion of what were

called the liberties of the Church? He had, in fact, throughout been in

secret correspondence with Becket. Whenever letters could escape the

jealous watchfulness of the King, they had passed between England and

Sens.[81]

[SN: The King's ambassadors at Sens.]

The ambassadors of Henry were received in state in the open consistory.

Foliot of London began with his usual ability; his warmth at length

betrayed him into the Scriptural citation,--"The wicked fleeth when no

man pursueth." "Forbear," said the Pope. "I will forbear him," answered

Foliot. "It is for thine own sake, not for his, that I bid thee

forbear." The Pope's severe manner silenced the Bishop of London.

Hilary, Bishop of Chichester, who had overweening confidence in his

eloquence, began a long harangue; but at a fatal blunder in his Latin,

the whole Italian court burst into laughter.[82] The discomfited orator

tried in vain to proceed. The Archbishop of York spoke with prudent

brevity. The Count of Arundel, more cautious or less learned, used his

native Norman. His speech was mild, grave, and conciliatory, and

therefore the most embarrassing to the Pontiff. Alexander consented to

send his cardinal legates to England; but neither the arguments of

Foliot, nor those of Arundel, who now rose to something like a menace of

recourse to the Antipope, would induce him to invest them with full

power. The Pope would entrust to none but to himself the prerogative of

final judgment. Alexander mistrusted the venality of his cardinals, and

Henry's subsequent dealing with some of them justified his mistrust.[83]

He was himself inflexible to tempting offers. The envoys privately

proposed to extend the payment of Peter's Pence to almost all classes,

and to secure the tax in perpetuity to the see of Rome. The ambassadors

retreated in haste; their commission had been limited to a few days. The

bishops, so strong was the popular feeling in France for Becket, had

entered Sens as retainers for the Earl of Arundel: they received

intimation that certain lawless knights in the neighborhood had

determined to waylay and plunder these enemies of the Church, and of the

saintly Becket.

[SN: Becket at Sens.]

Far different was the progress of the exiled primate. From St. Bertin he

was escorted by the Abbot, and by the Bishop of Terouenne. He entered

France; he was met, as he approached Soissons, by the King's brothers,

the Archbishop of Rheims, and a long train of bishops, abbots, and

dignitaries of the church; he entered Soissons at the head of three

hundred horsemen. The interview of Louis with Becket raised his

admiration into passion. As the envoys of Henry passed on one side of

the river, they saw the pomp in which the ally of the King of France,

rather than the exile from England, was approaching Sens. The cardinals,

whether from prudence, jealousy, or other motives, were cool in their

reception of Becket. The Pope at once granted the honor of a public

audience; he placed Becket on his right hand, and would not allow him to

rise to speak. Becket, after a skillful account of his hard usage,

spread out the parchment which contained the Constitutions of Clarendon.

They were read; the whole Consistory exclaimed against the violation of

ecclesiastical privileges. On further examination the Pope acknowledged

that six of them were less evil than the rest; on the remaining ten he

pronounced his unqualified condemnation. He rebuked the weakness of

Becket in swearing to these articles, it is said, with the severity of a

father, the tenderness of a mother.[84] He consoled him with the

assurance that he had atoned by his sufferings and his patience for his

brief infirmity. Becket pursued his advantage. The next day, by what

might seem to some trustful magnanimity, to others, a skillful mode of

getting rid of certain objections which had been raised concerning his

election, he tendered the resignation of his archiepiscopate to the

Pope. Some of the more politic, it was said, more venal cardinals,

entreated the Pontiff to put an end at once to this dangerous quarrel by

accepting the surrender.[85] But the Pontiff (his own judgment being

supported among others by the Cardinal Hyacinth) restored to him the

archiepiscopal ring, thus ratifying his primacy. He assured Becket of

his protection, and committed him to the hospitable care of the Abbot of

Pontigny, a monastery about twelve leagues from Sens. "So long have you

lived in ease and opulence, now learn the lessons of poverty from the

poor."[86] Yet Alexander thought it prudent to inhibit any proceedings

of Becket against the King till the following Easter.

[SN: Effect on King Henry.]

Becket's emissaries had been present during the interview of

Henry's ambassadors with the Pope. Henry, no doubt, received speedy

intelligence of these proceedings with Becket. He was at Marlborough

after a disastrous campaign in Wales.[87] [SN: Wrath of Henry.] He

issued immediate orders to seize the revenues of the Archbishop, and

promulgated a mandate to the bishops to sequester the estates of all the

clergy who had followed him to France. He forbade public prayers for the

Primate. In the exasperated state, especially of the monkish mind,

prayers for Becket would easily slide into anathemas against the king.

The payment of Peter's Pence[88] to the Pope was suspended. All

correspondence with Becket was forbidden. But the resentment of Henry

was not satisfied. He passed a sentence of banishment, and ordered at

once to be driven from the kingdom all the primate's kinsmen,

dependents, and friends. Four hundred persons, it is said, of both

sexes, of every age, even infants at the breast were included (and it

was the depth of winter) in this relentless edict. Every adult was to

take an oath to proceed immediately to Becket, in order that his eyes

might be shocked, and his heart wrung by the miseries which he had

brought on his family and his friends. This order was as inhumanly

executed, as inhumanly enacted.[89] It was intrusted to Randulph de

Broc, a fierce soldier, the bitterest of Becket's personal enemies. It

was as impolitic as cruel. The monasteries and convents of Flanders and

of France were thrown open to the exiles with generous hospitality.

Throughout both these countries was spread a multitude of persons

appealing to the pity, to the indignation of all orders of the people,

and so deepening the universal hatred of Henry. The enemy of the Church

was self-convicted of equal enmity to all Christianity of heart.

[SN: Becket at Pontigny.]

In his seclusion at Pontigny Becket seemed determined to compensate by

the sternest monastic discipline for that deficiency which had been

alleged on his election to the archbishopric. He put on the coarse

Cistercian dress. He lived on the hard and scanty Cistercian diet.

Outwardly he still maintained something of his old magnificence and the

splendor of his station. His establishment of horses and retainers was

so costly, that his sober friend, John of Salisbury, remonstrated

against the profuse expenditure. Richer viands were indeed served on a

table apart, ostensibly for Becket; but while he himself was content

with the pulse and gruel of the monks, those meats and game were given

away to the beggars. His devotions were long and secret, broken with

perpetual groans. At night he rose from the bed strewn with rich

coverings, as beseeming an archbishop, and summoned his chaplain to the

work of flagellation. Not satisfied with this, he tore his flesh with

his nails, and lay on the cold floor, with a stone for his pillow. His

health suffered; wild dreams, so reports one of his attendants, haunted

his broken slumbers, of cardinals plucking out his eyes, fierce

assassins cleaving his tonsured crown.[90] His studies were neither

suited to calm his mind, nor to abase his hierarchical haughtiness. He

devoted his time to the canon law, of which the False Decretals now

formed an integral part; sacerdotal fraud justifying the loftiest

sacerdotal presumption. John of Salisbury again interposed with friendly

remonstrance. He urged him to withdraw from these undevotional

inquiries; he recommended to him the works of a Pope of a different

character, the Morals of Gregory the Great. He exhorted him to confer

with holy men on books of spiritual improvement.

[SN: Negotiations with the Emperor.]

King Henry in the meantime took a loftier and more menacing tone towards

the Pope. "It is an unheard of thing that the court of Rome should

support traitors against my sovereign authority; I have not deserved

such treatment.[91] I am still more indignant that the justice is denied

to me which is granted to the meanest clerk." In his wrath he made

overtures to Reginald, Archbishop of Cologne, the maker, he might be

called, of two Antipopes, and the minister of the Emperor, declaring

that he had long sought an opportunity of falling off from Alexander,

and his perfidious cardinals, who presumed to support against him the

traitor Thomas, late Archbishop of Canterbury.

[SN: Diet at Wurtzburg, A. D. 1165, Whitsuntide.]

The Emperor met the advances of Henry with promptitude, which showed the

importance he attached to the alliance. Reginald of Cologne was sent to

England to propose a double alliance with the house of Swabia, of

Frederick's son, and of Henry the Lion, with the two daughters of Henry

Plantagenet. The Pope trembled at this threatened union between the

houses of Swabia and England. At the great diet held at Wurtzburg,

Frederick, asserted the canonical election of Paschal III., the new

Antipope, and declared in the face of the empire and of all Christendom,

that the powerful kingdom of England had now embraced his cause, and

that the King of France stood alone in his support of Alexander.[92] In

his public edict he declared to all Christendom that the oath of

fidelity to Paschal, of denial of all future allegiance to Alexander,

administered to all the great princes and prelates of the empire, had

been taken by the ambassadors of King Henry, Richard of Ilchester, and

John of Oxford.[93] Nor was this all. A solemn oath of abjuration of

Pope Alexander was enacted, and to some extent enforced; it was to be

taken by every male under twelve years old throughout the realm.[94] The

King's officers compelled this act of obedience to the King, in

villages, in castles, in cities.

If the ambassadors of Henry at Wurtzburg had full powers to transfer the

allegiance of the King to the Antipope; if they took the oath

unconditionally, and with no reserve in case Alexander should abandon

the cause of Becket; if this oath of abjuration in England was generally

administered; it is clear that Henry soon changed, or wavered at least

in his policy. The alliance between the two houses came to nothing. Yet

even after this he addressed another letter to Reginald, Archbishop of

Cologne, declaring again his long cherished determination to abandon the

cause of Alexander, the supporter of his enemy, the Archbishop of

Canterbury. He demanded safe-conduct for an embassy to Rome, the

Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, John of Oxford, De Luci, the

Justiciary, peremptorily to require the Pope to annul all the acts of

Thomas, and to command the observance of the Customs.[95] The success of

Alexander in Italy, aversion in England to the abjuration of Alexander,

some unaccounted jealousy with the Emperor, irresolution in Henry, which

was part of his impetuous character, may have wrought this change.

The monk and severe student of Pontigny found rest neither in his

austerities nor his studies.[96] The causes of this enforced repose are

manifest--the negotiations between Henry and the Emperor, the

uncertainty of the success of the Pope on his return to Italy. It would

have been perilous policy, either for him to risk, or for the Pope not

to inhibit any rash measure.

[SN: Becket cites the King.]