and by the obligation of the oath of homage, which the archbishop
had taken, and by the fealty to the king’s earthly honour which he
had sworn, he was in no way to be excused, because when summoned by
the king he had neither come himself, nor pleaded infirmity, or the
necessary work of his ecclesiastical office.” (W. FitzStephen).
It was not easy to get the sentence pronounced against Thomas. Barons
and bishops were willing enough to stand well with the king, and they
agreed without contradiction to the fine. But the barons declined to
act as judge on a spiritual peer, and insisted that one of the bishops
must do this business. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, at last, on the
king’s order, pronounced the sentence.
Thomas protested. “If I were silent at such a sentence posterity would
not be. This is a new form of sentence, no doubt in accordance with
the new laws of Clarendon. Never has it been heard before in England
that an Archbishop of Canterbury has been tried in the King’s Court
for such a cause. The dignity of the Church, the authority of his
person, the fact that he is the spiritual father of the king and of
all his subjects, require that he should be reverenced by all.” For
an archbishop to be judged by his suffragans was, he declared, for a
father to be judged by his sons.
The bishops implored him to bow to the decree of the council, and
Thomas yielded, “not being willing that a mere matter of money should
cause strife between the king and himself.”
The next day, Friday, October 9th, the king pressed Thomas more
fiercely, calling upon him to give account for large sums spent during
his chancellorship, and for various revenues of vacant churches during
that period. The total amount was 30,000 marks.
In vain the archbishop urged that this demand was totally unexpected;
that he had not been summoned to Northampton to render such an account;
and that the justiciar, Richard, had declared that he was free of
all claims when he laid down the chancellorship. The king demanded
sureties, “and from that day barons and knights kept away from the
archbishop’s house--for they understood the mind of the king.”
All Saturday Thomas was in consultation with the bishops, most of whom
expressed themselves strongly on the king’s side. Henry of Winchester
suggested the present of 2,000 marks to the king as a peace-offering,
and this was done. But the king would not have it. Hilary, of
Chichester, said, addressing the archbishop, “You ought to know the
king better than we do, for you lived with him in close companionship
and friendship when you were chancellor. Who is there who could be
your surety for all this money? The king has declared, so it is said,
that he and you cannot both remain in England as king and archbishop.
It would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his mercy.
God forbid lest he arrest you over these moneys of the chancellorship,
or lay hands on you.” One or two less craven urged the archbishop to
stand firm, as his predecessors had done, in the face of persecution.
“Oh, that you were no longer archbishop and were only Thomas,” said
Hilary, putting the matter briefly.
All Sunday was spent in consultations. On Monday the archbishop was
too ill to attend the council, but on Tuesday his mind was made up,
and when he entered the council it was with the full dignity of an
archbishop, carrying the cross of the archbishop in his hand.
The bishops were in despair. There were all sorts of rumours in the
air. It was known the king was full of anger, and it was said that the
archbishop’s life was in danger. The bishops implored him to resign,
or else to promise complete submission to the councils of Clarendon.
They said he would certainly be tried and condemned for high treason
for disobedience to the king, and asked him what was the use of being
archbishop when he had the king’s hatred.
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, declared contemptuously of Thomas,
when someone asked him why he did not carry the archbishop’s cross for
him, “He always was a fool, and always will be.”
Thomas had now only one answer to the bishops. He forbad them to take
any part in the proceedings against him, announced that he had appealed
to “our Mother, the Church of Rome, refuge of all the oppressed,” to
prevent any of them taking part, and ordered them to excommunicate any
who should dare lay secular hands upon the primate.
Then, holding his cross, the archbishop took his usual place in the
council-chamber, while the king sat in an inner room.
In the face of personal danger all the strength and courage of Thomas
Becket were aroused. He had yielded at Clarendon for the sake of peace,
and no good had come of it. He had submitted to be fined rather than be
involved in a miserable dispute about money, and now he was threatened
with demands for money which were beyond his resources. There was
nothing to prevent the king piling up greater and greater sums against
him, till hopeless ruin had been reached. He was powerless to withstand
such an onslaught. To Rome, “the refuge of all the oppressed,” would
Thomas appeal, and then, if it seemed well to the pope, he would retire
from Canterbury. But he would not surrender his post, however great
the wrath of the king, unless it were for the welfare of the Christian
Church.
In the council-chamber Thomas sat alone, with one or two clergy
attending him, including Herbert of Bosham and William FitzStephen,
while the bishops went in to the king’s chamber. Among the nobles the
cry was going up that the archbishop was a perjurer and a traitor,
because, after signing at Clarendon, he now, in violation of those
constitutions, forbad bishops to give judgment in a case that did not
involve bloodshed, and had further made appeal to Rome.
Then the king sent to know whether the archbishop refused to be bound
by the Constitutions of Clarendon, and whether he would find sureties
to abide by the sentence of the court regarding the accounts of his
chancellorship.
Thomas again pointed out that he had not been called there to give
an account of his chancellorship, that on his appointment to the
archbishopric he had been declared by the king free of all secular
claims, and that he had forbidden the bishops to take part in any
judgment against him, and had appealed to Rome, “placing his person and
the church of Canterbury under the protection of God and the pope.”
At the end of this speech the barons returned in silence to the king,
pondering the archbishop’s words.
But hostile murmuring soon broke the silence, and Thomas could overhear
the barons grumbling that, “King William, who conquered England, knew
how to tame his clerks. He had put his own brother Odo in prison, and
thrown Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, into a dungeon.”
The bishops renewed their pitiful chorus. Thomas had placed them
between the hammer and the anvil by his prohibition: of disobedience to
Canterbury on the one hand, and of the king’s anger on the other. They
had given their word at Clarendon, and now they were being forced to
go against the promises they had made. They, too, would appeal to Rome
against his prohibition, “lest you injure us still more.”
All that Thomas could say was that the Constitutions of Clarendon had
been sent to the pope for confirmation, and had been returned, rather
condemned than approved. “This example has been given for our learning,
that we should do likewise, and be ready to receive what he receives
at Rome, and reject what he rejects. If we fell at Clarendon, through
weakness of the flesh, the more ought we to take courage now, and in
the might of the Holy Ghost contend against the old enemy of man.”[17]
So bishops and nobles came and went between the king and the
archbishop, and the day drew on. Henry allowed the bishops to stand
apart from the judgment, and demanded sentence from the barons, and
Earl Robert of Leicester advanced as the spokesman of the council
to where the archbishop was sitting. The earl began to speak of the
judgment of the court, when Thomas rose and refused to hear him.
“What is this you would do?” he cried. “Would you pass sentence on
me? Neither law nor reason permit children to pass sentence on their
father. You are nobles of the palace, and I am your spiritual father.
I will not hear this sentence of the king, or any judgment of yours.
For, under God, I will be judged by the pope alone, to whom before you
all here I appeal, placing the church of Canterbury with all thereto
belonging under God’s protection and the protection of the pope.” Then
he turned to the bishops. “And you, my brethren, who have served man
rather than God, I summon to the presence of the pope; and now, guarded
by the authority of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, I go hence.”
So he passed out of the hall, no one gainsaying his passage, though
some plucked rushes from the floor and threw at him. There were shouts
of anger, and again the cries of “traitor” and “perjurer” were raised.
The archbishop turned on Earl Hamelin, the king’s brother, and Randulf
of Brok, who were calling “traitor,” and said sternly: “If I were not
a priest, my own arms should quickly prove your lie. And you, Randulf,
look at home (his cousin had lately been hanged for felony) before you
accuse the guiltless!”
His horses were at the gate, and a great crowd that were afraid lest
the archbishop had been killed. St. Thomas mounted, and accompanied by
Herbert of Bosham, rode back to the monastery of St. Andrew, where he
had been lodging. The crowd thronged him and prayed for his blessing
all the way until the monastery was reached, and then he would have
the multitude come in to the refectory and dine with him. Of his own
retinue of forty who had come with him to Northampton, scarce six
remained; and so the places of those who had thought it safer to desert
their lord were filled by the hungry multitude. It was the archbishop’s
farewell banquet, and he, the constant champion of the poor, had those
whom he loved for his guests that day.
At nightfall, after compline had been sung and the monks dispersed to
their cells, the archbishop, with three other men in the dress of lay
brothers, rode out from Northampton by the north gate, and at dawn were
at Grantham. Three weeks later Thomas had reached Flanders, and the
exile had begun which was only to end six years later when death was at
hand.
It was useless to remain in England, hopeless as Thomas was of any
support from the bishops. He could but appeal, as Anselm had appealed,
to the one court that alone was recognised as owning a higher authority
than that of the kings of this world, the court of Rome.
But Pope Alexander, still harassed by an anti-pope set up by the
Emperor Frederick, could do as little for Thomas as his predecessor
had done for Anselm, though he refused to allow him to resign the
archbishopric. Unlike Anselm, Thomas vigorously carried on his contest
with the king from the friendly shelter of King Louis of France, and
Henry retaliated without hesitation, driving out of England all the
friends and kinsmen of Thomas, to the number of four hundred, and
threatening a like banishment to the Cistercian monks, because Thomas
had taken refuge in their monastery at Pontigny.
The fear that the pope would allow the archbishop to pronounce an
interdict against England, and a sentence of personal excommunication
against its king, drove Henry in 1166 to appeal himself to the pope.
“Thus by a strange fate it happened that the king, while striving for
those ‘ancient customs,’ by which he endeavoured to prevent any right
of appeal (to the pope), was doomed to confirm the right of appeal for
his own safety.” (John of Salisbury.)
Months and years passed in correspondence. More than once Henry and
Thomas met at the court of Louis, but neither would yield. The pope,
without blaming the archbishop, and without sanctioning any extreme
step against Henry, did what he could to make peace between them.
At last, in the summer of 1170, the king really was disturbed by the
fear of an interdict, for his last act against Archbishop Thomas had
been to have his son crowned by the Archbishop of York, in defiance of
all the rights and privileges of the see of Canterbury. Besides this,
Louis was threatening war because his daughter, who was married to the
young King Henry, had not been crowned with her husband. Henry hastened
over to France and made friends with Thomas, and the reconciliation
took place at Freteral. The king solemnly promised that the archbishop
should enjoy all the possessions and rights of which he had been
deprived in his exile, and that his friends and kinsmen should all be
allowed to return home. He even apologised for the coronation of his
son. It seemed as if the old friendship had been revived. “We conversed
together until the evening as familiarly as in the days of our ancient
friendship. And it was agreed I should arrange my affairs and then make
some stay with the king before embarking for England; that the world
might know how thoroughly we are restored to his favour and intimacy.
We are not afraid that the king will not fulfil his promises, unless
he is misled by evil counsellors.” So Thomas wrote to the pope in
July, 1170. Yet there were many--including King Louis--who doubted the
sincerity of the reconciliation, for Henry was not willing to give the
kiss of peace to his archbishop.
On December 1st Thomas landed at Sandwich, and went at once to
Canterbury. The townspeople and the poor of the land welcomed him with
enthusiastic devotion. “Small and great, old and young, ran together,
some throwing themselves in his way, others crying and exclaiming,
‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’ In the same manner
the clergy and their parishioners met him in procession, saluting
their father and begging his blessing.... And when all things in the
cathedral was solemnly ended, the archbishop went to his palace, and so
ended that joyful and solemn day.” (Herbert of Bosham.)
But against the affection and goodwill of his own people at Canterbury,
and a similar demonstration of rejoicing by multitudes of clergy
and people in London, Thomas had to face the fact that the bishops
generally hated his return, that the young Prince Henry, recently
crowned, who had been his pupil, refused to see him and ordered his
return to Canterbury, and that the nobles openly spoke of him as a
traitor to the king. “This is a peace for us which is no peace, but
rather war,” said the archbishop bitterly.
The end was not far off. Thomas, as zealous for good discipline in the
Church as Henry was for strong authority in the State, was no sooner
returned than he was asked to withdraw the sentence of excommunication
against the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury.
He promised to do this if the bishops on their part would promise to
submit to the decision of the pope on the matter. London and Salisbury
were moved to receive absolution on these terms, but Roger, of York,
who had always been against Becket, dissuaded them, urging them to
throw themselves on the protection of the king, and threatening Thomas
“with marvellous and terrible things at the hands of the king” unless
he relented. Naturally, these threats left the archbishop undisturbed,
and Roger of York, with Gilbert Foliot of London and Jocelin of
Salisbury, at once hastened over to France to lay their case before the
king.
These bishops were not the only men who troubled Thomas in these last
days. Randulf de Broc, with others of his family, and certain knights,
all known as strong “king’s men,” “sought every means to entangle him
in a quarrel,” and did not stop from robbing a ship belonging to the
archbishop and from seizing a number of horses, and mutilating one of
them. Thomas replied by excommunicating Randulf and Robert de Broc, the
boldest of these offenders.
At Christmas more than one of the archbishop’s followers warned him
that his life was in danger, and Thomas seems to have realised that his
position was hazardous. But he would not fly.
Already his murderers were at hand.
The excommunicated bishops had reached the king at Bur, near Bayeux,
had told their story, and had coloured it with a fanciful description
of Thomas making a circuit of England at the head of a large body of
men.[18] Someone had said, “My lord, as long as Thomas lives, you will
have neither peace nor quiet in your kingdom, nor will you ever see
good days;” and at this Henry had burst out into a terrible rage of
bitterness and passion, for such fits at times took possession of him,
“Here is a man,” he cried out, “who came to my court a sorry clerk,
who owes all he has to me, and insults my kingdom and lifts his heel
against me. And not one of the cowardly sluggish knaves, whom I feed
and pay so well, but suffers this, nor has the heart to avenge me!”
The words were spoken, and four of the king’s knights--Reginald
FitzUrse, William of Tracy, Hugh of Morville, and Richard the
Breton--hearing what was said, and that Roger of York had declared “as
soon as Thomas is dead all this trouble will be ended, and not before,”
at once departed. They sailed from different ports and met together at
Saltwood, the castle of the Brocs, on December 28th. The following day
they rode on to Canterbury, taking with them twelve of Randulf’s men
and Hugh of Horsea, who was called the Evil Deacon.
The king, on finding the four knights had left the court, gave
orders to have them stopped, but it was too late. They were then at
Canterbury, and entering the hospitable doors of the palace had made
direct for the archbishop’s private chamber.
It was four o’clock. Dinner had been at three, and Thomas was sitting
on his bed talking to John of Salisbury, Edward Grim, and a few other
friends. When the knights entered, Thomas recognized Reginald, William,
and Hugh, for they had served under him years before, and waited for
them to speak.
Reginald FitzUrse was the spokesman. He declared they had come from
the king, that Thomas must take an oath of fealty to the newly-crowned
prince, and must absolve the excommunicated bishops. Thomas answered
that the bishops might have been absolved on their willingness to obey
the judgments of the Church, and that the king had sanctioned what had
been done at their reconciliation.
Reginald denied there had been any reconciliation, and swore that
Thomas was imputing treachery to the king in saying such a thing.
The archbishop pointed out that the reconciliation had taken place in
public, and that Reginald himself had been present.
Reginald swore he had never been there, and had not heard of it. And
at this the other knights broke in, swearing again and again, by God’s
wounds, that they had borne with him far too long already.
Then Thomas reminded them of the insults and losses he had endured,
especially at the hands of the De Brocs, since his return.
Hugh of Morville answered him that he had his remedy in the King’s
Courts, and ought not to excommunicate men on his own authority.
“I shall wait for no man’s leave to do justice on any that wrong the
Church and will not give satisfaction,” Thomas replied.
“What do you threaten us! Threats are too much!” cried Reginald
FitzUrse.
Then the knights bit their gloves and angrily defied the archbishop.
Thomas told them that they could not intimidate him. “Once I went away
like a timid priest; now I have returned, and I will never leave again.
If I may do my office in peace, it is well: if I may not, God’s will be
done.” Then he turned to remind them they had once sworn fealty to him
when he was chancellor.
“We are the king’s men,” they shouted out, “and owe fealty to no one
against the king!”
Bidding his servants keep the archbishop within the precincts on peril
of their lives, the knights withdrew.
“It is easy to keep me,” said Thomas, “for I shall not go away. I will
not fly for the king or for any living man.”
“Why did you not take counsel with us and give milder answer to your
enemies?” said John of Salisbury. “You are ready to die, but we are
not. Think of our peril!”
“We must all die,” the archbishop answered, “and the fear of death must
not turn us from doing justice.”
Word was quickly brought in that the knights were putting on their
armour in the courtyard, and the monks, frightened at the sight of
these men with drawn swords entering the orchard to the west of the
cathedral, rushed to the archbishop and implored him to fly to the
cathedral. Thomas smiled at their terror, saying, “All you monks are
too cowardly, it seems to me.” And not till vespers had begun would he
leave for the minster. The knights broke into the cloisters after him,
and reaching St. Benet’s chapel began to hammer at the door, which for
safety the monks had barred behind them.
Thomas at once ordered the door to be unbolted, saying, “God’s house
shall not be made a fortress on my account.” He slipped back the iron
bar himself, and the angry knights rushed in with cries of “Where is
the traitor? Where is the archbishop?”
It was five o’clock and a dark winter’s night. Had Thomas chosen, he
could easily have escaped death by concealing himself in the crypt or
in one of the many hiding places in the cathedral. But he felt his
hour had come and met it without faltering. John of Salisbury and the
rest of the monks and clerks vanished away and hid themselves, leaving
only Edward Grim, Robert of Merton and William FitzStephen with the
archbishop. Soon only Grim was left, when the archbishop came out
boldly, and standing by a great pillar near the altar of St. Benedict,
answered his accusers. “Here I am: no traitor, Reginald, but your
archbishop.”
They tried to drag him from the church, but he clung to the great
pillar, with Edward Grim by his side. For the last time Reginald called
on him to come out of the church. “I am ready to die, but let my people
go, and do not hurt them,” was the archbishop’s answer. William Tracy
seized hold of him, but Thomas hurled him back. Upon that FitzUrse
shouted, “Strike! strike!” And Tracy cut savagely at the head of the
archbishop. Grim sprang forward and the blow fell on his arm, and he
fell back badly wounded.
Then Thomas commended his cause and that of the Church to St. Denis and
the patron saints of the cathedral, and his soul to God, and without
flinching bowed his head to his murderers. FitzUrse, Tracy and Richard
the Breton struck the archbishop down, and Hugh the Evil Deacon mangled
in brutal fashion the head of St. Thomas before calling out to the
others: “Let us go now; he will never rise again!”
Then they all rushed from the church, and shouting, “King’s knights!
King’s knights!” proceeded to plunder the palace. They fled north that
night to the castle of Hugh of Morville at Knaresborough, where for
a time they lived in close retirement. Tracy subsequently went on a
pilgrimage to Rome and Palestine, but all four “within two years of the
murder were living at court on familiar terms with the king.”[19]
Henry and all his court were horrified when the news was brought
of the archbishop’s martyrdom, for all the people proclaimed the
murdered prelate a saint and a martyr, and “a martyr he clearly
was, not merely to the privileges of the Church or to the rights of
the see of Canterbury, but to the general cause of law and order as
opposed to violence.”[20] Had St. Thomas yielded in the matter of the
excommunicated bishops, and sought favour with the king at the expense
of the liberties and discipline of the Church, and had he given way
to the savage, lawless turbulence of the king’s knights, he would not
only have escaped a violent death, but might have lived long in the
sunshine of the royal pleasure. He chose the rougher, steeper road,
daring all to save the Church and the mass of the English people from
being brought under the iron heel of a king’s absolute rule, and he
paid the penalty, pouring out his blood on the stones of the minster at
Canterbury to seal the vows he had taken when he first entered the city
as archbishop.
In his dying St. Thomas was even stronger than in his life. Henry
hastened to beg the forgiveness of Rome for his rash words that had
provoked the murder, and in the presence of the pope’s legates in
Normandy promised to give up the Constitutions of Clarendon and to
stand by the papacy against the emperor. Nor did he make any further
attempt in his reign to bring the Church under the subjection of the
crown, but built up a great system of legal administration, which in
substance exists to-day.