CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST YEARS OF ARCHBISHOP THEOBALD.

1156–1161.

All Henry’s endeavours for the material and political revival of

his kingdom had been regulated thus far by one simple, definite

principle:--the restoration of the state of things which had existed

under his grandfather. In his own eyes and in those of his subjects the

duty which lay before him at his accession, and which he had faithfully

and successfully fulfilled, was to take up the work of government and

administration not at the point where he found it, but at the point

where it had been left by Henry I. and Roger of Salisbury: to pull

down and sweep away all the innovations and irregularities with which

their work had been overlaid during the last nineteen years, and bring

the old foundations to light once more, that they might receive a

legitimate superstructure planned upon their own lines and built upon

their own principles. In law, in finance, in general administration,

there was one universal standard of reference:--“the time of my

grandfather King Henry.”

But there was one side of the national revival, and that the most

important of all, to which this standard could not apply. The religious

and intellectual movement which had begun under Henry I., far from

coming to a standstill at his death, had gone on gathering energy and

strength during the years of anarchy till it had become the one truly

living power in the land, the power which in the end placed Henry II.

on his throne. It looked to find in him a friend, a fellow-worker,

a protector perhaps; but it had no need to go back to a stage which

it had long since overpassed and make a new departure thence under

the guidance of a king who was almost its own creation. At the very

moment of Henry’s accession, the hopes of the English Church were

raised to their highest pitch by the elevation of an Englishman to the

Papal chair. Nicolas Breakspear was the only man of English birth who

ever attained that lofty seat; and the adventures which brought him

thither, so far as they can be made out from two somewhat contradictory

accounts, form a romantic chapter in the clerical history of the time.

Nicolas was the son of a poor English clerk[1538] at Langley, a little

township belonging to the abbey of S. Alban’s.[1539] The father retired

into the abbey,[1540] leaving his boy, according to one version of the

story, too poor to go to school and too young and ignorant to earn his

bread; he therefore came every day to get a dole at the abbey-gate,

till his father grew ashamed and bade him come no more; whereupon

the lad, “blushing either to dig or to beg in his own country,” made

his way across the sea.[1541] Another version asserts that Nicolas,

being “a youth of graceful appearance, but somewhat lacking in clerkly

acquirements,” sued to the abbot of S. Alban’s for admission as a

monk; the abbot examined him, found him insufficiently instructed, and

dismissed him with a gentle admonition: “Wait awhile, my son, and go

to school that you may become better fitted for the cloister.”[1542]

Whether stung by the abbot’s hint or by his father’s reproofs, young

Nicolas found his way to Paris and into its schools, where he worked

so hard that he out-did all his fellow-students.[1543] But the life

there wearied him as it had wearied Thomas Becket; he rambled on

across Gaul into Provence, and there found hospitality in the Austin

priory of S. Rufus. His graceful figure, pleasant face, sensible talk

and obliging temper so charmed the brotherhood that they grew eager

to keep him in their midst,[1544] and on their persuasion he joined

the order.[1545] It seems that he was even made superior of the house,

but the canons afterwards regretted having set a stranger to rule over

them, and after persecuting him in various ways appealed to the Pope to

get rid of him. The Pope--Eugene III.--at first refused to hear them;

but on second consideration he decided to give them over to their own

evil devices and offer their rejected superior a more agreeable post

in his own court.[1546] Nicolas, who had already twice visited Rome,

proceeded thither a third time and was made cardinal[1547] and bishop

of Albano.[1548] Shortly afterwards he was appointed legate to Norway

and Denmark, an office which he filled with prudence and energy during

some years.[1549] Returning to Rome about 1150, he apparently acted as

secretary to Eugene III. until the latter’s death in July 1153.[1550]

The next Pope, Anastasius III., reigned only sixteen months, and dying

on December 2, 1154, was succeeded by the bishop of Albano, who took

the name of Adrian IV.[1551]

[1538] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 109).

[1539] _Gesta Abbat. S. Albani_ (Riley), vol. i. p. 112.

[1540] Will. Newb. as above. Probably he separated from his

wife in consequence of some of the decrees against clerical

marriage passed under Henry I.; that she was not dead is plain

from John of Salisbury’s mention of her as still living in the

days of his friendship with Nicolas. Joh. Salisb., _Metalog._,

l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p. 205).

[1541] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 109, 110).

[1542] _Gesta Abbat._ as above. The abbot’s name is there given

as Robert, but this must be wrong, as Robert did not become

abbot till 1151, and by 1150, as we shall see, Nicolas was at

Rome.

[1543] _Gesta Abbat._ (as above), pp. 112, 113.

[1544] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 6 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 110).

[1545] _Ibid._ _Gesta Abbat._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 113.

[1546] Will. Newb. as above (pp. 110, 111). The church of S.

Rufus (diocese Valence) had between 1145 and 1151 an abbot

named N.... The editors of _Gall. Christ._ (vol. xvi. cols.

359, 360) will not allow that this N. was Nicolas Breakspear,

and of course the date will not agree with the version of his

history in the _Gesta Abbat._; but it agrees perfectly with

that of Will. Newb.; while the _Gesta’s_ dates are confuted by

Nicolas’s undoubted signatures at Rome.

[1547] _Gesta Abbat._ as above.

[1548] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

[1549] Will. Newb. as above.

[1550] “A partir de l’année 1150, on trouve la souscription

de _Nicolaus episcopus Albanensis_ au bas des bulles d’Eugène

III.” Delisle, _Rob. Torigni_, vol. i. p. 288, note 2.

[1551] Will. Newb. as above (p. 111). Date from Cod. Vatic.,

Baronius, _Annales_ (Pagi), vol. xix. p. 77.

The English Church naturally hailed with delight the accession of a

pontiff who was at once one of her own sons and a disciple of Eugene,

whom the leaders of the intellectual and spiritual revival in England

had come to regard almost as their patron saint.[1552] Adrian indeed

shared all their highest and most cherished aspirations far more deeply

and intimately than Eugene himself could have done. It was in the

cloisters of Canterbury that these aspirations were gradually taking

definite shape under the guidance of Archbishop Theobald. There,

beneath the shadow of the cathedral begun by Lanfranc and completed

by S. Anselm, their worthy successor had been throughout the last ten

or twelve years of the anarchy watching over a little sanctuary where

all that was noblest, highest, most full of hope and promise in the

dawning intellectual life of the day found a peaceful shelter and a

congenial home. The _Curia Theobaldi_, the household of Archbishop

Theobald, was a sort of little school of the prophets, a seminary into

which the vigilant primate drew the choicest spirits among the rising

generation, to be trained up under his own eyes in his own modes of

thought and views of life, till they were fitted to become first the

sharers and then the continuators of his work for the English Church

and the English nation. Through his scholars had come the revival of

legal and ecclesiastical learning in England; through them had come the

renewal of intercourse and sympathy with the sister-Churches of the

west; through them had been conducted the negotiations with Rome which

had led to the restoration of order and peace; and in them, as Theobald

hoped, the Church, having saved the state, would find her most fitting

instruments for the work of reform and revival which still remained to

be done within her own borders. One by one, as the occasion presented

itself, he began to send them forth to take independent positions in

the Church or in the world. Of the chosen three whom he specially

trusted, the first who thus left his side was John of Canterbury,

who in 1153 succeeded Hugh of Puiset as treasurer of York. Next year

Theobald was able to place another of his disciples in the northern

metropolis in a far more important capacity: he succeeded in obtaining

the royal assent to the appointment of Roger of Pont-l’Evêque as

archbishop of York, in succession to S. William, who had been restored

by Pope Anastasius after Henry Murdac’s death, but died six weeks after

his restoration.[1553]

[1552] John of Salisbury frequently writes of him as “Sanctus

Eugenius.”

[1553] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 298, 299. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 26 (Howlett,

vol. i. pp. 80, 82). Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.),

pp. 10, 11.

Roger’s history before his entrance into the primate’s household is

so completely lost that even the rendering of his surname is a matter

of some doubt; it may have been derived from the English town of

Bishopsbridge, and if so Roger was now going back as primate to his

own native shire; it seems however more probable that he came from

Pont-l’Evêque in Normandy.[1554] He was evidently some years older

than Theobald’s other favourites, John of Canterbury and Thomas of

London; for we find him and Gilbert Foliot quarrelling, apologizing,

lecturing and forgiving each other with an outspoken freedom and

familiarity possible only between two men of equal standing who have

been friends from their youth.[1555] With Thomas Becket, on the other

hand, Roger was never upon really friendly terms; jealous, no doubt,

of the younger man who seemed likely to supersede him in the primate’s

confidence, Roger lost no opportunity of teasing the “hatchet-clerk”

(as he called Thomas, from the nickname of the man who had first

introduced him to Theobald), and made his life so wretched that he

was twice driven to quit the archbishop’s house and take refuge with

Theobald’s brother, Walter, archdeacon of Canterbury, till the latter

smoothed the way for his return.[1556] On Walter’s elevation to the see

of Rochester in 1148 his archdeaconry was given to Roger;[1557] he also

held some other preferments, all of which he was at one time in great

danger of losing--most likely on account of his share in the famous

“swimming-voyage” to Reims; but his friend Gilbert Foliot secured him

the protection of the Pope;[1558] and the restoration of the archbishop

would naturally involve that of the archdeacon. After six years’ tenure

of his office at Canterbury Roger was called to go up higher. Theobald

had more than one reason for desiring his archdeacon’s elevation. He

wished it for Roger’s own sake; he wished it still more for the sake

of his younger favourite, whom he longed to establish in a position of

dignity and importance, yet close to his own side; above all, he wished

it for the sake of the Church;[1559] for he naturally hoped that in

leaving one of his own foremost disciples seated on the metropolitan

chair of York, he would be leaving at least one prelate of the highest

rank firmly pledged to those schemes of ecclesiastical policy and

organization which he himself had most at heart. His confidence in

Roger was over-great. After all the disputes about the canonical

relations between Canterbury and York which had wasted the energies of

Lanfranc and embittered the last days of S. Anselm, Theobald missed his

opportunity of securing at last a full acknowledgement of Canterbury’s

superior rights, and was rash enough to consecrate Roger without

requiring from him a profession of obedience.[1560] The large-hearted

primate evidently never dreamed that any question of obedience could

arise between himself and one of his spiritual sons, or that Roger’s

loyalty to him could fail to be extended to his successor. He never

discovered his mistake; it was Roger’s old rival, and with him the

English Church, who ultimately had to bear its unhappy consequences.

[1554] There is a bit of evidence on this side in _Thomas Saga_

(Magnusson), vol. i. p. 40, where the writer calls him “Rogerum

Nevstriensem.”

[1555] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. cix.–cxi. (Giles, vol. i. pp.

135–145). This was after Roger became archbishop; the quarrel

went so far that Roger appealed to Rome about it, and carried

his appeal in person. (What can be the date of this?) Gilbert

owns that he had let his sharp tongue run away with him; Roger

lectures him soundly, but ends with “ecce jam in occursum

vestrum vetus festinat amicus,” and a proposal to kill the

fatted calf in celebration of his repentance (Ep. cx. p. 141).

[1556] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.

16. Cf. Anon I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 9, 10; E. Grim (_ib._

vol. ii.), p. 362; and Gamier (Hippeau), p. 10.

[1557] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 133.

[1558] “Clericus ... dilecti filii vestri domini Cantuariensis

archiepiscopi Magister R. de Ponte Episcopi vestrum adit

urgente necessitate præsidium ut ad tuenda ea quæ canonice

possidet a vestrâ imploret serenitate patrocinium.” Gilb.

Foliot, Ep. xvii (Giles, vol. i. p. 30). The salutation of

the letter runs “Summo Dei gratiâ Pontifici E., frater G.

Glocestriæ dictus abbas”; it looks very much as if written

in the interval between the council of Reims and Gilbert’s

consecration.

[1559] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 10.

[1560] “Sed professionem non fecit” [Roger], significantly

remarks R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 298. Roger was

consecrated at Westminster on October 10, 1154; _ibid._ Gerv.

Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 158.

Immediately after Roger’s consecration Thomas was raised by his

primate to deacon’s orders and made archdeacon of Canterbury.[1561]

A few months later the accession of Henry II. opened the way for his

advancement in another direction. His appointment to the chancellorship

involved a great self-sacrifice on the part of Theobald; for the

chancellor’s duties--at least as conceived by Thomas, and as Theobald

had intended him to conceive them--took him not only quite away from

those of his archdeaconry and from his primate’s side, but very often

out of the country altogether; so that Theobald in giving him up to the

king had condemned himself to pass his declining years apart from the

object of his warmest earthly affections. But the _Curia Theobaldi_ was

by no means deserted; though it had lost its most brilliant star, there

was no lack of lesser lights to brighten the primate’s home-circle;

there was one whose soft mild radiance, less dazzling than the glory

of Thomas, was a far truer and steadier reflex of Theobald’s own calm

and gentle spirit. Yet John of Salisbury had entered the archbishop’s

household within a comparatively recent period. His father’s name seems

to have been Reinfred;[1562] his family connexions were all in or

around the city whence his surname was derived;[1563] but there is some

indication that John himself may have been born in London.[1564] In the

year after the death of Henry I. he went to study in Paris, and there

received his first lessons in dialectics from the greatest scholar of

the day--sitting at the feet of Peter Abelard, and eagerly drinking in,

to the utmost capacity of his young mind, every word that fell from

the master’s lips. Abelard departed all too soon, and John pursued his

studies for about two years under his successors Alberic and Robert,

of whom the latter, although commonly called “Robert of Melun” from

having taught with distinction in that place, was an Englishman by

birth, and will come before us again in later days as Gilbert Foliot’s

successor in the bishopric of Hereford. It must have been precisely

during those two years that Thomas of London also was in Paris for the

first time, striving for his mother’s sake to overcome his dislike of

books; and it was possibly there that the two young Englishmen, who

must have been of nearly the same age, began to form an acquaintance

which afterwards ripened into a lifelong friendship. And it can only

have been about the same time, and in that same wonderful meeting-place

where so many of the happiest and most fruitful associations of the

time had their beginnings, that John of Salisbury first met with

Nicolas of Langley.

[1561] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p.

17. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 168. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),

p. 4. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 11. Garnier (Hippeau), p.

10. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 159. Rog. Howden (Stubbs),

vol. i. p. 213, where he is called “Thomas Beket”--apparently

for the first time.

[1562] “Magister B. filius Reinfred peccator, fraterculus

meus,” is named by Joh. Salisb. Ep. xc. (Giles, vol. i. p. 135).

[1563] See his correspondence _passim_.

[1564] There is among John’s letters a most enigmatical

one--Ep. cxxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 109)--without date, address,

or writer’s name, but very much in the tone and style of John’s

familiar letters--in which a Londoner, or rather a man who

tried to make himself out to be such, is described as “concivis

noster.” It looks very much as if written by John to Thomas.

Thomas went home to the plodding life of a city merchant’s clerk;

Nicolas set out on the long course of wandering which was to bring him

at last to the Papal chair; John, having as he says “steeped himself

to the finger-tips in dialectics, and moreover learned to think his

knowledge greater than it really was,” applied himself for the next

three years to the schools of the grammarians William of Conches

and Richard l’Evêque, with whom he went over again the whole course

of his previous studies, penetrated somewhat deeper into those of

the _quadrivium_ which he had begun under the direction of a German

named Hardwin, and improved some slight notions of rhetoric which

he had acquired at the lectures of a certain Master Theodoric. His

relatives were quite unable to maintain him all this while; like all

poor students of the day, he earned his living and his college-fees

by teaching others, and as he pleasantly says “What I learned was

the better fixed in my mind, because I constantly had to bring it

out for my pupils.” One of these pupils was William of Soissons, to

whom he taught the elements of logic, “and who afterwards contrived,

as his followers say, a method of breaking down the old strongholds

of logic, producing unexpected consequences, and overthrowing the

opinions of the ancients.” John however declined to believe in a

“system of impossibilities,” for which he at any rate was clearly not

responsible; for he had soon transferred his pupil to the care of one

Master Adam, an English teacher deeply versed in Aristotelian lore. It

seems just possible that this Master Adam, who was at this time helping

John in his studies not as a teacher but as a friend,[1565] was the

same who many years before had stood in a somewhat similar relation

to Gilbert Foliot.[1566] He may, however, perhaps be more probably

identified with Adam “du Petit-Pont”--so called from the place where

he lectured in Paris--who in 1176 became bishop of S. Asaph’s.[1567]

After a while John found that with all his efforts he could hardly

earn enough to live upon in Paris; so by the advice of his friends he

determined to set up a school elsewhere.[1568] While sitting at the

feet of the “Peripatetic” doctors on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève he had

become acquainted with a young native of Champagne, Peter by name,

who was studying in the school of S. Martin-des-Champs.[1569] The two

friends, it seems, settled together at Provins in Peter’s native land,

and there, under the protection of the good Count Theobald,[1570]

laboured and prospered for three years.[1571] Long afterwards, from

his anxious post at the side of the dying Archbishop Theobald, John’s

thoughts strayed tenderly back to the days which he and his young

comrade, with hearts as light as their purses, had spent among the

roses of Champagne: “I am the same that ever I was,” he wrote to

Peter, now abbot of Celle, “only I possess more than you and I had

between us at Provins.”[1572] He returned to Paris, revisited his

old haunts on the Mont-Ste.-Geneviève, and was amused to find his

old school-companions just where and as he had left them. “They

did not seem to have advanced an inch towards disposing of the old

questions, nor to have added one new proposition.” He, in his three

years of healthy meditation in the country, had discovered that

their dialectics, however useful as a help to other studies, were in

themselves but a fruitless and lifeless system; he therefore now gave

himself up to the study of theology under a certain Master Gilbert,

Robert “Pullus”--in whom one is tempted to recognize the Robert Pulein

who had planted the seed of the first English University by his

divinity-lectures at Oxford in 1133--and lastly, Simon of Poissy.

[1565] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol.

v. pp. 78–80). Adam’s nationality appears in l. iii. c.

3 (p. 129), where he is described as “noster ille Anglus

Peripateticus Adam.”

[1566] See below, p. 492, 493.

[1567] Wright, _Biogr. Britt. Lit._, vol. ii. pp. 245, 246.

[1568] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v.

pp. 80, 81).

[1569] On Peter of Celle see Migne, _Patrologia_, vol. ccii.

cols. 399, 400, and _Gall. Christ._, vol. xii. col. 543.

[1570] Cf. Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxxxii. and cxliii. (Giles, vol.

i. pp. 114, 206); and see also Demimuid, _Jean de Salisbury_,

pp. 26, 27.

[1571] “Reversus itaque in fine triennii.” Joh. Salisb.

_Metalog._ as above (p. 81).

[1572] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 114).

John’s whole career in the schools, after occupying about twelve

years,[1573] apparently came to an end shortly before the council of

Reims. His old friend Peter had already retired into the peace of the

cloister, and about this time became abbot of Celle, near Troyes.

There John, who was utterly without means of living, found a shelter

and a home, nominally, it seems, in the capacity of Peter’s “clerk” or

secretary, but in reality as the recipient of a generous hospitality

which sought for no return save the enjoyment of his presence and his

friendship.[1574] Such a light as John’s, however, could not long

remain thus hidden under a bushel. So felt Peter himself;[1575] and

at that moment a better place for it was easily found. At the council

of Reims, or during his exile after it, the archbishop of Canterbury

probably met the abbot of Celle and his English “clerk”;[1576] he

certainly must have met the abbot of Clairvaux; and S. Bernard, with

his unerring instinct, had already discovered John’s merits. He named

him to Theobald in terms of commendation; and it was he who furnished

the letter of introduction,[1577] as it was Peter who furnished the

means,[1578] wherewith John at last made his way to the archbishop’s

court,[1579] of which he soon became one of the busiest and most

valued members. So busy was he--so “distracted with diverse and adverse

occupations,” as he himself said--that he complained of being scarce

able to steal an hour for the literary and philosophical pursuits

which he so dearly loved. Ten times in the next thirteen years[1580]

did he cross the Alps, twice did he visit Apulia, on business with

the Roman court for his superiors or his friends; besides travelling

all over England and Gaul on a variety of errands, and fulfilling a

crowd of home-duties which left him scarcely time to look after his

own private affairs, much less to indulge in study.[1581] The greater

part of the communications between Theobald and Eugene III. must

have passed through his hands, either as messenger or as amanuensis;

but his name never figures in their diplomatic history; his place

therein was a subordinate one. It was not in his nature to take the

foremost rank. Not that he was unfit for it:--with his gracious, genial

temper; his calm clear judgement, generally sound because always

disinterested; his delicate wit, his easy, elegant scholarship, and his

wide practical experience of the world--John of Salisbury might have

adorned far higher positions in either Church or state than any which

he ever actually occupied. But his own position was a thing of which

he seems never to have thought, save as a means of serving others. His

apology for his unwilling neglect of literature--“I am a man under

authority”[1582]--might have been the motto of his life. He left it to

others to lead; if they led in the way of righteousness, they might be

sure of one faithful adherent who would serve and follow them through

good report and evil report, who would try to clear the path before

them at any risk to himself; who would criticize their conduct and

tell them of their errors with fearless simplicity, while striving to

avert the consequence of those errors and to cover their retreat; who

in poverty and exile, incurred for another’s sake, would make light

of his own sufferings and be constantly endeavouring to relieve those

of his fellow-sufferers, and who would always find or make a silver

lining to the darkest cloud. This was what John did for the possible

acquaintance of his early student-days whom he had now rejoined in

the household of Archbishop Theobald. To the end of his life he was

more than satisfied to count the friendship of Thomas Becket as his

chief title of honour, and to let whatever share of lustre might have

been his own go to brighten the aureole of his friend. It brightened

it far more than he knew. When detractors and panegyrists have both

done their worst, there remains this simple proof of the real worth of

Thomas--that he inspired such devotion as this in a man such as John of

Salisbury, and that he knew how to appreciate it as it deserved.

[1573] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. ii. c. 10 (Giles, vol. v. p.

81).

[1574] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117). Pet.

Cell. Epp. lxvii.–lxxv. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. ccii. cols.

513–522).

[1575] Pet. Cell. Ep. lxx. (as above, col. 516).

[1576] The _Historia Pontificalis_, certainly the work of one

who was present at this council, is attributed to John.

[1577] S. Bern. Ep. ccclxi. (Mabillon, vol. i. col. 325).

[1578] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxxv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 117).

[1579] From the Prologue to the _Polycraticus_, l. i. (_Joh.

Salisb. Opp._, Giles, vol. iii. p. 13), it appears that at the

time of writing it John had been twelve years at the court. As

the _Polycraticus_ was written during the war of Toulouse, this

takes us back to 1148. He must in fact have joined Theobald

very soon after the council of Reims.

[1580] He himself makes it twenty years (Joh. Salisb.

_Metalog._, prolog. l. iii., Giles, vol. v. p. 113); but

he cannot possibly have left Paris before 1147, and the

_Metalogicus_ was finished before Theobald’s death in 1161.

Either there is something wrong in John’s reckoning, or in his

copyist’s reading of it, or this passage was added some years

after the completion of the book.

[1581] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._ as above.

[1582] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, prolog. l. vii. (Giles, vol.

iv. p. 80).

It was however John’s friendship with Nicolas of Langley which in these

years of his residence in the primate’s household made him so valuable

to Theobald as a medium of communication with Rome. We can hardly doubt

that this acquaintance, too, had begun in Paris; now, as the English

cardinal-secretary and the envoy of the English primate discussed

in the Roman court the prospects of their common mother-country and

mother-Church, their acquaintance ripened into a friendship which no

change of outward circumstances could alter or disturb. Nicolas cared

more for John than for his own nearest relatives; he declared in public

and in private that he loved him above all men living; he delighted in

unburthening his soul to him. When he became Pope there was no change;

a visit from John was still Adrian’s greatest pleasure; he rejoiced in

welcoming him to his table, and despite John’s modest remonstrances

insisted that they should be served from the same dish and

flagon.[1583] King and primate were both alike quick to perceive and

use such an opportunity of strengthening the alliance between England

and Rome; while Adrian on his part was all the more ready to give a

cordial response to overtures made to him from the land of his birth,

when they came through the lips of his dearest friend. As a matter of

course, it was John who very soon after the accession of Henry II. was

sent to obtain a Papal authorization for the king’s projected conquest

of Ireland.[1584] Naturally, too, it was John who now became Theobald’s

private secretary and confidential medium of communication with Pope

Adrian. A considerable part of the correspondence which goes under

John’s name really consists of the archbishop’s letters, John himself

being merely the amanuensis. This part of his work, however, was a

relaxation which he only enjoyed at intervals; he was still constantly

on active duty of some kind or other not only at the court of the

primate but also at that of the king; and sorely did he long to escape

from its weary trifling, to find rest for his soul in the pursuit of

that “divine philosophy” which had been the delight of his youth.[1585]

But obedience, not inclination, had brought him to court, and obedience

kept him there. Thomas knew his worth and would not let him go; at

last, to pacify his uneasiness, he bade him relieve his mind by pouring

it out in a book. John protested he had scarce time to call his soul

his own, much less his intellect or his hands.[1586] He was, however,

set free by the removal of the court over sea for the expedition

against Toulouse; and while Thomas was riding in coat of mail at the

head of his troops against Count Raymond and King Louis, John was

writing his _Polycraticus_ in the quiet cloisters of Canterbury.[1587]

[1583] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v. p.

205).

[1584] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, l. iv. c. 42 (Giles, vol. v.

pp. 205, 206).

[1585] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.

iii. p. 13).

[1586] _Ib._ l. vii. prolog. (vol. iv. p. 80).

[1587] _Ib._ l. i. prolog. (vol. iii. p. 16). Cf. _ib._ l.

viii. c. 24 (vol. iv. p. 379).

This book of _Polycraticus on the Triflings of Courtiers and the

Foot-prints of Philosophers_[1588] is a strange medley of moral and

political speculations, personal experiences, and reflections upon men

and things, old and new. Its greatest charm lies in the revelation of

the writer’s pure, sweet, child-like character, shining unconsciously

through the veil of his scholastic pedantries and rambling metaphysics;

its historical value consists in the light which it throws on the

social condition of England with respect to a crowd of matters which

the chroniclers leave wholly in the dark. “Part of it,” says the author

in his dedication, “deals with the trifles of the court; laying most

stress on those which have chiefly called it forth. Part treats of

the foot-prints of the philosophers, leaving, however, the wise to

decide for themselves in each case what is to be shunned and what to be

followed.”[1589] We need not weary ourselves with John’s meditations

upon Aristotle and Plato and their scholastic commentators; they

all come round to one simple conclusion--that the fear of the Lord

is the beginning of wisdom, and the love of Him the end of all true

philosophy.[1590] It is in the light of this truth that he looks at

the practical questions of the day, and reviews those “trifles of

the court” which are really the crying abuses of the government, the

ecclesiastical administration, and society at large. In the forefront

of all he does not hesitate, although dedicating his book to the

chancellor whose passion for hunting almost equalled that of the king

himself, to set the inordinate love of the chase and the cruelties

of the forest-law.[1591] The tardiness of the royal justice and the

corruption of the judges--“_justitiæ errantes_, justices errant are

they rightly called who go erring from the path of equity in pursuit

of greed and gain”[1592]--was also, after seven years of Henry’s

government, still a ground of serious complaint. So, too, was the decay

of valour among the young knighthood of the day--a consequence of the

general relaxation of discipline, first during the years of anarchy,

and then in the reaction produced by the unbroken peace which England

had enjoyed since Henry’s accession. Chivalry was already falling

back from its lofty ideal; military exercises were neglected for the

pleasures and luxury of the court; the making of a knight, in theory a

matter almost as solemn as the making of a priest, was sinking into a

mere commonplace formality;[1593] and the consequences were beginning

to be felt on the Welsh border.[1594] John was moved to contrast

the present insecurity of the marches with their splendid defence

in Harold’s time,[1595] and to lament that William the Conqueror,

in his desire to make his little insular world share the glories of

the greater world beyond the sea, had allowed the naturally rich and

self-sufficing island to be flooded with luxuries of which it had no

need, and thus fostered rather than checked the indolent disposition

which had helped to bring its people under his sway.[1596]

[1588] _Polycraticus de Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis

Philosophorum._

[1589] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. prolog. (Giles, vol.

iii. p. 13).

[1590] This is the idea which runs through the whole of

_Polycraticus_, and indeed through all John’s writings. It is

neatly expressed in two lines of his _Entheticus_ (vv. 305,

306, Giles, vol. v. p. 248):

“Si verus Deus est hominum sapientia vera, Tunc amor est veri

philosophia Dei.”

[1591] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. i. c. 4 (Giles, vol. iii.

pp. 19–32).

[1592] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (p. 322). Cf. cc. 10, 11 (pp.

300–311). Pet. Blois, Ep. xcv. (Giles, vol. i. p. 297), makes a

like play on the title of the judges.

[1593] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. cc. 2, 3, 5, 8–10

(Giles, vol. iv. pp. 8–12, 15, 16, 20–23).

[1594] _Ib._ cc. 6, 16 (pp. 16, 17, 39, 40).

[1595] _Ib._ c. 6 (p. 18).

[1596] _Ib._ l. viii. c. 7 (p. 238).

The ills of the state had each its counterpart in the Church; the

extortions and perversions of justice committed by the secular judges

were paralleled by those of the ecclesiastical officials, deans and

archdeacons;[1597] and at the bottom of the mischief lay the old root

of all evil. Simony was indeed no longer public; spiritual offices

were no longer openly bought with hard cash; but they were bought with

court-interest instead;[1598] the Church’s most sacred offices were

filled by men who came straight from the worldly life of the court to a

charge for which they were utterly unfit;[1599] although, in deference

to public opinion, they were obliged to go through an elaborate shew

of reluctance, and Scripture and hagiology were ransacked for examples

of converted sinners, which were always found sufficient to meet any

objections against a candidate for consecration and to justify any

appointment, however outrageous.[1600] All the sins of the worldly

churchmen, however, scarcely move John’s pure soul to such an outburst

of scathing sarcasm as he pours upon the “false brethren” who sought

their advancement in a more subtle way, by a shew of counterfeit

piety:--the ultra-monastic, ultra-ascetic school, with their overdone

zeal and humility, and their reliance on those pernicious exemptions

from diocesan jurisdiction which the religious orders vied with each

other in procuring from Rome, and which were destroying all discipline

and subverting all rightful authority.[1601]

[1597] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. pp. 327, 328).

[1598] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 18 (vol. iv. pp. 149, 152).

[1599] _Ib._ l. v. c. 15 (vol. iii. p. 329).

[1600] _Ib._ l. vii. cc. 18, 19 (vol. iv. pp. 149–152, 156–158).

[1601] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vii. c. 21 (Giles, vol. iv.

pp. 169–178). It is to be noted that the two orders which John

considers to be least infected with this hypocrisy are those of

the Chartreuse and of Grandmont. _Ib._ c. 23 (pp. 180, 181).

Over against the picture of the world and the Church as they actually

were, the disciple of Archbishop Theobald sets his ideal of both as

they should be--as the primate and his children aimed at making them.

For John’s model commonwealth, built up in a somewhat disjointed

fashion on a foundation partly of Holy Writ and partly of classic

antiquity, is not, like the great Utopia of the sixteenth century,

the product of one single, exceptionally constituted mind; it is a

reflection of the plans and hopes of those among whom John lived and

worked, and thus it helps us to see something of the line of thought

which had guided their action in the past and which moulded their

schemes for the future. Like all medieval theorists, they began at the

uppermost end of the social and political scale; they started from a

definite view of the rights and duties of the king, as the head on

which all the lower members of the body politic depended. The divine

right of kings, the divine ordination of the powers that be, were

fundamental doctrines which they understood in a far wider and loftier

sense than the king-worshippers of the seventeenth century:--which they

employed not to support but to combat the perverted theory that “the

sovereign’s will has the force of law,” already creeping in through the

influence of the imperial jurisprudence;[1602]--and which were no less

incompatible with the principle of invariable hereditary succession.

“Lands and houses and suchlike things must needs descend to the next

in blood; but the government of a people is to be given only to him

whom God has chosen thereto, even to him who has God’s Spirit within

him and God’s law ever before his eyes.... Not that for the mere love

of change it is lawful to forsake the blood of princes, to whom by the

privilege of the divine promises and by the natural claims of birth the

succession of their children is justly due, if only they walk according

to right. Neither, if they turn aside from the right way, are they

to be immediately cast off, but patiently admonished till it become

evident that they are obstinate in their wickedness”[1603]--then, and

then only, shall the axe be laid to the root of the corrupt tree, and

it shall cumber the ground no more.[1604]

[1602] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 7 (vol. iii. p. 241).

[1603] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. v. c. 6 (Giles, vol. iii.

p. 278).

[1604] _Ib._ l. iv. c. 12 (pp. 259, 260).

Such was the moral which the wisest and most thoughtful minds in

England drew from the lessons of the anarchy. On a like principle, it

was in the growth of a more definite and earnest sense of individual

duty and responsibility, as opposed to the selfish lawlessness which

had so long prevailed, that they trusted for the regeneration of

society. They sought to teach the knights to live up to the full

meaning of their vows and the true objects of their institution--the

protection of the Church, the suppression of treason, the vindication

of the rights of the poor, the pacification of the country;[1605]

so that the consecration of their swords upon the altar at their

investiture should be no empty form, but, according to its original

intention, a true symbol of the whole character of their lives and, if

need be, of their deaths.[1606] And then side by side with the true

knight would stand the true priest:--both alike soldiers of the Cross,

fighting in the same cause though with different weapons--figured,

according to John’s beautiful application of a text which medieval

reformers never wearied of expounding, by the “two swords” which

the Master had declared “enough” for His servants, all the lawless

undisciplined activity of self-seekers and false brethren being

merely the “swords and staves” of the hostile multitude.[1607] Into a

detailed examination of the rights or the duties of the various classes

of the people no one in those days thought it necessary to enter;

their well-being and well-doing were regarded as dependent upon those

of their superiors, and the whole question of the relation between

rulers and ruled--“head and feet,” according to the simile which

John borrows from Plutarch--was solved by the comprehensive formula,

“Every one members one of another.”[1608] To watch over and direct the

carrying-out of this principle was the special work of the clergy;

and the clerical reformers were jealous for the rights of their order

because, as understood by them, they represented and covered the rights

of the whole nation; the claims which they put forth in the Church’s

name were a protest in behalf of true civil and religious liberty

against tyranny on the one hand and license on the other.[1609] “For

there is nothing more glorious than freedom, save virtue; if indeed

freedom may rightly be severed from virtue--for all who know anything

aright know that true freedom has no other source.”[1610]

[1605] _Ib._ l. vi. c. 8 (vol. iv. p. 21).

[1606] _Ibid._ c. 10 (p. 23). Cf. Pet. Blois, Ep. xciv. (Giles,

vol. i. pp. 291–296).

[1607] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 8 (Giles, vol. iv.

p. 21). John’s use of the text is perhaps only a generalization

from S. Bernard’s application of it to Suger and the count of

Nevers, left regents of France in 1149. Odo of Deuil, _Rer.

Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 93.

[1608] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. vi. c. 20 (as above, pp.

51, 52).

[1609] _Ib._ l. vii. c. 20 (pp. 161–169).

[1610] _Ibid._ c. 25 (p. 192).

How far these lofty views had made their way into the high places of

the Church it was as yet scarcely possible to judge. The tone of the

English episcopate had certainly undergone a marked change for the

better during the last six years of Stephen’s reign. Theobald’s hopes

must, however, have been chiefly in the rising generation. Of the

existing bishops there was only one really capable of either helping

or hindering the work which the primate had at heart; for Henry of

Winchester, although his royal blood, his stately personality and

his long and memorable career necessarily made him to his life’s end

an important figure in both Church and state, had ceased to take an

active part in the affairs of either, and for several years lived

altogether away from England, in his boyhood’s home at Cluny.[1611]

A far more weighty element in the calculations of the reforming party

was the character and policy of the bishop of Hereford, Gilbert

Foliot. From the circumstances in which we find Gilbert’s relatives in

England,[1612] it seems probable that he belonged to one of the poorer

Norman families of knightly rank who came over either in the train of

the great nobles of the conquest or in the more peaceful immigration

under Henry I. His youth is lost in obscurity; of his education we

know nothing, save by its fruits. Highly gifted as he unquestionably

was by nature, even his inborn genius could hardly have enabled him to

acquire his refined and varied scholarship, his unrivalled mastery of

legal, political and ecclesiastical lore, his profound and extensive

knowledge of men and things, anywhere but in some one or other of the

universities of the day. It is curious that although Gilbert’s extant

correspondence is one of the most voluminous of the time--extending

over nearly half a century, and addressed to persons of the most

diverse ranks, parties, professions and nationalities--it contains not

one allusion to the studies or the companions of his youth, not one

of those half playful, half tender reminiscences of student-triumphs,

student-troubles and student-friendships, which were so fresh in the

hearts and in the letters of many distinguished contemporaries. Only

from an appeal made to him, when bishop of London, in behalf of his old

benefactor’s orphan and penniless children, do we learn that he had

once been the favourite pupil, the ward, almost the adoptive son, of a

certain Master Adam.[1613] It is tempting, but perhaps hardly safe,

to conjecture that this Master Adam was the learned Englishman of that

name who in like manner befriended another young fellow-countryman,

John of Salisbury, when he too was studying in Paris.[1614] This,

however, was not till Gilbert Foliot’s student-days had long been past.

Wherever his youth may have been spent, wherever his reputation may

have been acquired, the one was quite over and the other was fully

established before 1139, when he had been already for some years a

monk of Cluny, had attained the rank of prior in the mother-house, and

had thence been promoted to become the head of the dependent priory of

Abbeville.[1615]

[1611] He went there in 1155 (Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._), and

does not reappear in England till March 1159 (Palgrave, _Eng.

Commonwealth_, vol. ii. p. xii).

[1612] See his letters _passim_.

[1613] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. dxv., dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp.

323, 324, 326). The writer of the first is “Ranulfus de

Turri”; the second is anonymous. Both appeal earnestly to

the bishop’s charity and gratitude in behalf of “J. filius

A. magistri quondam vestri, procuratoris vestri, tutoris

vestri.... Hæreat animo sanctitatis vestræ illa M. Adæ circa

vos curarum gravitas, alimoniæ fœcunditas, diligentia doctrinæ,

specialis impensa benivolentiæ. Quis hodie proprios liberos

regit providentius, educat uberius, instruit attentius, diligit

ferventius? Sic pæne amor ille modum excessit, ut vos diligeret

non quasi excellenter, sed quasi singulariter ... qui vos

aliquando pro filio adoptavit” (Ep. dxv.). “Tangat memoriam

vestram illa M. Adæ circa vos curarum gravitas, doctrinæ

profunditas, alimoniæ ubertas, postremo fervens, immo ardens

caritas. Hæreat animo vestro quantâ curâ, quali amplexu, quam

speciali privilegio, illa doctoris vestri, procuratoris,

tutoris, diligens vigilantia vos non modo supra familiares,

verum supra quoslibet mortales adoptaverit, qualiterque ejus

spiritus in vestro, ut ita dicam, spiritu quieverit.” Ep. dxvii.

[1614] See above, p. 482. In any case, Gilbert’s Master Adam

is surely a somewhat interesting person, of whom one would

like to know more. This was the condition of his eldest son,

when commended to the gratitude of Gilbert: “Pater ejus cum

fati munus impleret, filium reliquit ære alieno gravatum,

fratrum numerositate impeditum, redituum angustiis constrictum,

et quibusdam aliis nexibus intricatum.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep.

dxvii. (Giles, vol. ii. p. 326). “Onerant enim eum supra modum

redituum angustiæ, debitorum paternorum sarcinæ, amicorum

raritas, fratrum sororumque pluralitas et reliquæ sarcinæ

parentelæ.” Ep. dxv. (_ib._ p. 323).

[1615] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cclxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 366).

In 1139 the abbot of S. Peter’s at Gloucester died; Miles the

constable, the lord of Gloucester castle and sheriff of the county,

and the greatest man of the district after Earl Robert himself,

secured the vacant office for Gilbert Foliot,[1616] who was a family

connexion of his own.[1617] The abbey of S. Peter at Gloucester,

founded as a nunnery in the seventh century, changed into a college

of secular priests after the Danish wars, and finally settled as a

house of Benedictine monks in the reign of Cnut, had risen to wealth

and fame under its first Norman abbot, Serlo, some of whose work still

survives in the nave of his church, now serving as the cathedral

church of Gloucester. Gloucester itself, the capital of Earl Robert’s

territories, was still, like Hereford and Shrewsbury, a border-city

whose inhabitants had to be constantly on their guard against the

thievery and treachery of the Welsh, who, though often highly useful

to their English earl as auxiliary forces in war, were anything but

loyal subjects or trustworthy neighbours. The position of abbot of S.

Peter’s therefore was at all times one of some difficulty and anxiety;

and Gilbert entered upon it at a specially difficult and anxious time.

Stephen’s assent to his appointment can hardly have been prompted by

favour to Miles, who had openly defied the king a year ago; he may have

been influenced by fear of giving fresh offence to such a formidable

deserter, or he may simply have been, as we are told, moved by the

report of Gilbert’s great merits.[1618] The new abbot proved quite

worthy of his reputation. His bitterest enemies always admitted that he

was a pattern of monastic discipline and personal asceticism; and his

admirable judgement, moderation and prudence soon made him a personage

of very high authority in the counsels of the English Church. Holding

such an important office in the city which was the head-quarters of

the Empress’s party throughout the greater part of the civil war, he

of course had his full share of the troubles of the anarchy, whereof

Welsh inroads counted among the least. There is no doubt that in

bringing him to England Miles had, whether intentionally or not,

brought over one who sympathized strongly with the Angevin cause; but

Gilbert’s sympathies led him into no political partizanship. During

his nine years’ residence at Gloucester he consistently occupied the

position which seems to have been his ideal through life: that of a

churchman pure and simple, attached to no mere party in either Church

or state, but ready to work with each and all for the broad aims of

ecclesiastical order and national tranquillity. That these aims came

at last to be identified with the success of the Angevin party was

a result of circumstances over which Gilbert had no control. He was

honoured, consulted and trusted by the most diverse characters among

the bishops. Mere abbot of a remote monastery as he was, Nigel of

Ely was glad to be recommended by him to Pope Celestine, Jocelyn of

Salisbury to Lucius, and Alexander of Lincoln to Eugene III.[1619]

He was treated almost as an equal not only by his own diocesan Bishop

Simon of Worcester, by his neighbour Robert of Hereford, and by Jocelyn

of Salisbury, but even by the archbishop of Canterbury and the legate

Henry of Winchester; and he writes in the tone of a patron and adviser

to Bishop Uhtred of Landaff and to the heads of the religious houses on

the Welsh border.[1620] He seems indeed to have been the usual medium

of communication between the Church in the western shires and its

primate at far-off Canterbury, who evidently found him a trustworthy

and useful agent in managing the very troublesome Church affairs of the

Welsh marches during the civil war.

[1616] Flor. Worc. Contin. (Thorpe), vol. ii. p. 114. _Hist.

Monast. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1617] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 162.

[1618] Flor. Worc. Contin., a. 1139 (Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 114).

_Hist. S. Pet. Gloc._ (Riley), vol. i. p. 18.

[1619] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. v., xi., xxv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 12,

22, 37).

[1620] See his correspondence while abbot of Gloucester; _Gilb.

Foliot Opp._ (Giles), vol. i. pp. 3–94.

When at last the storm subsided and a turn of the tide came with the

spring of 1148, Theobald openly shewed his confidence in the abbot

of Gloucester by commanding his attendance on that journey to Reims

which the king had forbidden, and which was therefore looked upon

as the grand proclamation of ecclesiastical independence, as well

as of devotion to the house of Anjou. Gilbert, with characteristic

caution, excused himself on the plea that the troubles of his house

urgently required his presence at home;[1621] but he ended by going

nevertheless,[1622] and when his friend Bishop Robert of Hereford--one

of the three prelates whom Stephen had permitted to attend the council

of Reims--died during its session, the Pope and the primate rewarded

Gilbert with the succession to the vacant see.[1623] For his perjury in

doing homage to Stephen for its temporalities after swearing to hold

them only of Henry Fitz-Empress he may be supposed to have quieted his

conscience with the plea that there was no other means of securing them

for Henry’s benefit;--a plea which Henry, after some delay,[1624] found

it wise to accept. The heads of the Angevin party knew indeed that

Gilbert regarded all homage to Stephen as simply null and void; he had

just written it plainly to Brian Fitz-Count, when criticizing Brian’s

apology for the Empress, in a letter[1625] which, we may be very sure,

must have been handed about and studied among her friends as a much

more valuable document than the pamphlet which had called it forth.

[1621] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. vi., vii. (_ib._ pp. 13, 14).

[1622] He writes--evidently from the spot--a report of the

council of Reims to Robert archdeacon of Lincoln; Gilb. Foliot,

Ep. lxxvi. (as above, p. 92). In July he was at Arras with

Theobald: Ep. lxxiii. (_ib._ p. 89).

[1623] See above, pp. 370, 371.

[1624] Gilb. Foliot, Epp. xc., cxxx. (as above, pp. 116, 170).

[1625] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 94–102); a

most interesting and valuable letter, being a detailed review

of the whole question of the succession, as well as of Brian’s

“book.” The latter is unhappily lost.

The career of the new bishop of Hereford was but the natural

continuation of that of the abbot of Gloucester. His more exalted

office enabled him to be more than ever Theobald’s right hand in the

direction of the western dioceses. In their secular policy he and

Theobald were wholly at one; whether they really were equally so in

their ideas of Church reform is a question which was never put to the

test; but the tone of Gilbert’s mind, so far as it can be made out

from his letters and from his course in after-years, does not seem to

have altogether harmonized with that which prevailed in the primate’s

household; and the one member of that household with whom Gilbert was

on really intimate terms was precisely the one who, as afterwards

appeared, had imbibed least of its spirit--Roger of Pont-l’Evêque.

Gilbert’s character is not an easy one to read. Its inner depths are

scarcely reflected in his letters, which are almost all occupied with

mere business or formal religious exhortation; we never get from him

such a pleasant little stream of unpremeditated, discursive talk as

John of Salisbury or Peter of Blois delighted to pour out of the

abundance of their hearts into the ears of some old comrade, or such

a flood of uncontrolled passion as revealed the whole soul of Thomas

Becket. Gilbert’s letters are carefully-balanced, highly-finished

compositions; almost every one of them reads as if it had received as

much polishing, in proportion to its length and importance, as the

review of Earl Brian’s book, which, the abbot owns, occupied what

should have been his hours of prayer during two days.[1626] A strong

vein of sarcasm, very clever as well as very severe, is the only

token of personal feeling which at times forces its way strangely,

almost startlingly, through the veil of extreme self-depreciation

with which Gilbert strove to cover it. The self-depreciation is even

more disagreeable than the sarcasm; yet it seems hardly fair to

accuse Gilbert of conscious hypocrisy. There was a bitter, sneering

disposition ingrained in his innermost being, and he knew it. His

elaborate expressions of more than monastic humility and meekness

may have been the outcome of a struggle to smother what he probably

regarded as his besetting sin; and if he not only failed to smother it,

but drifted into a much more subtle and dangerous temptation, still

it is possible that he himself never perceived the fact, and was less

a deceiver than a victim of self-deception. During his episcopate at

Hereford, at any rate, no shadow of suspicion fell upon him from any

quarter; primate and Pope esteemed, trusted and consulted him as one of

the wisest as well as most zealous doctors of the English Church; and

when the young king came to his throne he did not fail to shew a duly

respectful appreciation of Gilbert’s character and services.

[1626] “Et biduo saltem ores pro me, quia biduo mihi est

intermissa oratio ut literas dictarem ad te.” Gilb. Foliot, Ep.

lxxix. (Giles, vol. i. p. 102).

The king’s own attitude towards the religious revival was as yet not

very clearly defined. Henry was not without religious impulse; but it

had taken a special direction which indeed might naturally be expected

in a grandson of Fulk of Jerusalem:--a restless desire to go upon

crusade. He had no sooner mounted his throne than he began to urge upon

the English Pope, newly crowned like himself, the importance of giving

special attention to the necessities of the Holy Land.[1627] Four

years later he proposed to join Louis of France in a crusade against

the Moors in Spain. Louis wrote to the Pope announcing this project

and begging for his advice and support; Adrian in reply assured the

two kings of his sympathy and goodwill, but though praising their zeal

he expressed some doubt of its discretion, advised them to ascertain

whether the Spaniards desired their help before thrusting it upon them

unasked, and reminded Louis in plain terms of the disastrous issue of

his former rash crusade.[1628] The warning was needless, for it was

hardly written before the intending brothers-in-arms were preparing to

fight against each other; and before the war of Toulouse was over the

English Pope was dead.[1629]

[1627] Pet. Blois, Ep. clxviii. (Giles, vol. ii. pp. 116–118).

The letter is headed merely “Tali Papæ talis rex,” but there

can be no doubt that they are Henry and Adrian. The king

congratulates himself and his country--“noster Occidens”--on

the elevation of a native thereof to the Papal chair, and makes

suggestions to the Pope about the work which lies before him.

[1628] Adrian IV. Ep. ccxli. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol.

clxxxviii., cols. 1615–1617; Duchesne, _Hist. Franc. Scriptt._,

vol. iv. pp. 590, 591). Date, February 18 [1159].

[1629] Adrian died at Anagni on September 1, 1159. Alex. III.

Ep. i. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol. cc., col. 70).

His death was a heavy blow to the Church of his native land; and it was

followed by a schism which threatened disastrous consequences to all

western Christendom. Two Popes were elected--Roland of Siena, cardinal

of S. Mark and treasurer of the Holy See, and Octavian, cardinal of S.

Cecilia, a Roman of noble birth. This latter, who assumed the name of

Victor IV., was favoured by the Emperor, Frederic Barbarossa. After a

violent struggle he was expelled from Rome and fled to the protection

of his imperial patron, who thereupon summoned a general council to

meet at Pavia early in the next year and decide between the rival

pontiffs.[1630] Only the bishops of Frederic’s own dominions obeyed the

summons, and only one of the claimants; for Alexander III. (as Roland

was called by his adherents) disdained to submit to a trial whose issue

he believed to have been predetermined against him. He was accordingly

condemned as a rebel and schismatic, and Victor was acknowledged as

the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1631] This decision, however, bound

only the bishops of the Imperial dominions; and its general acceptance

throughout the rest of Christendom, doubtful from the first, became

impossible when Alexander and his partizans published their account

of the mode by which it had been arrived at. Victor--so their story

went--had actually placed his pontifical ring in the Emperor’s hands

and received it back from him as the symbol of investiture.[1632]

The Church at large could have no hesitation in deciding that a man

who thus climbed into the sheepfold by surrendering, voluntarily and

deliberately, the whole principle of spiritual independence whose

triumph Gregory and Anselm had devoted their lives to secure, was no

true shepherd but a thief and robber. Frederic however lost no time

in endeavouring to obtain for him the adhesion of France and England;

and in the last-named quarter he had great hopes of success. Henry had

for several years past shewn a disposition to knit up again the old

political ties which connected England with Germany; friendly embassies

had been exchanged between the two countries;[1633] now that he had

begun to quarrel with France, too, he was likely to be more inclined

towards an imperial alliance. Moreover it might naturally be expected

that Frederic’s bold and apparently successful attempt to revive the

claims of his predecessor Henry IV. on the subject of ecclesiastical

investitures would meet with sympathy from the grandson and

representative of Henry I. Indeed, the official report of the council

of Pavia declares that Henry had actually, by letters and envoys, given

his assent to its proceedings.[1634] But nothing of the kind was known

in Henry’s own dominions;[1635] and it seems that the Emperor was

forestalled by a Norman bishop.

[1630] Radevic of Freisingen, l. ii. cc. 43, 50–56 (Muratori,

_Rer. Ital. Scriptt._, vol. vi. cols. 819, 823–834), largely

made up of official letters. This is the Victorian or

Imperialist version; for the Alexandrine see Will. Newb., l.

ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 118, 119), and Arn. Lisieux,

Epp. 21, 22, 23 (Giles, pp. 108–122. Arnulf calls the antipope

“Otto.”) It seems quite hopeless to reconcile them or decide

between them.

[1631] Rad. Freising., l. ii. cc. 64–72 (as above, cols.

838–853). Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 9 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 119,

120).

[1632] Arn. Lisieux, Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 118).

[1633] Pipe Roll 4 Hen. II. (Hunter), p. 112. Cf. Rad.

Freising., l. i. c. 7 (Muratori, _Rer. Ital. Scriptt._, vol.

vi. cols. 744, 745). Another embassy from Henry reached

Frederic in Lombardy, in the winter of 1158–1159, immediately

after one from Louis. The object of each king was to secure

Frederic’s alliance against the other, in prospect of the

coming war of Toulouse; Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 22 (as above,

col. 804).

[1634] Report in Rad. Freising., l. ii. c. 70 (as above, col.

850). But the bishop of Bamberg, also an eye-witness, says:

“Nuntius regis Francorum promisit pro eo neutrum se recepturum

usque dum nuntios Imperatoris recipiat. Nuntius regis Anglorum

idem velle et idem nolle promisit, tam in his quam in aliis”

(_ib._ c. 71, col. 851); which leaves it doubtful whether the

English envoy really echoed the decision of the council, or the

answer of his French brother.

[1635] Not even to Stephen of Rouen, the author of the _Draco

Normannicus_, who has a long account of the schism, curious as

proceeding from a Norman monk whose sympathies are wholly and

openly on the opposite side to that which was formally adopted

by his own sovereign, nation and Church. _Draco Norm._, l. iii.

cc. 6–11, vv. 361–868 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp.

724–739).

Arnulf of Lisieux came of a family which had for more than half a

century been constantly mixed up in the diplomatic concerns of Normandy

and Anjou. Arnulf himself had begun his career about 1130 by writing

a treatise in defence of an orthodox Pope against an usurper;[1636]

he had been chosen to succeed his uncle Bishop John of Lisieux[1637]

shortly before Geoffrey Plantagenet’s final conquest of Normandy, and

had bought at a heavy price his peace with the new ruler;[1638] and

for the next forty years there was hardly a diplomatic transaction

of any kind, ecclesiastical or secular, in England or in Gaul, in

which he was not at some moment and in some way or other concerned.

He had little official influence; he had indeed a certain amount of

territorial importance in Normandy, for Lisieux was the capital of a

little county of which the temporal as well as the spiritual government

was vested in the bishop; but a Norman bishop, merely as such, had none

of the political weight of an English prelate; and Arnulf never held

any secular office. He was not exactly a busybody; he was a consummate

diplomatist, of wide experience and far-reaching intelligence, with

whose services no party could afford to dispense; and his extraordinary

caution and sagacity enabled him to act as counsellor and guide of

all parties at once without sacrificing his own reputation as a sound

Churchman and a loyal subject. In his youth he had come in contact with

most of the rising scholars and statesmen of the day in the schools of

Paris; and as he was an indefatigable and accomplished letter-writer,

he kept up through life a busy correspondence with men of all ranks

and all schools of thought on both sides of the sea.[1639] During the

quarrel between Louis VII. and Geoffrey Plantagenet concerning the

affair of Montreuil-Bellay, Arnulf was intrusted by Suger with a chief

part in the negotiations for the restoration of peace;[1640] the final

settlement in 1151, whereby the investiture of Normandy was secured to

Henry, was chiefly owing to his diplomacy;[1641] he accompanied Henry

to England and was present at his crowning;[1642] and on all questions

of continental policy he continued to be Henry’s chief adviser till he

was superseded by Thomas Becket.

[1636] See his _Tractatus de Schismate_ in his “Works” (ed.

Giles), pp. 43–79.

[1637] In 1141. _Gall. Christ._, vol. xi. cols. 774, 775.

[1638] _Ib._ col. 775.

[1639] One of his fellow-students was Ralf de Diceto, the

future historian and dean of S. Paul’s, to whom he writes

affectionately in after-years, recalling vividly the memories

of joy and sorrow which they had shared in their college days.

Arn. Lis. Ep. 16 (Giles, pp. 100, 101). Another of his early

friends was Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, whose good offices

he earnestly entreated in behalf of the young Duke Henry when

the latter made his expedition to England in 1149. Ep. 4 (pp.

85, 86).

[1640] Suger, Epp. clxvii., clxviii. (Migne, _Patrol._, vol.

clxxxvi., cols. 1428, 1429).

[1641] Arn. Lis. Ep. 5 (Giles, pp. 86, 87). One passage looks

as if the demand for Henry’s investiture had come from England;

it is described as “postulatio Anglorum.”

[1642] Rob. Torigni, a. 1154.

To Arnulf there was nothing new or startling in a schism at Rome; his

experiences of thirty years before enabled him to penetrate the present

case at once, and as then with his pen, so now with his tongue, he

proved the readiest and most powerful advocate of the orthodox pontiff.

Fortunately, Henry was in Normandy; before any one else had time to

gain his ear and bias his mind, before he himself had time to think of

forming an independent judgement on the subject, Arnulf hurried to his

side,[1643] and set forth the claims of Alexander with such convincing

eloquence that the king at once promised to acknowledge him as Pope.

He refrained however from issuing an immediate order for Alexander’s

acceptance throughout his dominions, partly in deference to the

Emperor,[1644] and partly to make sure of the intentions of the king

of France. Louis, like Henry, had sent a representative to the council

of Pavia, but he had taken care not to commit himself to any decision

upon its proceedings.[1645] He was not naturally inclined to favour the

Emperor’s views. The question of the investitures had never been as

important in France as in Germany or in England, and had been settled

by a kind of tacit concordat which the Most Christian King had no mind

to forfeit his title by disturbing; France was always the staunchest

upholder of the independence of the Apostolic see;[1646] and neither

king nor clergy desired to change their attitude. They met in council

at Beauvais some time in the summer of 1160; a similar gathering of the

Norman bishops, in Henry’s presence, took place in July at Neufmarché;

both assemblies resulted in the acknowledgement of Alexander.[1647] The

formal assent of the Churches of England and Aquitaine had still to be

obtained before either king would fully proclaim his decision.[1648]

Archbishop Theobald’s anxious request for information and instructions

concerning the schism[1649] was answered by an exhaustive and eloquent

statement of the case from the pen of the indefatigable bishop of

Lisieux;[1650] and in accordance with his directions the English

bishops in council assembled unanimously declared their acceptance of

Alexander III. as the lawful successor of S. Peter.[1651]

[1643] Arn. Lis. Epp. 18 and 21 (Giles, pp. 103, 104, 111).

[1644] Arn. Lis. Ep. 21 (Giles, p. 111).

[1645] See above, p. 499, note 3{1634}.

[1646] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, p. 120).

[1647] Rob. Torigni, a. 1160.

[1648] Arn. Lis. Epp. 23, 24 (Giles, pp. 120, 129).

[1649] Joh. Salisb. Ep. xliv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 45, 46).

[1650] Arn. Lis. Ep. 23 (Giles, pp. 116–122). Cf. Gilb. Foliot,

Ep. cxlviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 197).

[1651] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii. (as above). Joh. Salisb. Ep.

lxiv (Giles, vol. i. p. 79).

Alexander’s legates were already in Normandy;[1652] unluckily, however,

the use which Henry made of their presence led as we have seen to a

fresh rupture between him and Louis; and by this the Emperor and the

anti-pope immediately sought to profit. Tempting as their overtures

were to Henry, it does not appear that he ever seriously entertained

them; but the leaders of the English Church, having now learned the

circumstances of the case and grasped the full importance of the

triumph insured to the reforming party by his acceptance of Alexander,

were naturally alarmed lest he should be induced to change his mind.

Their anxiety was increased by the enfeebled state of their own

ranks. The struggles of Bishop Richard of London to clear off the

debts incurred in raising a fine required by Stephen at his election

seemed to have only aggravated the confusion of his affairs, which his

friends the bishops of Hereford and Lincoln were engaged in a desperate

effort to disentangle,[1653] while Richard himself, to complete his

misfortunes, was stricken helpless by paralysis.[1654] Henry of

Winchester had returned to his diocese, after nearly four years’

absence, in 1159;[1655] but by the spring of 1161 he again left the

Church of England to her fate and went back to his beloved Cluny.[1656]

The bishoprics of Chester (or Lichfield), Exeter and Worcester were

vacant;[1657] and, worst of all, Archbishop Theobald was dying.

[1652] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxlviii (as above).

[1653] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. cxx. (Giles, vol. i. p. 158).

[1654] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 304.

[1655] See above, p. 492, note 1{1611}.

[1656] R. Diceto, as above.

[1657] Walter of Lichfield died December 7, 1160 (Stubbs,

_Registr. Sac. Ang._, p. 30); Alfred of Worcester, July 31,

1160; and Robert of Exeter some time in the same year (_ib._ p.

31).

The primate’s letters during the last few months of his life shew him

calmly awaiting his call to rest, yet anxiously longing to be assured

of the future of those whom he was leaving behind, and to set in order

a few things that were wanting before he could depart altogether in

peace. Very touching are the expressions of his longing to “see the

face of the Lord’s anointed once again”--to welcome the king back to

his country and his home, safely removed from political temptations to

break away from the unity of the Church.[1658] And there was another

for whose return Theobald yearned more deeply still: his own long

absent archdeacon--“the first of my counsellors, nay, my only one,”

as he calls him, pleading earnestly with the king to let him come

home.[1659] For a moment, indeed, Theobald was on the point of being

left almost alone. Some rather obscure mischief-making in high places

had caused John of Salisbury to be visited with the king’s severe

displeasure; treated as a suspected criminal in England, forbidden to

go and clear himself in Normandy, John found his position so unbearable

that he contemplated taking refuge in France under the protection of

his old friend Abbot Peter of Celle.[1660] He seems, however, to have

ended by remaining in England under Theobald’s protection; before

the winter of 1160, at any rate, he was again at Canterbury, watching

over and tending the primate’s gradual decline;--almost overwhelmed

with “the care of all the churches,” which Theobald had transferred

to him;[1661]--characteristically finding relief from his anxieties

in correspondence with old friends, and in the composition of another

little philosophical treatise, called _Metalogicus_, whose chief

interest lies in the sketch which it contains of its author’s early

life.[1662] John’s disinterested affection and devoted services were

fully appreciated by Theobald;[1663] but they could not make up for

the absence of Thomas. Not only did the old man long to see his early

favourite once more; not only were there grave matters of diocesan

administration dependent on the archdeacon’s office and urgently

requiring his personal co-operation:[1664]--it was on far weightier

things than these that the archbishop desired to hold counsel with

Thomas. In the hands of Thomas, as chief adviser and minister of the

king, rested in no small degree the future of the English Church;

Theobald’s darling wish was that it should rest in his hands as primate

of all England.[1665]

[1658] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxiii, lxiv,* lxiv** (Giles, vol. i.

pp. 77, 78, 80–82), all from Theobald to Henry.

[1659] “Qui [sc. Thomas] nobis unicus est et consilii nostri

primus.” Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxx. (_ib._ p. 93).

[1660] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxi., xcvi., cviii., cxii., cxiii.,

cxv., cxxi. (_ib._ pp. 74, 75, 141–144, 158, 160, 161, 164,

165, 169, 170). See Demimuid, _Jean de Salisbury_, pp. 183–188.

[1661] Joh. Salisb. _Metalog._, prolog. (Giles, vol. v. pp. 8,

9), and l. iv. c. 42 (_ib._ p. 206).

[1662] _Ib._ l. ii. c. 10 (pp. 78–81).

[1663] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxiv.* (Giles, vol. i. p. 80), from

Theobald to Henry.

[1664] Joh. Salisb. Epp. xlix., lxxi. (_ib._ pp. 51, 52, 94,

95), both from Theobald to Thomas. The initial in the address

of lxxi. is clearly wrong. See Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p.

11, note a.

[1665] This is distinctly stated by John of Salisbury:--

“Ille Theobaldus qui Christi præsidet aulæ,

Quam fidei matrem Cantia nostra colit,

Hunc successurum sibi sperat et orat, ut idem

Præsulis officium muniat atque locum.”

_Entheticus_, vv. 1293–1296 (Giles, vol. v. p. 280.)

Later writers dilate upon the startling contrast between Becket’s

character and policy as chancellor and as archbishop. That contrast

vanishes when we look at the chancellor through the eyes of the

two men who knew him best; and we find that the real contrast lies

between their view of him and that of the outside world which only

saw the surface of his life and could not fathom its inner depths.

Those who beheld him foremost in every military exercise and every

courtly pastime, far outdoing the king himself in lavish splendour

and fastidious refinement, devoting every faculty of mind and body

to the service and the pleasure of his royal friend:--those who saw

all this, and could only judge by what they saw, might well have

thought that for such a man to become the champion of the Church was a

dream to be realized only by miracle or by imposture. But Archbishop

Theobald and John of Salisbury had known his inmost soul, better

perhaps than he knew it himself, before ever he went to court; and

they knew that however startling his conduct there might look, he was

merely fulfilling in his own way the mission on which he had been sent

thither:--making himself all things to all men, if thereby he might by

any means influence the court and the king for good.[1666] Even his

suggestion of the scutage for the war of Toulouse did not seriously

shake their faith in him; they blamed him, but they believed that he

had erred in weakness, not in wilfulness.[1667] In the middle of the

war John dedicated the _Polycraticus_ to him as the one man about the

court to whom its follies and its faults could be criticized without

fear, because he had no part in them.[1668] Thomas himself does not

seem to have contemplated the possibility of removal from his present

sphere. It was not in his nature at any time to look far ahead; and

Henry seemed to find his attendance more indispensable than ever,

declaring in answer to Theobald’s intreaties and remonstrances that he

could not possibly spare him till peace was thoroughly restored.[1669]

[1666] Joh. Salisb. _Enthet._, vv. 1435–1440 (Giles, vol. v. p.

285).

[1667] Joh. Salisb. Ep. cxlv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 223, 224).

[1668] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, prolog. (Giles, vol. iii. p.

13).

[1669] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. p. 106).

Thomas was in a strait. His first duty was to his dying spiritual

father; but he could not go against the king’s will without running

such a risk as Theobald would have been the first to disapprove. Thomas

himself therefore at last suggested that the archbishop should try to

move the king by summoning his truant archdeacon to return home at

once on pain of deprivation.[1670] Theobald, unable to reconcile the

contradictory letters of king and chancellor with the general reports

of their wonderful unanimity, steered a middle course between severity

and gentleness, from fear of bringing down the royal displeasure upon

his favourite, whom he yet half suspected of being in collusion with

the king. His secretary, John, had no such doubts; but he too was

urgent that by some means or other Thomas should come over before

the primate’s death.[1671] If he did go, it can only have been for a

flying visit; and there is no sign that he went at all. One thing he

did obtain for Theobald’s satisfaction: the appointment of Bartholomew

archdeacon of Exeter to the bishopric of that diocese.[1672] In April

Richard Peche, on whom the see of Chester had been conferred, was

consecrated at Canterbury by Walter of Rochester, the archbishop

being carried into the chapel to sanction by his presence the rite in

which he was too feeble to assist.[1673] By the hand of the faithful

secretary John he transmitted to King Henry his last solemn benediction

and farewell, and commended to the royal care the future of his church

and the choice of his successor.[1674] A few days later, on April 18,

1161, the good primate passed away.[1675]

[1670] _Ib._ (p. 105).

[1671] Joh. Salisb. Ep. lxxviii. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 105–107).

[1672] Joh. Salisb. Epp. lxx., lxxi., lxxviii. (as above,

pp. 94, 95, 106). On Bartholomew see also Ep. xc. (_ib._ pp.

132–136), where John addresses him as a personal friend.

[1673] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 168.

[1674] Joh. Salisb. Ep. liv. (Giles, vol. i. pp. 56–58). See

the archbishop’s will in Ep. lvii. (_ib._ pp. 60–62).

[1675] Gerv. Cant. as above.

_ERRATA_

Page 50, line 8 from foot, _insert_ “and” _before_ “bore.”

” 158, ” 5, _for_ “in” _read_ “by.”

” 268, ” 18, _dele_ “the following.”

” 274, ” 14 from foot, _for_ “two” _read_ “three.”

” 282, ” 14, _insert_ “and” _before_ “made.”

” 417, lines 3 and 4 from foot, _for_ “husband ... heiress”

_read_ “head.”

” 438, note 5, line 8, _for_ “David” _read_ “Henry of Scotland.”

END OF VOL. I.

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_

ENGLAND

UNDER

THE ANGEVIN KINGS

[Illustration: Publisher’s colophon]

ENGLAND

UNDER

THE ANGEVIN KINGS

BY

KATE NORGATE

IN TWO VOLUMES--VOL. II.

WITH MAPS AND PLANS

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK

1887

_All rights reserved_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

ARCHBISHOP THOMAS, 1162–1164 1

Note A.--The Council of Woodstock 43

Note B.--The Council of Clarendon 44

CHAPTER II

HENRY AND ROME, 1164–1172 46

CHAPTER III

THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND, 795–1172 82

CHAPTER IV

HENRY AND THE BARONS, 1166–1175 120

CHAPTER V

THE ANGEVIN EMPIRE, 1175–1183 169

CHAPTER VI

THE LAST YEARS OF HENRY II., 1183–1189 229

CHAPTER VII

RICHARD AND ENGLAND, 1189–1194 273

CHAPTER VIII

THE LATER YEARS OF RICHARD, 1194–1199 332

CHAPTER IX

THE FALL OF THE ANGEVINS, 1199–1206 388

Note.--The Death of Arthur 429

CHAPTER X

THE NEW ENGLAND, 1170–1206 431

LIST OF MAPS

III. IRELAND, A.D. 1172 _To face page_ 82

IV. MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE REBELLION OF 1173–1174 ” 149

V. FRANCE AND BURGUNDY _c._ 1180 ” 185

VI. EUROPE _c._ 1180 ” 189

VII. FRANCE AND THE ANGEVIN DOMINIONS, 1194 ” 359

PLANS

VII. LES ANDELYS AND CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD _To face page_ 375

VIII. CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD ” 378

CHAPTER I.

ARCHBISHOP THOMAS.

1162–1164.

Somewhat more than a year after the primate’s death, Thomas the

chancellor returned to England. He came, as we have seen, at the

king’s bidding, ostensibly for the purpose of securing the recognition

of little Henry as heir to the crown. But this was not the sole nor

even the chief object of his mission. On the eve of his departure--so

the story was told by his friends in later days--Thomas had gone to

take leave of the king at Falaise. Henry drew him aside: “You do not

yet know to what you are going. I will have you to be archbishop of

Canterbury.” The chancellor took, or tried to take, the words for a

jest. “A saintly figure indeed,” he exclaimed with a smiling glance at

his own gay attire, “you are choosing to sit in that holy seat and to

head that venerable convent! No, no,” he added with sudden earnestness,

“I warn you that if such a thing should be, our friendship would soon

turn to bitter hate. I know your plans concerning the Church; you will

assert claims which I as archbishop must needs oppose; and the breach

once made, jealous hands would take care that it should never be healed

again.” The words were prophetic; they sum up the whole history of

the pontificate of Thomas Becket. Henry, however, in his turn passed

them over as a mere jest, and at once proclaimed his intention to the

chancellor’s fellow-envoys, one of whom was the justiciar, Richard de

Lucy. “Richard,” said the king, “if I lay dead in my shroud, would

you earnestly strive to secure my first-born on my throne?” “Indeed I

would, my lord, with all my might.” “Then I charge you to strive no

less earnestly to place my chancellor on the metropolitan chair of

Canterbury.”[1]

[1] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 180, 182.

Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 63–67.

Thomas was appalled. He could not be altogether taken by surprise;

he knew what had been Theobald’s wishes and hopes; he knew that from

the moment of Theobald’s death all eyes had turned instinctively upon

himself with the belief that the future of the Church rested wholly

in his all-powerful hands; he could not but suspect the king’s own

intentions,[2] although the very suspicion would keep him silent,

and all the more so because those intentions ran counter to his own

desires. For twelve months he had known that the primacy was within his

reach; he had counted the cost, and he had no mind to pay it. He was

incapable of undertaking any office without throwing his whole energies

into the fulfilment of its duties; his conception of the duties of the

primate of all Britain would involve the sacrifice not only of those

secular pursuits which he so keenly enjoyed, but also of that personal

friendship and political co-operation with the king which seemed almost

an indispensable part of the life of both; and neither sacrifice was

he disposed to make. He had said as much to an English friend who had

been the first to hint at his coming promotion,[3] and he repeated it

now with passionate earnestness to Henry himself, but all in vain. The

more he resisted, the more the king insisted--the very frankness of his

warnings only strengthening Henry’s confidence in him; and when the

legate Cardinal Henry of Pisa urged his acceptance as a sacred duty,

Thomas at last gave way.[4]

[2] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 180. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.),

p. 14. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), p. 63.

[3] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 25,

26.

[4] Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 7, 8. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.

iv.), p. 18. Anon. II. (_ib._), p. 86.

The council in London was no sooner ended than Richard de Lucy and

three of the bishops[5] hurried to Canterbury, by the king’s orders,

to obtain from the cathedral chapter the election of a primate in

accordance with his will. The monks of Christ Church were never very

easy to manage; in the days of the elder King Henry they had firmly

and successfully resisted the intrusion of a secular clerk into the

monastic chair of S. Augustine; and a strong party among them now

protested that to choose for pastor of the flock of Canterbury a

man who was scarcely a clerk at all, who was wholly given to hawks

and hounds and the worldly ways of the court, would be no better

than setting a wolf to guard a sheepfold. But their scruples were

silenced by the arguments of Richard de Lucy and by their dread

of the royal wrath, and in the end Thomas was elected without a

dissentient voice.[6] The election was repeated in the presence of a

great council[7] held at Westminster on May 23,[8] and ratified by

the bishops and clergy there assembled.[9] Only one voice was raised

in protest; it was that of Gilbert Foliot,[10] who, alluding doubtless

to the great scutage, declared that Thomas was utterly unfit for the

primacy, because he had persecuted the Church of God.[11] The protest

was answered by Henry of Winchester in words suggested by Gilbert’s

own phrase: “My son,” said the ex-legate, addressing Thomas, “if thou

hast been hitherto as Saul the persecutor, be thou henceforth as Paul

the Apostle.”[12]

[5] E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), pp. 366. The bishops were Exeter,

Chichester and Rochester; Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 16, 17, Anon.

I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), pp. 14–16, and Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169; this last alone names Rochester, and

adds another envoy--Abbot Walter of Battle, Chichester’s old

adversary and the justiciar’s brother.

[6] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 17. E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_,

vol. ii.), pp. 366, 367. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp.

183–185. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 16. _Thomas Saga_

(Magnusson, vol. i. p. 73) has quite a different version of the

result.

[7] Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 17. Will.

Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 9. Garnier, as above. Gerv. Cant.

(Stubbs), vol. i. p. 169. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 306.

[8] The Wednesday before Pentecost. R. Diceto (as above), p.

307.

[9] Garnier, Will. Cant., Anon. I., as above. R. Diceto (as

above), p. 306. Gerv. Cant. (as above), p. 170. All these

writers either say or imply that the council represented, or

was meant to represent, the entire _clerus et populus_ of all

England; except R. Diceto, who says: “clero totius provinciæ

_Cantuariorum_ generaliter Lundoniæ convocato” (p. 306). Cf.

_Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 73–77; Will. Fitz-Steph.

(Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 36; and Herb. Bosh.

(_ib._), p. 184.

[10] Garnier, Will. Cant., Will. Fitz-Steph. and Anon. I. as

above. E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 367. Will.

Cant., E. Grim and the Anon. call him “bishop of London” by

anticipation.

[11] “Destruite ad seinte Iglise.” Garnier, as above.

[12] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 18.

The election was confirmed by the great officers of state and the

boy-king in his father’s name;[13] the consecration was fixed for the

octave of Pentecost, and forthwith the bishops began to vie with each

other for the honour of performing the ceremony. Roger of York, who

till now had stood completely aloof, claimed it as a privilege due to

the dignity of his see; but the primate-elect and the southern bishops

declined to accept his services without a profession of canonical

obedience to Canterbury, which he indignantly refused.[14] The bishop

of London, on whom as dean of the province the duty according to

ancient precedent should have devolved, was just dead;[15] Walter

of Rochester momentarily put in a claim to supply his place,[16]

but withdrew it in deference to Henry of Winchester, who had lately

returned from Cluny, and whose royal blood, venerable character, and

unique dignity as father of the whole English episcopate, marked him

out beyond all question as the most fitting person to undertake the

office.[17] By way of compensation, it was Walter who, on the Saturday

in Whitsun-week, raised the newly-elected primate to the dignity of

priesthood.[18]

[13] _Ibid._ Anon. I. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 17.

Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 9. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p.

367. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 185.

[14] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 170.

[15] He died on May 4. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 306.

[16] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 188.

[17] Gerv. Cant., R. Diceto and Herb. Bosh. as above. MS.

Lansdown. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 155. Cf.

Anon. I. (_ib._), p. 19. There was another claimant, a Welsh

bishop, who asserted priority of consecration over all his

brother-prelates; so at least says Gerv. Cant., but one does

not see who he can have been.

[18] R. Diceto, as above.

Early next morning the consecration took place. Canterbury cathedral

has been rebuilt from end to end since that day; it is only imagination

which can picture the church of Lanfranc and Anselm and Theobald as

it stood on that June morning, the scarce-risen sun gleaming faintly

through its eastern windows upon the rich vestures of the fourteen

bishops[19] and their attendant clergy and the dark robes of the monks

who thronged the choir, while the nave was crowded with spectators,

foremost among whom stood the group of ministers surrounding the little

king.[20] From the vestry-door Thomas came forth, clad no longer in

the brilliant attire at which he had been jesting a few weeks ago, but

in the plain black cassock and white surplice of a clerk; through the

lines of staring, wondering faces he passed into the choir, and there

threw himself prostrate upon the altar-steps. Thence he was raised to

go through a formality suggested by the prudence of his consecrator.

To guard, as he hoped, against all risk of future difficulties which

might arise from Thomas’s connexion with the court, Henry of Winchester

led him down to the entrance of the choir, and in the name of the

Church called upon the king’s representatives to deliver over the

primate-elect fully and unreservedly to her holy service, freed from

all secular obligations, actual or possible. A formal quit-claim was

accordingly granted to Thomas by little Henry and the justiciars, in

the king’s name;[21] after which the bishop of Winchester proceeded to

consecrate him at once. A shout of applause rang through the church as

the new primate of all Britain was led up to his patriarchal chair;

but he mounted its steps with eyes downcast and full of tears.[22] To

him the day was one of melancholy foreboding; yet he made its memory

joyful in the Church for ever. He began his archiepiscopal career by

ordaining a new festival to be kept every year on that day--the octave

of Pentecost--in honour of the most Holy Trinity;[23] and in process of

time the observance thus originated spread from Canterbury throughout

the whole of Christendom, which thus owes to an English archbishop the

institution of Trinity Sunday.

[19] See the list in Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 170.

[20] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 188.

[21] MS. Lansdown. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 154, 155. Cf.

Anon. I. (_ib._), pp. 17, 18; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),

p. 9; E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 367; Herb. Bosh. (_ib._

vol. iii.), p. 185; Garnier (Hippeau), p. 19; and _Thomas

Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 81. All these place this scene

in London, immediately after the consecration. The three

first, however, seem to be only following Garnier; and the

words of Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii. p.

36), though not very explicit, seem rather to agree with the

MS. Lansdown. Garnier, Grim and the Anon. I. all expressly

attribute the suggestion to Henry of Winchester.

[22] Anon. I. (as above), p. 19.

[23] Gerv. Cant. as above.

“The king has wrought a miracle,” sneered the sarcastic bishop of

Hereford, Gilbert Foliot; “out of a soldier and man of the world he

has made an archbishop.”[24] The same royal power helped to smooth the

new primate’s path a little further before him. He was not, like most

of his predecessors, obliged to go in person to fetch his pallium from

Rome; an embassy which he despatched immediately after his consecration

obtained it for him without difficulty from Alexander III., who had

just been driven by the Emperor’s hostility to seek a refuge in France,

and was in no condition to venture upon any risk of thwarting King

Henry’s favourite minister.[25] The next messenger whom Thomas sent

over sea met with a less pleasant reception. He was charged to deliver

up the great seal into the king’s hands with a request that Henry would

provide himself with another chancellor, “as Thomas felt scarcely equal

to the cares of one office, far less to those of two.”[26]

[24] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 36.

[25] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 24, 25. Will. Cant. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. i.) p. 9. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 189.

Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 172. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol.

i. p. 307. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 91–95.

[26] Will. Cant. (as above), p. 12. Cf. Garnier (Hippeau), p.

29, and R. Diceto as above.

Henry was both surprised and vexed. It was customary for the chancellor

to resign his office on promotion to a bishopric; but this sudden step

on the part of Thomas was quite unexpected, and upset a cherished

scheme of the king’s. He had planned to rival the Emperor by having an

archbishop for his chancellor, as the archbishops of Mainz and Cöln

were respectively arch-chancellors of Germany and Italy;[27] he had

certainly never intended, in raising his favourite to the primacy, to

deprive himself of such a valuable assistant in secular administration;

his aim had rather been to secure the services of Thomas in two

departments instead of one.[28] To take away all ground of scandal, he

had even procured a papal dispensation to sanction the union of the

two offices in a single person.[29] Thomas, however, persisted in his

resignation; and as there was no one whom Henry cared to put in his

place, the chancellorship remained vacant, while the king brooded over

his friend’s unexpected conduct and began to suspect that it was caused

by weariness of his service.

[27] R. Diceto (as above), p. 308. The real work of the office

in the Empire was, however, done by another chancellor, who at

this time was a certain Reginald, of whom we shall hear again

later on. “Cancellarius” plays almost as conspicuous and quite

as unclerkly a part in the Italian wars of Barbarossa as in the

French and Aquitanian wars of Henry.

[28] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 29. Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson),

vol. i. pp. 69–71.

[29] Garnier, as above.

Meanwhile Thomas had entered upon the second phase of his strangely

varied career. He had “put off the deacon” for awhile; he was resolved

now to “put off the old man” wholly and for ever. No sooner was he

consecrated than he flung himself, body and soul, into his new life

with an ardour more passionate, more absorbing, more exclusive than

he had displayed in pursuit of the worldly tasks and pleasures of the

court. On the morrow of his consecration, when some jongleurs came to

him for the largesse which he had never been known to refuse, he gently

but firmly dismissed them; he was no longer, he said, the chancellor

whom they had known; his whole possessions were now a sacred trust, to

be spent not on actors and jesters but in the service of the Church and

the poor.[30] Theobald had doubled the amount of regular alms-givings

established by his predecessors; Thomas immediately doubled those of

Theobald.[31] To be diligent in providing for the sick and needy,

to take care that no beggar should ever be sent empty away from his

door,[32] was indeed nothing new in the son of the good dame Rohesia

of Caen. The lavish hospitality of the chancellor’s household, too,

was naturally transferred to that of the archbishop; but it took a

different tone and colour. All and more than all the old grandeur and

orderliness were there; the palace still swarmed with men-at-arms,

servants and retainers of all kinds, every one with his own appointed

duty, whose fulfilment was still carefully watched by the master’s

eyes; the bevy of high-born children had only increased, for by an

ancient custom the second son of a baron could be claimed by the

primate for his service--as the eldest by the king--until the age of

knighthood; a claim which Thomas was not slow to enforce, and which

the barons were delighted to admit. The train of clerks was of course

more numerous than ever. The tables were still laden with delicate

viands, served with the utmost perfection, and crowded with guests

of all ranks; Thomas was still the most courteous and gracious of

hosts. But the banquet wore a graver aspect than in the chancellor’s

hall. The knights and other laymen occupied a table by themselves,

where they talked and laughed as they listed; it was the clerks and

religious who now sat nearest to Thomas. He himself was surrounded

by a select group of clerks, his _eruditi_, his “learned men” as he

called them: men versed in Scriptural and theological lore, his chosen

companions in the study of Holy Writ into which he had plunged with

characteristic energy; while instead of the minstrelsy which had been

wont to accompany and inspire the gay talk at the chancellor’s table,

there was only heard, according to ecclesiastical custom, the voice of

the archbishop’s cross-bearer who sat close to his side reading from

some holy book: the primate and his confidential companions meanwhile

exchanging comments upon what was read, and discussing matters too

deep and solemn to interest unlearned ears or to brook unlearned

interruption.[33] Of the meal itself Thomas partook but sparingly;[34]

its remainder was always given away;[35] and every day twenty-six poor

men were brought into the hall and served with a dinner of the best,

before Thomas would sit down to his own midday meal.[36]

[30] MS. Lansdown. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 156.

[31] Anon. I. (_ibid._), p. 20. The Anon. II. (_ibid._), p.

90, and Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 307, say that to

this purpose he appropriated a _tithe_ of all his revenues--a

statement which reflects rather strangely upon the former

archbishops.

[32] Joh. Salisb. and Anon. I. as above. Anon. II. (as above),

pp. 89, 90.

[33] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 225–229.

On the _eruditi_ see _ib._ pp. 206, 207, 523–529.

[34] _Ib._ pp. 231–236. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 37.

Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 308. Anon. II. (_ib._ vol.

iv.), p. 89.

[35] Joh. Salisb. (as above), p. 307. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol.

iv.), pp. 20, 21.

[36] Anon. II. (_ib._), p. 89.

The amount of work which he had got through by that time must have

been quite as great as in the busiest days of his chancellorship. The

day’s occupations ostensibly began about the hour of tierce, when the

archbishop came forth from his chamber and went either to hear or to

celebrate mass,[37] while a breakfast was given at his expense to a

hundred persons who were called his “poor prebendaries.”[38] After

mass he proceeded to his audience-chamber and there chiefly remained

till the hour of nones, occupied in hearing suits and administering

justice.[39] Nones were followed by dinner,[40] after which the primate

shut himself up in his own apartments with his _eruditi_[41] and spent

the rest of the day with them in business or study, interrupted only

by the religious duties of the canonical hours, and sometimes by a

little needful repose,[42] for his night’s rest was of the briefest. At

cock-crow he rose for prime; immediately afterwards there were brought

in to him secretly, under cover of the darkness, thirteen poor persons

whose feet he washed and to whom he ministered at table with the utmost

devotion and humility,[43] clad only in a hair-shirt which from the day

of his consecration he always wore beneath the gorgeous robes in which

he appeared in public.[44] He then returned to his bed, but only for

a very short time; long before any one else was astir he was again up

and doing, in company with one specially favoured disciple--the one who

tells the tale, Herbert of Bosham. In the calm silent hours of dawn,

while twelve other poor persons received a secret meal and had their

feet washed by the primate’s almoner in his stead, the two friends sat

eagerly searching the Scriptures together, till the archbishop chose

to be left alone[45] for meditation and confession, scourging and

prayer,[46] in which he remained absorbed until the hour of tierce

called him forth to his duties in the world.[47]

[37] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 208.

[38] _Ib._ p. 203.

[39] _Ib._ p. 219.

[40] _Ib._ p. 225.

[41] _Ib._ pp. 236, 237.

[42] _Ib._ p. 238.

[43] _Ib._ p. 199. Cf. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ibid._), p. 38, and

Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 307.

[44] On the hair-shirt see MS. Lansdown. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.),

p. 154; Anon. I. (_ibid._), p. 20; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.),

p. 10; Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 196, 199; Garnier

(Hippeau), p. 23. On Thomas’s troubles about his dress and

how he settled them see Garnier, pp. 19, 20, 23; Anon. I. (as

above), p. 21; E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 368; Herb. Bosh.

(_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 196. On his whole manner of life after

consecration cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 95–111.

[45] Herb. Bosh. (as above), pp. 202–205.

[46] Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 88.

[47] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 205.

He was feverishly anxious to lose no opportunity of making up for his

long neglect of the Scriptural and theological studies befitting his

sacred calling. He openly confessed his grievous inferiority in this

respect to many of his own clerks, and put himself under their teaching

with child-like simplicity and earnestness. The one whom he specially

chose for monitor and guide, Herbert of Bosham, was a man in whom,

despite his immeasurable inferiority, one can yet see something of a

temper sufficiently akin to that of Thomas himself to account for their

mutual attraction, and perhaps for some of their joint errors. As they

rode from London to Canterbury on the morrow of the primate’s election

he had drawn Herbert aside and laid upon him a special charge to watch

with careful eyes over his conduct as archbishop, and tell him without

stint or scruple whatever he saw amiss in it or heard criticized by

others.[48] Herbert, though he worshipped his primate with a perfect

hero-worship, never hesitated to fulfil this injunction to the letter

as far as his lights would permit; but unluckily his zeal was even

less tempered by discretion than that of Thomas himself. He was a far

less safe guide in the practical affairs of life than in the intricate

paths of abstract and mystical interpretation of Holy Writ in which

he and Thomas delighted to roam together. Often, when no other quiet

time could be found, the archbishop would turn his horse aside as

they travelled along the road, beckon to his friend, draw out a book

from its hiding-place in one of his wide sleeves, and plunge into an

eager discussion of its contents as they ambled slowly on.[49] When at

Canterbury, his greatest pleasure was to betake himself to the cloister

and sit reading like a lowly monk in one of its quiet nooks.[50]

[48] _Ib._ p. 186.

[49] _Ib._ p. 206.

[50] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._), pp. 38, 39.

But the _eruditi_ of Thomas, like the disciples of Theobald, were

the confidants and the sharers of far more than his literary and

doctrinal studies. It was in those evening hours which he spent in

their midst, secluded from all outside interruption, that the plans

of Church reform and Church revival, sketched long ago by other hands

in the _Curia Theobaldi_, assumed a shape which might perhaps have

startled Theobald himself. As the weeks wore quickly away from Trinity

to Ember-tide, the new primate set himself to grapple at once with

the ecclesiastical abuses of the time in the persons of his first

candidates for ordination. On his theory the remedy for these abuses

lay in the hands of the bishops, and especially of the metropolitans,

who fostered simony, worldliness and immorality among the clergy by the

facility with which they admitted unqualified persons into high orders,

thus filling the ranks of the priesthood with unworthy, ignorant and

needy clerks, who either traded upon their sacred profession as a

means to secular advancement, or disgraced it by the idle wanderings

and unbecoming shifts to which the lack of fit employment drove them

to resort for a living. He was determined that no favour or persuasion

should ever induce him to ordain any man whom he did not know to be

of saintly life and ample learning, and provided with a benefice

sufficient to furnish him with occupation and maintenance; and he

proclaimed and acted upon his determination with the zeal of one who,

as he openly avowed, felt that he was himself the most glaring example

of the evils resulting from a less stringent system of discipline.[51]

[51] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 238–247.

His next undertaking was one which almost every new-made prelate in any

degree alive to the rights and duties of his office found it needful to

begin as soon as possible: the recovery of the alienated property of

his see. Gilbert Foliot, the model English bishop of the day, had no

sooner been consecrated than he wrote to beg the Pope’s support in this

important and troublesome matter.[52] It may well be that even fourteen

years later the metropolitan see had not yet received full restitution

for the spoliations of the anarchy. Thomas however set to work in the

most sweeping fashion, boldly laying claim to every estate which he

could find to have been granted away by his predecessors on grounds

which did not satisfy his exalted ideas of ecclesiastical right, or

on terms which he held detrimental to the interest and dignity of his

church, and enforcing his claims without respect of persons; summarily

turning out those who held the archiepiscopal manors in ferm,[53]

disputing with the earl of Clare for jurisdiction over the castle and

district of Tunbridge, and reclaiming, on the strength of a charter of

the Conqueror, the custody of Rochester castle from the Crown itself.

Such a course naturally stirred up for him a crowd of enemies, and

increased the jealousy, suspicion and resentment which his new position

and altered mode of life had already excited among the companions and

rivals of his earlier days. The archbishop however was still, like the

chancellor, protected against them by the shield of the royal favour;

they could only work against him by working upon the mind of Henry.

One by one they carried over sea their complaints of the wrongs which

they had suffered, or with which they were threatened, at the primate’s

hands;[54] they reported all his daily doings and interpreted them in

the worst sense:--his strictness of life was superstition, his zeal for

justice was cruelty, his care for his church avarice, his pontifical

splendour pride, his vigour rashness and self-conceit:[55]--if the king

did not look to it speedily, he would find his laws and constitutions

set at naught, his regal dignity trodden under foot, and himself and

his heirs reduced to mere cyphers dependent on the will and pleasure of

the archbishop of Canterbury.[56]

[52] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxxvii. (Giles, vol. i., p. 113).

[53] E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.) pp. 371, 372.

Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.) pp. 250, 251. _Thomas Saga_

(Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 117–121.

[54] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 252. _Thomas Saga_ (as above),

p. 121.

[55] Joh. Salisb. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.) pp. 309, 310.

Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.) pp. 91, 92.

[56] Joh. Salisb. (as above), p. 310. E. Grim (_ibid._) p. 372.

Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 92. Cf. Arn. Lisieux, Ep. 34

(Giles, pp. 148, 149).

At the close of the year Henry determined to go and see for himself the

truth of these strange rumours.[57] The negotiations concerning the

papal question had detained him on the continent throughout the summer;

in the end both he and Louis gave a cordial welcome to Alexander, and

a general pacification was effected in a meeting of the two kings and

the Pope which took place late in the autumn at Chouzy on the Loire.

Compelled by contrary winds to keep Christmas at Cherbourg instead of

in England as he had hoped,[58] the king landed at Southampton on S.

Paul’s day.[59] Thomas, still accompanied by the little Henry, was

waiting to receive him; the two friends met with demonstrations of the

warmest affection, and travelled to London together in the old intimate

association.[60] One subject of disagreement indeed there was; Thomas

had actually been holding for six months the archdeaconry of Canterbury

together with the archbishopric, and this Henry, after several vain

remonstrances, now compelled him to resign.[61] They parted however in

undisturbed harmony, the archbishop again taking his little pupil with

him.[62]

[57] Anon. II. as above.

[58] Rob. Torigni, a. 1162.

[59] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 252. The

date is given by R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 308.

[60] Herb. Bosh. (as above), pp. 252, 253. Anon. II. (_ib._

vol. iv.), p. 92. R. Diceto (as above) tells a different tale;

but Herbert is surely a better authority on these personal

matters. Cf. also _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp.

121–123.

[61] R. Diceto, as above.

[62] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 253.

The first joint work of king and primate was the translation of Gilbert

Foliot from Hereford to London. Some of those who saw its consequences

in after-days declared that Henry had devised the scheme for the

special purpose of securing Gilbert’s aid against the primate;[63]

but it is abundantly clear that no such thought had yet entered his

mind, and that the suggestion of Gilbert’s promotion really came from

Thomas himself.[64] Like every one else, he looked upon Gilbert as the

greatest living light of the English Church; he expected to find in him

his own most zealous and efficient fellow-worker in the task which lay

before him as metropolitan, as well as his best helper in influencing

the king for good. Gilbert was in fact the man who in the natural

fitness of things had seemed marked out for the primacy; failing that,

it was almost a matter of necessity that he should be placed in the

see which stood next in dignity, and where both king and primate could

benefit by his assistance ever at hand, instead of having to seek out

their most useful adviser in the troubled depths of the Welsh marches.

The chapter of London, to whom during the pecuniary troubles and long

illness of their late bishop Gilbert had been an invaluable friend

and protector, were only too glad to elect him; and his world-wide

reputation combined with the pleadings of Henry to obtain the Pope’s

consent to his translation,[65] which was completed by his enthronement

in S. Paul’s cathedral on April 28, 1163.[66]

[63] Will. Fitz-Steph. (as above), p. 46.

[64] This is the statement of Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv. p. 98)

and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 173), fully borne out by

the letters of Thomas.

[65] Epp. xvi.–xix. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 24–30).

Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 255, 256. Cf. Anon. II.

(_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 98.

[66] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 309.

The king spent the early summer in subduing South-Wales; the primate,

in attending a council held by Pope Alexander at Tours.[67] From the

day of his departure to that of his return Thomas’s journey was one

long triumphal progress; Pope and cardinals welcomed him with such

honours as had never been given to any former archbishop of Canterbury,

hardly even to S. Anselm himself;[68] and the request which he made to

the Pope for Anselm’s canonization[69] may indicate the effect which

they produced on his mind--confirming his resolve to stand boldly upon

his right of opposition to the secular power whenever it clashed with

ecclesiastical theories of liberty and justice. The first opportunity

for putting his resolve in practice arose upon a question of purely

temporal administration at a council held by Henry at Woodstock on

July 31, after his return from Wales. The Welsh princes came to swear

fealty to Henry and his heir; Malcolm of Scotland came to confirm his

alliance with the English Crown by doing homage in like manner to the

little king.[70] Before the council broke up, however, Henry met the

sharpest constitutional defeat which had befallen any English sovereign

since the Norman conquest, and that at the hands of his own familiar

friend.

[67] According to Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 173, and

Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 14 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 135), it opened

on Trinity Sunday, May 19; according to R. Diceto (as above),

p. 310, on May 21. The _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp.

123–127, makes out that Thomas’s chief object in going there

was to obtain confirmation of certain privileges of his see.

Cf. also the account of this council in _Draco Norm._, l. iii.

cc. 13–15, vv. 949–1224 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp.

742–751).

[68] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 253–255.

_Thomas Saga_ (as above), pp. 129, 131.

[69] Ep. xxiii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 35).

[70] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 311.

The king had devised a new financial project for increasing his own

revenue at the expense of the sheriffs. According to current practice,

a sum of two shillings annually from every hide of land in the shire

was paid to those officers for their services to the community in

its administration and defence. This payment, although described as

customary rather than legal,[71] and called the “sheriff’s aid,”[72]

seems really to have been nothing else than the Danegeld, which still

occasionally made its appearance in the treasury rolls, but in such

small amount that it is evident the sheriffs, if they collected it

in full, paid only a fixed composition to the Crown and kept the

greater part as a remuneration for their own labours. Henry now, it

seems, proposed to transfer the whole of these sums from the sheriff’s

income to his own, and have it enrolled in full among the royal dues.

Whether he intended to make compensation to the sheriffs from some

other source, or whether he already saw the need of curbing their

influence and checking their avarice, we know not; but the archbishop

of Canterbury started up to resist the proposed change as an injustice

both to the receivers and to the payers of the aid. He seems to have

looked upon it as an attempt to re-establish the Danegeld with all the

odiousness attaching to its shameful origin and its unfair incidence,

and to have held it his constitutional duty as representative and

champion of the whole people to lift up his voice against it in their

behalf. “My lord king,” he said, “saving your good pleasure, we will

not give you this money as revenue, for it is not yours. To your

officers, who receive it as a matter of grace rather than of right, we

will give it willingly so long as they do their duty; but on no other

terms will we be made to pay it at all.”--“By God’s Eyes!” swore the

astonished and angry king, “what right have you to contradict me? I am

doing no wrong to any man of yours. I say the moneys shall be enrolled

among my royal revenues.”--“Then by those same Eyes,” swore Thomas in

return, “not a penny shall you have from my lands, or from any lands of

the Church!”[73]

[71] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 30. Will. Cant. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. i.), p. 12. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 373.

Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 23.

[72] “L’Aïde al Vescunte.” Garnier, as above.

[73] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 30. Cf. Will. Cant. (Robertson,

_Becket_, vol. i.), p. 12. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 374.

Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 23, 24.

How the debate ended we are not told; but one thing we know: from that

time forth the hated name of “Danegeld” appeared in the Pipe Rolls no

more. It seems therefore that, for the first time in English history

since the Norman conquest, the right of the nation’s representatives

to oppose the financial demands of the Crown was asserted in the

council of Woodstock, and asserted with such success that the king

was obliged not merely to abandon his project, but to obliterate the

last trace of the tradition on which it was founded. And it is well

to remember, too, that the first stand made by Thomas of Canterbury

against the royal will was made in behalf not of himself or his order

but of his whole flock;--in the cause not of ecclesiastical privilege

but of constitutional right. The king’s policy may have been really

sounder and wiser than the primate’s; but the ground taken by Thomas

at Woodstock entitles him none the less to a place in the line of

patriot-archbishops of which Dunstan stands at the head.[74]

[74] On the different account of this affair given in the

_Thomas Saga_, and the view which has been founded on it, see

note A at end of chapter.

The next few weeks were occupied with litigation over the alienated

lands of the metropolitan see. A crowd of claims put in by Thomas and

left to await the king’s return now came up for settlement, the most

important case being that of Earl Roger of Clare, whom Thomas had

summoned to perform his homage for Tunbridge at Westminster on July

22. Roger answered that he held the entire fief by knight-service, to

be rendered in the shape of money-payment,[75] of the king and not of

the primate.[76] As Roger was connected with the noblest families in

England,[77] king and barons were strongly on his side.[78] To settle

the question, Henry ordered a general inquisition to be made throughout

England to ascertain where the service of each land-holder was lawfully

due. The investigation was of course made by the royal justiciars; and

when they came to the archiepiscopal estates, one at least of the most

important fiefs in dispute was adjudged by them to the Crown alone.[79]

[75] “Publicis pensionibus persolvendis.” R. Diceto (Stubbs),

vol. i. p. 311.

[76] _Ibid._

[77] And had moreover “the fairest sister in the whole

kingdom,” adds Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol.

iii.), p. 43.

[78] _Ibid._

[79] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 311.

Meanwhile a dispute on a question of church patronage arose between the

primate and a tenant-in-chief of the Crown, named William of Eynesford.

Thomas excommunicated his opponent without observing the custom which

required him to give notice to the king before inflicting spiritual

penalties on one of his tenants-in-chief.[80] Henry indignantly bade

him withdraw the sentence; Thomas refused, saying “it was not for the

king to dictate who should be bound or who loosed.”[81] The answer was

indisputable in itself; but it pointed directly to the fatal subject

on which the inevitable quarrel must turn: the relations and limits

between the two powers of the keys and the sword.

[80] _Ib._ pp. 311, 312. Will. Fitz-Steph. as above. The

object of this rule--one of the _avitæ consuetudines_--was,

as R. Diceto explains, to guard the king against the risk of

unwittingly associating with excommunicates.

[81] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

Almost from his accession Henry seems to have been in some degree

contemplating and preparing for those great schemes of legal reform

which were to be the lasting glory of his reign. His earliest efforts

in this direction were merely tentative; the young king was at once

too inexperienced and too hard pressed with urgent business of all

kinds, at home and abroad, to have either capacity or opportunity for

great experiments in legislation. Throughout the past nine years,

however, the projects which floated before his mind’s eye had been

gradually taking shape; and now that he was at last freed for a while

from the entanglements of politics and war, the time had come when he

might begin to devote himself to that branch of his kingly duties for

which he probably had the strongest inclination, as he certainly had

the highest natural genius. He had by this time gained enough insight

into the nature and causes of existing abuses to venture upon dealing

with them systematically and in detail, and he had determined to begin

with a question which was allowed on all hands to be one of the utmost

gravity: the repression of crime in the clergy.

The origin of this difficulty was in the separation--needful perhaps,

but none the less disastrous in some of its consequences--made by

William the Conqueror between the temporal and ecclesiastical courts of

justice. In William’s intention the two sets of tribunals were to work

side by side without mutual interference save when the secular power

was called in to enforce the decisions of the spiritual judge. But in

practice the scheme was soon found to involve a crowd of difficulties.

The two jurisdictions were constantly coming into contact, and it was

a perpetual question where to draw the line between them. The struggle

for the investitures, the religious revival which followed it, the vast

and rapid developement of the canon law, with the increase of knowledge

brought to bear upon its interpretation through the revived study

of the civil law of Rome, gave the clergy a new sense of corporate

importance and strength, and a new position as a distinct order in

the state; the breakdown of all secular administration under Stephen

tended still further to exalt the influence of the canonical system

which alone retained some vestige of legal authority, and to throw

into the Church-courts a mass of business with which they had hitherto

had only an indirect concern, but which they alone now seemed capable

of treating. Their proceedings were conducted on the principles of

the canon law, which admitted of none but spiritual penalties; they

refused to allow any lay interference with the persons over whom they

claimed sole jurisdiction; and as these comprised the whole clerical

body in the widest possible sense, extending to all who had received

the lowest orders of the Church or who had taken monastic vows, the

result was to place a considerable part of the population altogether

outside the ordinary law of the land, and beyond the reach of adequate

punishment for the most heinous crimes. Such crimes were only too

common, and were necessarily fostered by this system of clerical

immunities; for a man capable of staining his holy orders with theft

or murder was not likely to be restrained by the fear of losing them,

which a clerical criminal knew to be the worst punishment in store for

him; and moreover, it was but too easy for the doers of such deeds to

shelter themselves under the protection of a privilege to which often

they had no real title. The king’s justiciars declared that in the nine

years since Henry’s accession more than a hundred murders, besides

innumerable robberies and lesser offences, had gone unpunished because

they were committed by clerks, or men who represented themselves to

be such.[82] The scandal was acknowledged on all hands; the spiritual

party in the Church grieved over it quite as loudly and deeply as

the lay reformers; but they hoped to remedy it in their own way, by

a searching reformation and a stringent enforcement of spiritual

discipline within the ranks of the clergy themselves. The subject had

first come under Henry’s direct notice in the summer of 1158, when

he received at York a complaint from a citizen of Scarborough that a

certain dean had extorted money from him by unjust means. The case was

tried, in the king’s presence, before the archbishop of the province,

two bishops, and John of Canterbury the treasurer of York. The dean

failed in his defence; and as it was proved that he had extorted the

money by a libel, an offence against which Henry had made a special

decree, some of the barons present were sent to see that the law had

its course. John of Canterbury, however, rose and gave it as the

decision of the spiritual judges that the money should be restored

to the citizen and the criminal delivered over to the mercy of his

metropolitan; and despite the justiciar’s remonstrances, they refused

to allow the king any rights in the matter. Henry indignantly ordered

an appeal to the archbishop of Canterbury; but he was called over sea

before it could be heard,[83] and had never returned to England until

now, when another archbishop sat in Theobald’s place.

[82] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 140).

[83] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_), vol. iii. pp.

43–45.