THE STRUGGLE WITH BECKET
During the time that Henry was campaigning on the Norman borders, in
April 1161, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury died. For nearly a year
the king kept the primacy vacant, but at last, in the spring of 1162, he
declared his wish that Becket should take the archiepiscopate. The
appointment, not unforeseen, of the courtly chancellor seems to have
been distasteful to many of the clergy, but the only man who had the
courage to brave the king’s wrath by opposing the election of his
favourite was Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, whose opposition was
probably increased in vehemence but diminished in effect by the fact
that he was himself Becket’s most dangerous rival in the race for the
primacy. Foliot’s protest was supported by the Empress Maud, who, as a
devoted daughter of the Church, doubtless considered Becket too lax and
worldly for the post; but for once Henry disregarded his mother’s
opinion. Becket himself must have seen in his promotion the chance of
satisfying his ambition; as chancellor he was the second man in the
realm, subject only to the king; but, subject to him, often directing
the royal policy, but always liable to be checked by an expression of
the royal will; as archbishop, with the divine authority of the Church
behind him, it would be for him to dictate and for the king to obey. Yet
knowing, as he alone knew, the ultra-clerical course which he intended
to take, he foresaw that it must sooner or later bring him into
collision with Henry, and forebodings for the future, more particularly
regret for the inevitable disruption of the ancient bonds of friendship
which bound him to the king, made him hesitate to grasp the prize for
which he longed. At last the insistence of the king, coupled with the
persuasions of Cardinal Henry of Pisa, overcame Becket’s half-hearted
resistance, and in May 1162 he sailed for England for consecration.
Besides the business attendant on his elevation to the primacy, the
chancellor was charged with the carrying out of arrangements for an
expedition against the Welsh and also with the performance of fealty to
the king’s eldest son, Henry. The prince, who was at this time eight
years old, had been entrusted by his father to Becket’s care, and a very
genuine feeling of affection existed between the boy and his guardian,
which was to continue, unaffected by the events of later years, until
the archbishop’s death. It was therefore not unsuitable that the last
recorded act of Becket in his official capacity as chancellor was to
head the assembled peers at Westminster in taking the oath of fealty to
the young Henry. On the occasion of this ceremony, which seems to have
included an informal coronation--for a golden crown and regalia were
made for the prince[19]--Becket was formally elected to the see of
Canterbury. The right of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, to
appoint the archbishop, who was also nominally their abbot, was so far
recognised that they were directed by the king’s messengers, the Bishops
of Chichester, Exeter, and Rochester, Richard de Lucy and his brother
the Abbot of Battle, to hold an election, but they were told definitely
that their choice must fall on the chancellor. This formality over,
there arose the question of consecration. The right to perform this
ceremony was disputed between Roger, Archbishop of York, as primate, the
Bishop of Rochester as Vicar of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Winchester
as Precentor of Canterbury, while a claim was also put in by the bishop
of one of the Welsh sees as the senior member of the episcopal bench.
The see of London, whose bishop, as Dean of Canterbury, would have had
the best claim to officiate, was vacant, but the dean and canons
appointed Henry, Bishop of Winchester, to act for them, and to him
eventually was assigned the honour of officiating.
On Saturday, 2nd June, Becket, who was still in deacons’ orders, was
ordained priest, and on the following day he was consecrated
archbishop. To commemorate the occasion he ordained that the Sunday
following Whitsunday should in future be kept as a great festival in
honour of the Holy Trinity,[20] and even the zeal of the Reformers
against the cult of Thomas of Canterbury did not blot out from the
calendar of the English Church Trinity Sunday.
The consecration of Thomas as Archbishop of Canterbury was indeed an
event worthy of commemoration, forming as it did the prelude to the
struggle between clerical and lay power which was to occupy the next ten
years of Henry’s reign. This struggle presents a curious problem of
historical perspective. Seen through the atmosphere of the contemporary
chronicle or through the rarified medium of history the Becket
controversy presents very different features. To contemporaries it
seemed of overpowering importance, eclipsing all other events of the
time and entailing issues of enormous weight. To us the points at issue
seem of slight significance, while the results appear almost negligible
in comparison with the energy and heat expended to produce them.
Whichever view, if either, is correct, there can be no doubt of the
great part played by this episode, for though in the end the contending
parties were left very much where they started the casual results of
the struggle influenced the history of the country most powerfully, so
that in this controversy the incidents are of greater importance than
the main matter of contention.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Henry is constantly blamed by
modern writers for having promoted Becket to the primacy and not having
foreseen the consequences. Yet little reflection is required to show
that nothing short of the gift of prophecy would have enabled Henry to
foresee the position which Thomas was to take up. The chancellor had
habitually neglected his duties as Archdeacon of Canterbury, calling
down upon himself the rebukes of Archbishop Theobald, and had on several
occasions shown very slight regard for the privileges of the Church. At
the time of his appointment Gilbert Foliot scoffingly remarked that the
king had performed a miracle, for he had converted a knightly courtier
into a holy archbishop. Events proved Foliot’s jest a truth, and though
it was Becket who wrought the marvellous metamorphosis himself, it
remained a miracle unforeshadowed in the past life or character of the
man.
Thomas, who was born on 21st December 1118, was the son of Gilbert
Becket by Maud his wife. His parents, who were both of Norman
extraction[21] but had settled in London before his birth, belonged to
the middle class and were comfortably off, and by them he was sent to
the school of the canons of Merton Priory. While he was still quite
young his mother died, and not long afterwards his father, who was in
very reduced circumstances owing to losses by fire, followed her.
Fortunately for himself Thomas, who was a good-looking boy of much
promise, had attracted the attention of a powerful baron, Richer of
L’Aigle, who had been in the habit of putting up at the Beckets’ house
whenever he came up to London. Richer interested himself in the orphan,
sending him to school in London and allowing him to spend his holidays
with him in the country, presumably at his Sussex castle of Pevensey.
Here Thomas practised hunting, hawking, and other manly sports, on one
occasion nearly losing his life in the endeavour to rescue his falcon
from a mill-stream. His patron appears to have sent him to study in
Paris, and on his return he entered the service of his kinsman, Osbern
Huitdeniers, one of the leading citizens of London. After some three
years of official life in the city he determined to try a field more
promising for his ambitions. Once again his father’s hospitality proved
the means of his advancement, two of Gilbert’s former guests, the
Archdeacon Baldwin and his brother, Master Eustace, introducing him to
the notice of Archbishop Theobald. The archbishop, finding that the
young man’s father had come from his own native town of Thierceville,
gladly enrolled him in his household and took a kindly interest in him.
There were at this time at the archbishop’s court many men of
distinction and learning, and one of these, Roger of Pont l’Evêque,
afterwards Archbishop of York, jealous of the favour shown to Thomas,
whose powers lay in the direction of showy brilliance rather than sound
scholarship, did all that he could to injure and annoy him. Twice Roger
persuaded the archbishop to dismiss the young man, but on each occasion
Theobald’s brother, Walter, Archdeacon of Canterbury, took up his cause
and secured his restoration to favour. As early as 1143, when he was in
his twenty-fifth year, Thomas rendered his patron good service at the
papal court in the matter of annulling the legatine commission formerly
granted to Bishop Henry of Winchester. About this date he appears to
have attended the famous law schools at Bologna, and afterwards at
Auxerre. By this time he was beginning to become a person of importance;
the churches of St. Mary-le-Strand and Otford, and prebends in St.
Paul’s and Lincoln had been bestowed upon him, and in March 1148 he,
with his rival, Roger of Pont-l’Evêque, attended the archbishop on his
venturesome sail across the Channel to the Council of Rheims. Three
years later, in 1151, Becket achieved a further diplomatic success in
defeating Stephen’s efforts to obtain papal recognition for his son
Eustace, and in 1154, when Roger of Pont-l’Evêque became Archbishop of
York, Thomas succeeded him as Archdeacon of Canterbury.
[Illustration: SEAL OF ROGER, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK (1/1)]
On the accession of Henry II., as we have seen, Thomas was made
chancellor by the advice of Archbishop Theobald, with the generous
support of Bishop Henry of Winchester, whose claims he had once been
instrumental in defeating. Of the splendour and luxury displayed in his
household as chancellor something has already been said. The means to
satisfy his taste for magnificence and display were furnished not only
by the emoluments, regular and irregular,[22] of his office, but by
multitudinous extra preferments bestowed upon him, such as the
provostship of Beverley, the custody of the Tower of London, which he
restored and strengthened, and the honours of Eye and Berkhamstead. He
still retained his youthful love of sport and also displayed
considerable military ability; during the expedition to Toulouse he was
left in command at Cahors, and justified his appointment by leading his
troops in person to the capture of three other castles, while somewhat
later he overthrew a French knight in single combat. The king could
appreciate a man of spirit and a good sportsman, and the two men became
fast friends. Henry, on his way to or from the hunt, would often drop in
at the chancellor’s house and take a glass of wine with him, or,
vaulting the table, sit down and eat, noting with amusement the luxury
for which his friend was so famous. The story is well known how, as
king and chancellor were riding together through the streets of London
one bitter winter’s day, they saw a poor old man clad in rags. Turning
to his friend the king said, “Would it not be a meritorious act to give
that poor old man a warm cloak?” The chancellor agreeing that it would
indeed, Henry exclaimed, “You shall have the merit of this worthy act!”
and seizing Becket’s magnificent fur-lined cloak, after a short struggle
secured it and flung it to the beggar.
The intimate friend of the king, a courtier, sportsman, and warrior,
whose only interest in the Church seemed to be to draw the revenues of
his many benefices and to extract money from its prelates for his royal
master, no one could have foreseen Becket’s conversion into the most
ultra-clerical of archbishops.
Almost the first act of the newly consecrated archbishop was to resign
the chancellorship. As Becket must have been fully aware that the king
expected him to continue in office and would never have bestowed the
primacy upon him if he had declared his intention of resigning, his
action was surprising and unjustifiable. Henry, though deeply annoyed,
accepted the situation and displayed no ill-feeling towards Thomas. In
fact when he landed at Southampton in January 1163, having been detained
at Cherbourg over Christmas by bad weather, he greeted the archbishop
with all the warmth of affection which he had formerly bestowed upon the
chancellor. These good relations continued for some months, Thomas
supporting the king’s request to the pope for the translation of Gilbert
Foliot from Hereford to the vacant see of London,[23] and Henry visiting
the archbishop at Canterbury on his way down to Dover to meet the Count
of Flanders in March. But Becket was now throwing himself with his usual
thoroughness into the work appropriate to his position as head of the
English Church. His taste for display continued unabated, but found new
outlets. As archbishop he was the recognised patron of the younger sons
of nobles as the king was of their elder sons, while amongst the crowd
of high-born youths serving as his esquires was the heir to the throne;
his household was as magnificent and his table as well-appointed as
ever, but the clerks, who had formerly received little consideration,
had now supplanted the knights in the place of honour, while a somewhat
ostentatious prominence was given to the daily distribution of alms and
feeding of large numbers of poor persons. Thomas himself presided
gracefully over the splendid feasts, and, though far from practising the
stern asceticism of Gilbert Foliot, observed a strict moderation
suitable to the monastic habit which he had assumed; and although there
was no lack of gaiety and animation at his table the jesters and
minstrels of former days were now replaced by readers of the Holy
Scripture.
Soon the erstwhile pluralist chancellor began to attack the bestowal of
multiple benefices upon the king’s clerks, laymen in all but name, whose
sole connection with their benefices was to draw their revenues. So long
as Becket confined himself to this legitimate course of reform the king
raised no objections, only insisting that the physician should first
heal himself by surrendering the archdeaconry of Canterbury, which he
had most inconsistently retained with the archbishopric. But soon Thomas
passed from correcting the faults of his clergy to protecting their
vices. The complaints of the laity against the extortions and injustice
of the archdeacons and their officials had been brought to Henry’s
notice in the time of Archbishop Theobald, and one particular case
reported from Scarborough roused the king to declare that these clerical
officers wrung more money from the people every year than the revenues
of the crown. Had not matters of importance obliged Henry to leave
England just at this time it is not improbable that he would have
carried out, with the assistance of Thomas the Chancellor, some of those
measures for the control of the clerical courts which Thomas the
Archbishop devoted his life to opposing. The bishops ordained candidates
without regard to their fitness, and, contrary to the canons, bestowed
orders upon men who had no title. Inevitably the country was overrun
with men of low character, without definite means of subsistence, who
could laugh alike at the lay courts, which had no jurisdiction over
them, and at the ecclesiastical courts, whose proceedings were only too
often a farce; for the clerk who held no church deprivation had no
terrors, and it was well known that the bishops would rather a guilty
clerk were acquitted than that they should be burdened with the cost of
his keep in the episcopal prisons. Murders and other crimes were
committed by these bastard sons of the Church, and any attempt to bring
the offenders to book was foiled by the prelates. Becket, who as
chancellor had imprisoned a clerk in the Tower for seduction, now threw
the mantle of the Church over an unworthy clerk who had been guilty of a
peculiarly atrocious murder and adultery. The king felt strongly in the
matter, but it would seem that for a time his old affection kept him
from pressing his anti-clerical measures to the point of an actual
breach with the archbishop. Other matters, however, more personal, now
arose to increase the estrangement between the former friends.
On his return from the Welsh expedition in July 1163, Henry appears to
have found his affairs rather involved and to have proposed to increase
his revenue by appropriating the annual payment known as the “Sheriff’s
aid”; the exact points in dispute are obscure and will be discussed in a
later chapter, but it is known that the king swore “by the eyes of
God”[24] that the payment should be made part of the Crown revenues and
that the archbishop vowed “by his reverence for those same eyes” that no
penny of it should be paid from his lands while he lived. In the end
Henry had to give way, and he was again defeated by Becket about the
same time in another matter still nearer to his heart. During the
retreat from Toulouse in 1159 King Stephen’s son, William, Count of
Boulogne, and, in right of his wife, Earl of Surrey and Warenne, had
died, leaving no children. To prevent the county of Boulogne falling
into the hands of any adherent of the King of France, Henry took
William’s sister, Mary, out of the nunnery of Romsey, where she was
abbess, and married her to Matthew, son of the Count of Flanders, in
spite of Becket’s very proper protests. Earl William’s widow, Isabel de
Warenne, being still unmarried, the king decided that her heritage would
form a suitable provision for his brother William, for whom he had once
proposed to conquer Ireland. He therefore began to push the marriage
forward, but was stopped by the action of the archbishop, who forbade it
on the ground that the contracting parties were related within the
prohibited degrees.[25] A papal dispensation had been available for the
marriage of Abbess Mary, but the opposition of Thomas the Archbishop
proved so much more potent than the protests of Thomas the Chancellor
that the projected marriage had to be abandoned. The young William took
the matter so much to heart that he retired to the court of his mother,
the empress, at Rouen, where he shortly afterwards sickened and died on
30th January 1164.
Becket had deprived the king’s clerks of their benefices, protected
criminals from the king’s justice, opposed the king’s financial schemes,
and thwarted the king’s plans for his brother’s advance. He had also
aggressively asserted the rights of Canterbury against the Earl of Clare
and others of the king’s barons and had excommunicated the king’s
tenant, William of Eynesford, in a dispute over the advowson of a
church, the decision of which was claimed as belonging to the king’s
court. Even if he had been entirely in the right in every one of these
questions it would not have been extraordinary if the king, a violently
self-willed man, had become completely estranged. And now the question
of clerical immunities reached a climax. A long list of crimes committed
by clerks was presented to the king by his justices, and one of these
justices, Simon Fitz-Peter, made a special complaint against Philip de
Broi, a canon of Bedford. The canon had been accused of the murder of a
knight and had cleared himself by his oath before the Bishop of Lincoln,
but Simon Fitz-Peter, who was holding assizes at Dunstaple, apparently
considering that the verdict of the ecclesiastical court was contrary to
evidence, ordered him to stand his trial before himself; Philip
refused, and in course of argument used insulting expressions towards
the justice, which the latter reported to the king. Henry, enraged at
the insult to his representative, demanded that Philip should be retried
on both charges, of murder and contempt of court, before a lay tribunal.
This claim Becket successfully combated, and the king had to be content
with a trial before an ecclesiastical court. The prelates who formed the
court decided that the question of the murder had been finally disposed
of by the acquittal before the Bishop of Lincoln and could not be
re-opened, but for the insult to the king’s officer they commanded that
Philip de Broi should forfeit his prebend and go into exile for two
years, and should also make a public apology to Simon Fitz-Peter clad in
penitential garb. Henry declared that the sentence was absurdly light,
and determined to bring the whole question of clerical and lay
jurisdiction to a definite issue.
An opportunity soon offered, and at a council held at Westminster in
October 1163, Henry definitely demanded that the bishops should swear to
obey the ancient customs of the realm, which, he claimed, allowed a
clerk to be indicted before a lay tribunal, sent for trial to the
ecclesiastical court, and, if found guilty, degraded and, being no
longer a clerk, sent back to the lay court to receive sentence. There
was no question of trying clerks before lay judges, but the bishops,
headed by Becket, took up the line that the Church’s sentence must of
necessity be just,
[Illustration: HENRY II DISPUTING WITH BECKET
(From Cott. M.S. Claud. Dii)]
and that to inflict a further punishment after degradation would be to
punish a man twice for one offence; they would therefore only consent to
the “ancient customs,” of which they denied the antiquity and legality,
“saving the rights of their order,” or in other words reserving the
liberty to interpret them as they pleased. The king at once broke up the
council, deprived Becket of the custody of the honours of Eye and
Berkhamstead, and withdrew the young Prince Henry from his care. An
interview between the king and the archbishop outside Northampton did
not mend affairs, but by the advice of Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, Henry
adopted the policy of detaching the bishops from Becket and gradually
isolating him. Bishop Hilary of Chichester had from the first been
willing to accept the customs, and Gilbert Foliot of London, and Roger,
Archbishop of York, lent their aid, more from dislike of the primate
than from approval of the king’s schemes. Finding himself almost
unsupported the archbishop listened to the arguments of the papal
nuncio, Philip, Abbot of Aumône, and Robert of Melun, Bishop-elect of
Hereford, and agreed to withdraw the obnoxious reservation and accept
the customs. Not content with the verbal promise thus made before him at
Oxford, Henry determined to have the acceptance of the customs formally
and publicly ratified, and accordingly he summoned a great council to
meet at Clarendon in January 1164.
At this Council of Clarendon were present the peers, both spiritual and
lay, in full force; the Earls of Cornwall, Leicester, Hertford, Essex
and Chester, Arundel, Salisbury and Ferrers; the Counts of Brittany and
Eu; Richard de Lucy, the justiciar; Richer of l’Aigle, Becket’s old
patron; Simon Fitz-Peter, the insulted justice, and the representatives
of such great families as Bohun, Mowbray, Braose, Warenne, Cheyney,
Beauchamp, and Dunstanville, all of whom gave their assent to the code
of laws now presented on the king’s behalf as embodying the customs of
the realm concerning the Church prevalent in the time of his
grandfather, Henry I. The prelates had apparently expected that they
would be called upon to promise obedience to certain vague and undefined
“ancient customs,” which could be subsequently eluded by denying that
any particular regulation which infringed their privileges rightly
belonged to that category. When they heard the very definite and exact
claims advanced by the Crown they met the demand for their assent with
an absolute and united refusal, as was indeed to be expected.
The details of these Constitutions of Clarendon will be discussed
elsewhere, but the main points were, briefly, as follows. The claim,
already referred to, that clerks might be accused before a lay judge,
and if condemned and degraded by the ecclesiastical court, the
proceedings in which were to be watched by one of the king’s justices,
might be sentenced as laymen. That appeals might be made from the
bishop’s court to that of the archbishop and from the latter to the
king, without whose leave no appeal should be made to the Pope; to
strengthen this latter provision it was ordained that no ecclesiastic
should leave the kingdom without the royal licence. That no
tenant-in-chief should be excommunicated or his lands interdicted
without the king’s leave; that pleas touching advowsons should belong to
the king’s courts; and that the sons of villeins should not be ordained
without the permission of their lords. Becket, as leader of the Church
party, rejected the customs completely. He reasserted the finality of
sentences passed in ecclesiastical courts, and declared that the
proposed sentencing of the condemned clerk by the lay court would be “to
bring Christ before Pilate a second time.” The prohibition of papal
appeals he denounced as contrary to the consecration oaths of the
bishops, by which they were bound to allow such appeals, and the
restriction on the passage of the clergy across the seas he declared
would place them in a position of inferiority as compared with laymen
and would discourage pious pilgrimages. Finally, on the whole question
he took up the uncompromising attitude that the Church was the giver of
laws and the ruler of kings, and that human laws which interfered with
its privileges were of no effect.
Negotiations were opened on the king’s behalf by the Bishops of Norwich
and Salisbury, who pointed out to Becket the probable consequences for
all the prelates of inflaming the king’s anger, which consequences they
themselves would be the first to feel, as they were out of favour with
Henry. Their representations proving of no effect, the Earls of Cornwall
and Leicester besought him to consider the difficult position in which
they and other peers, faithful sons of the Church, would be placed if
the king persisted in his demands to the point of ordering the arrest
and trial of the archbishop. Finding him obdurate they withdrew, and the
next attempt at effecting a compromise was made by two knights of the
Order of the Temple, Richard de Hastings, the English Grand Master, and
Otes de St. Omer. Combining in themselves the attributes of knights and
ecclesiastics, they were well suited to act as arbitrators, and their
arguments appear to have had some effect; so that when at last the
impatient crowds of courtiers began to threaten and show signs of
violence, the wearied archbishop broke down under the strain and
condescended to an unworthy act of casuistry. Turning to his astonished
fellow prelates he exclaimed, “If the king insists upon my perjuring
myself I must do so, and must hope to purge the sin by future penance.”
Proceeding to the king’s council chamber he declared his acceptance of
the customs, “honestly, in good faith and without deceit,” and at his
command the bishops also signified their consent. Henry at once demanded
that Becket should swear to observe the customs, and should affix his
seal to a written copy thereof. To the first demand Becket replied that
a priest’s word was as good as an oath, while the question of sealing
he managed to waive for the time being, accepting a copy of the customs
by way of protest. Following up his victory, Henry caused both
archbishops, of Canterbury and York, to write to the pope desiring him
to confirm the customs. This they did, to please the king, knowing well
that the pope would refuse to sanction any such infringement of the
Church’s privileges. At the same time Henry desired the pope to appoint
the Archbishop of York legate for all England. Alexander, while refusing
to confirm the customs, granted the legation to Archbishop Roger, but by
exempting Becket and the church of Canterbury deprived the grant of its
point. Henry indignantly returned the letters of legation and refused a
further offer of the legation for himself.
Becket left Clarendon deeply humiliated at his own weakness, and even
went so far as to suspend himself from the performance of divine service
for a time. A letter to the pope explaining and lamenting his action
received a sympathetic reply virtually absolving him from the promise
which he had made but had never intended to keep. Not content with this,
however, he determined to visit the papal court, at this time
established at Sens, in person, and actually set sail from Romney with
that intention, but was foiled in his attempt to cross the Channel by
contrary winds, coupled with the boatmen’s fear of incurring the king’s
anger. This infringement of one of the articles of the Clarendon
Constitutions was reported to Henry, and served to embitter him yet
more against Becket and to precipitate the crisis which now arose. One
of the king’s officers, John the Marshal, having brought an action in
the archbishop’s court touching an estate held of the manor of Pagham in
Sussex, being defeated in his claim availed himself of the section in
the Constitutions which permitted an appeal to the king, and made such
an appeal, taking oath that justice had not been done to him. The
archbishop was accordingly ordered to attend and answer the plea at
Westminster on 14th September 1164. On that day Becket was unwell, and
sent four knights with letters from himself and from the sheriff of Kent
testifying that he was ill, and alleging that John’s case ought to be
set aside as he had deceitfully sworn upon a tropiary, or hymn-book,
instead of upon the Gospels. The king vowed that Becket’s plea of
illness was false, stormed at the knights, refused to listen to them,
and named a fresh day, 6th October, for hearing the suit at Northampton.
By this time the breach between the once inseparable friends had so
widened that the king would not send even formal documents direct to the
archbishop, as to do so would involve addressing him with a polite
formula of salutation which was very far from expressing his real
feelings. For the council to be held at Northampton, therefore, Becket,
instead of receiving the personal summons due to his rank, was summoned
through the sheriff, and when he greeted the king at Northampton he was
refused the kiss of welcome.
John the Marshal was absent on the king’s business at the Exchequer on
the first day of the council, but next day he duly appeared in court,
and Becket was ready to answer him. Henry, however, swept aside Becket’s
arguments and pleadings, accused him of contempt of court for not having
appeared in person on the previous occasion, and demanded sentence
against him. The court, fearing the king and considering that Becket had
been guilty of contempt, condemned him to be “at the king’s mercy.”
Theoretically this meant that he forfeited all his chattels to the king,
but in practice the forfeiture was commutable for a fixed sum, which
varied in different parts of the country: for a citizen of London the
fine was a hundred shillings, for a man of the privileged county of Kent
only forty shillings. In this case, however, the court arbitrarily
departed from the established custom and pronounced sentence of complete
forfeiture. To decide on the verdict was one thing, to pronounce
sentence against the head of the English Church was another; the barons
declined to do so, and said it was clearly a task for the spiritual
peers; the latter retorted that they could not be expected to sentence
their own head; but finally by the king’s order sentence was pronounced
by the aged Bishop Henry of Winchester, a thorough supporter of Becket’s
ecclesiastical policy. Hardly had this been done when Henry demanded of
the archbishop an account of three hundred pounds owing for the honours
of Eye and Berkhamstead which he had held of the king’s grant. Thomas
very rightly replied that he had had no notice of any such demand, and
further stated that he had laid out the whole amount, and more, in
building operations on the king’s behalf. So far as Berkhamstead is
concerned, the Pipe Rolls seem to show that all arrears due to the king
had been paid the previous year; but as the honour of Eye was not
accounted for while Becket held it as chancellor, it is possible that
there might have been some foundation for the claim, though nothing
could justify the way in which it was advanced. Whatever the rights of
the case the verdict was, of course, against Becket, and when he
protested against the indignity of being called upon to find sureties
for payment he was told that his goods having been declared forfeit he
was no longer a man of substance. Accordingly, the Archdeacon of
Canterbury became his surety for one hundred pounds, and the Earl of
Gloucester, the Count of Eu, and William of Eynesford for one hundred
marks apiece.[26]
Next day Henry renewed his attack upon the same lines, demanding back
five hundred marks which he had lent Thomas as chancellor at the time of
the Toulouse expedition, and calling for an account of all the issues of
vacant sees and abbeys which had been in his custody during the period
of his chancellorship. The king’s intention of breaking the archbishop
by fair means or foul was now so clear that the time-serving lords who
had till lately been proud to pay court to Becket now avoided him; his
old friend and supporter the Bishop of Winchester advised him to resign
his see, and Hilary of Chichester urged the same course, which other
counsellors as strongly discountenanced. Worn out by the strain, Becket
fell ill and was unable to appear in court on the sixth day, Monday,
12th October; Henry again disbelieved his excuse, and sent a number of
barons to see him and report. Thomas undertook to come next morning even
if he had to be carried in a litter. He now determined to bring matters
to a crisis and prepared to face the worst. His preparations were
significant, if somewhat theatrical. Early in the morning he went into
the chapel of St. Andrew’s Priory, where he was lodging, and going to
the altar of St. Stephen celebrated the mass of the proto-martyr. After
this his intention had been to proceed to the court in full canonicals,
barefooted and carrying his own cross; from such an ostentatious
defiance to the king to do his worst his friends managed to dissuade
him, and he rode in the usual way to the castle. But when he had
dismounted at the entrance to the hall he took the processional cross
from the hands of Alexander Llewellyn, his Welsh cross-bearer, and
insisted upon carrying it himself. Such a plain challenge to the king,
signifying his appeal to the protection of the Cross from the royal
injustice and violence, horrified his followers. The Archdeacon of
Lisieux besought the Bishop of London to prevent it; Foliot replied, “My
good friend, he always was a fool and always will be!” Nevertheless he
attempted to dissuade the archbishop from his fatal course, claiming the
right to carry the cross himself, as Dean of Canterbury, and even
endeavouring to wrest it from Becket by force. Finding his efforts of no
avail he desisted, contenting himself with the remark that if the king
now drew his sword they would make a fine pair. Becket then entered and
seated himself apart, holding his cross and attended by Herbert of
Bosham and William Fitz-Stephen. Meanwhile the bishops had been called
in to speak with the king, and Becket’s old enemy, Roger, Archbishop of
York, had availed himself of the opportunity to insult his fallen rival
by having his archiepiscopal cross carried before him, a deliberate
infringement of the privileges of the see of Canterbury, within whose
province Northampton lay.[27] While the course that events would take
was still uncertain, Becket’s attendants were giving him very
contradictory advice: Herbert of Bosham, the fiery theologian,
counselled him to hurl the thunders of excommunication against his
enemies if they dared to offer violence to his person, but the cautious
and level-headed lawyer, William Fitz-Stephen, deprecated such a course
and urged him to imitate the saints of old and suffer wrong with
meekness and patience.
The archbishop having inhibited the bishops from sitting in judgment
upon him for any plea touching matters prior to his consecration, and
having also appealed to Rome against the excessive and unprecedented
sentence of forfeiture, Gilbert Foliot at once lodged a counter appeal
and Bishop Hilary of Chichester protested against Becket’s breach of the
Constitutions, which he, and at his suggestion all the bishops, had so
recently promised on their priestly word to obey “honestly, in good
faith and without deceit.” Becket’s defence was to the effect that the
very qualifying words which Hilary quoted justified his action, for
nothing could be observed in good faith that was contrary to the
Christian faith, or honestly which was against the Church’s honour;
adding that if they had shown weakness at Clarendon it was the more
necessary that they should be strong now. Finding all hope of compromise
gone, the king sent the Earl of Leicester to pronounce sentence upon the
archbishop. The sentence would most probably have involved imprisonment,
but it was never pronounced, for Becket indignantly ordered the earl to
desist from uttering sentence against his spiritual father, further
declaring with justice that he had been summoned to answer only in the
case of John the Marshal and could not be called upon to account for
all his doings as chancellor without summons, especially as at the time
of his consecration the king’s ministers had expressly undertaken that
he should not be called to account for any of his acts as chancellor.
The earl retired abashed, and after a decent interval Becket rose and,
still carrying his cross, left the hall. As he went he stumbled against
a faggot, and Randulf de Broc cried out that he stumbled like the
traitor that he was. The taunt of traitor was taken up and repeated in
particular by Hamelin, the king’s illegitimate brother, now Earl of
Surrey and Warenne by his marriage with the Countess Isabel. Turning
angrily on the earl, Becket exclaimed, “If it were not for my cloth I
would show you whether I am a traitor or not!” The clamour reached the
king’s ears, and he at once sent a messenger to proclaim that no one was
to insult or molest the archbishop. He accordingly reached his quarters
at St. Andrew’s safely, and while seated at supper meditating upon his
further course of action he received an omen which confirmed the
intention, already half formed in his mind, of flight, for in the
evening lection occurred the passage, “If men persecute you in one city,
flee unto another.” As he heard this phrase read out, Thomas looked
across significantly at Herbert of Bosham, and as soon as he had an
opportunity of speaking to him in private he bade him hasten to
Canterbury, obtain as much money as possible from the archiepiscopal
estates, and then cross to the monastery of St. Bertin at St. Omer and
await his coming. Then he expressed his intention of keeping vigil
throughout the night in the church, refusing the proffered company of
the monks; and a little before daybreak he stole away in disguise under
the guidance of a canon of Sempringham, with only two other companions.
When Henry heard next morning of the archbishop’s flight he sent orders
to Dover and other ports to prevent his crossing, and then turned with
some relief to the business of the approaching expedition against the
Welsh. Meanwhile Thomas, knowing that search would be made for him in
Kent, had turned north, reaching Grantham on the first day, and then on
to Lincoln, where he stayed at the house of a fuller. From Lincoln he
went by water to Sempringham Priory and so to Boston. Probably finding
that that port was watched, he turned south, and after visiting
Haverholme proceeded by unfrequented paths into Kent, travelling chiefly
at night, and for a week lay hidden at Eastry, until on the evening of
2nd November circumstances enabled him to set sail. After a rough voyage
he landed in Flanders near Gravelines; but he was not yet in safety, for
Henry, whose embassy to the papal court had just crossed the Channel,
had warned the Count of Flanders of the possibility of Becket’s landing
in his territory, and the count bore the archbishop ill-will for the
opposition which he had offered to the marriage of the Abbess Mary of
Boulogne to the count’s brother. Worn out by the hardships of the sea
voyage Thomas found himself unable to walk, and the only means of
conveyance obtainable proved to be a pack-horse. Laying their garments
in place of the lacking saddle his companions lifted the weary
archbishop on to the horse, and in this humble guise he, whose gorgeous
cavalcade had once been a nine days’ wonder, entered Gravelines. Yet,
though in poor dress, treated by his companions with a careful absence
of ceremony and passing as “Brother Christian,” there were little
distinctions between him and his friends which nothing could efface, and
which did not escape the notice of the innkeeper at whose house he put
up. The man and his servant, who also recognised the archbishop, proved
honest, and Thomas safely accomplished the remainder of his journey to
St. Omer. Here he met not only his faithful Herbert of Bosham but also
the justiciar, Richard de Luci. The justiciar having vainly endeavoured
to persuade Becket to return to England, promising him his own good
services with the king, formally renounced all allegiance to him and
departed.
To follow the course of the struggle between king and archbishop during
the six years of Becket’s exile in detail is a wearisome and
unprofitable task. Constant efforts at mediation, incessant appeals and
counter-appeals to Rome, broadcast excommunications involving the most
prominent men at Henry’s court and all who had dealings with them, till
hardly a person of eminence stood outside the Church’s ban, mutual
recriminations, and anything and everything except reason and
compromise. The king’s absolute insistence upon the Constitutions of
Clarendon was met by Becket with a blank refusal. So far as we can judge
Henry might have been persuaded to accept a compromise had the
archbishop shown the least inclination to meet him half-way, and such a
course would certainly have had powerful support from the wiser and more
temperate royal officers. As it was, it is remarkable that, while a
considerable number of prominent ecclesiastics were in opposition to
Becket, he does not seem to have had the support of a single English or
Norman layman of any eminence.
Henry, in a moment of anger at Becket’s flight, had sent an imperious
letter to King Louis demanding the return of Thomas, “late Archbishop of
Canterbury”; Louis inquired, with some justice, who had deposed the
archbishop, adding that he in his kingdom could not displace the meanest
clerk; the request for the return of Thomas he refused, going out of his
way to offer the fugitive cordial hospitality. Henry’s embassy to the
pope at Sens, consisting of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of
Chichester, London, and Worcester, the Earl of Arundel and others, met
with equal unsuccess. The archbishop and the Bishops of London and
Chichester all spoke with great vehemence against Becket, but the papal
court was more amused at certain slips of accent and construction in
their Latin than convinced by their argument, and it was only the calm
and reasoned speech of the Earl of Arundel, who spoke in his native
French, that produced any impression. The pope refused to do anything
until Becket had come to state his own case, and the embassy, having
strict orders to return at once, withdrew. Thomas on his arrival
produced his copy of the Constitutions, which the pope had not
previously seen. They were, naturally, declared to be intolerable
infringements of the rights of the Church and St. Peter, and the pope
sternly rebuked Thomas for ever having given his consent to them. At
this time, apparently, Becket surrendered the primacy into the pope’s
hands, receiving it back again from him. By so doing he was not only
confirmed in full possession of the see but was in the position to deny
that he owed his archbishopric to the king. Pope Alexander was now very
awkwardly placed, for while his position as head of the Church compelled
him to uphold Becket, his recognition as pope had been largely due to
Henry’s support, and if that support were withdrawn and given to the
schismatic antipope, Alexander’s hold on the papacy would be dangerously
weakened. The reality of this danger was soon made clear, when, in May
1165, Henry’s ambassadors, Richard of Ilchester, Archdeacon of
Poictiers, and John of Oxford, who were present at the Emperor
Frederic’s council at Wurzburg nominally on business touching the
proposed marriage of Henry’s daughter Maud, virtually pledged their
royal master to support the emperor and the antipope against Alexander.
Feeling, however, ran too strongly against Henry in this matter, and he
had to repudiate the action of his ambassadors.
The pope, cautiously avoiding a complete breach with Henry, declared
that certain of the Constitutions were quite inadmissible but that
others were tolerable, and, by refraining from any definite
pronouncement as to any particular sections, left an opening for
negotiations. At the same time he attempted to bring the king to reason
through the mediation of the Bishops of London and Hereford, Archbishop
Rotrou of Rouen, and the Empress Maud. But matters had already gone too
far for any friendly arrangement to be possible. Becket, who after his
interview with the pope had established himself, in December 1164, at
the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, was determined to yield nothing, and
had already commenced the campaign of letters, argumentative, mandatory,
supplicatory and threatening, with which he disturbed the peace of
Western Europe for the next five years; and Henry, at his Christmas
council at Marlborough, had retorted by confiscating the property of the
see of Canterbury. Not content with this legitimate seizure of the
archbishop’s revenues, the king extended his attack to all persons
connected with Becket by family or official ties, and all his poor
relations and such of his clerks as had proved themselves faithful to
his cause were stripped of their possessions and sent into exile under
a vow to join their patron. This step, designed to worry Becket and to
strain his already straitened finances, seems to have owed its full
rigour if not its inception to Ranulf de Broc, into whose hands the
property of the see had been committed, and was opposed by Bishop Hilary
of Chichester on the ground that, while so manifestly unjust an act
would put the king in the wrong, the chief effect would be to strengthen
Becket by surrounding him with a crowd of faithful servants.
During the year 1165 little worthy of note occurred, but with the spring
of 1166 Becket began to adopt more vigorous measures. Assured in his own
mind of the support of the pope, who on 24th April appointed the
archbishop Legate of England, Thomas wrote three successive letters to
King Henry, couched in language of increasing severity, warning and
threatening him. The king, who was at Chinon, could only tie Becket’s
hands by an appeal to Rome against his threatened action, and
accordingly sent the Bishops of Séez and Lisieux to Pontigny to give
notice of his appeal. On their arrival at Pontigny on Ascension Day, 2nd
June, they found that Thomas had gone to Soissons to visit the shrine of
St. Drausius, a favourite resort of persons about to fight a judicial
duel. Invigorated by his visit to the combative saint, Becket went on to
the abbey of Vézelay, and on Whitsunday, 22nd June, to the astonishment
and dismay of his unsuspecting companions, publicly excommunicated
Richard de Luci and Joscelin de Bailliol as authors of the Clarendon
Constitutions, Richard of Ilchester and John of Oxford for taking part
with the schismatics at Wurzburg, John of Oxford being further condemned
for accepting the Deanery of Salisbury in spite of prohibition, and
Randulf de Broc and others for usurping the possessions of the church of
Canterbury, while the king himself was threatened with a similar fate.
The sentences created little excitement outside the circle of Becket’s
own audience; most of those against whom they were fulminated were
becoming seasoned to excommunication, and the king was sustained by the
comfortable knowledge that the pope would support him. In the previous
May Henry had given orders for a levy throughout his dominions on behalf
of the Crusade, and some months earlier he had shown further evidence of
his zeal for the Church by presiding at Oxford over a council which
condemned a little band of German or Flemish heretics who had settled in
England. These heretics, humble weavers under the leadership of one
Gerard, seem to have held opinions similar to those of the Waldensian
Protestants; they met with little or no success in their missionary
efforts, and, having refused to recant, were branded and scourged and
turned out into the snow, to perish of cold and hunger. Fortified with
the knowledge of his good services to the Church, Henry did not even
hesitate to appoint the excommunicate John of Oxford as envoy, with John
Cumin and Ralph of Tamworth, to the papal court. On their arrival Pope
Alexander gave them a friendly welcome, absolved John of Oxford and
confirmed him in possession of the Deanery of Salisbury, quashed
Becket’s sentences and ordered him to refrain from molesting the king,
at the same time promising to appoint commissioners to arbitrate between
the king and the archbishop.
Towards the end of the year 1166 Henry had been successful in procuring
Becket’s removal from Pontigny by threats against the Cistercian order.
His star was distinctly in the ascendant, and he could afford to await
with equanimity the long-delayed arrival of the papal commissioners, the
cardinals Otto and William of Pavia. Becket, on the other hand, was
angered by the pope’s action and especially by the appointment of
Cardinal William, and expressed himself with a vehemence which even his
friend John of Salisbury considered excessive. The enormous mass of
correspondence concerned with the Becket controversy which has been
preserved is throughout remarkable rather for vigour than elegance. In
letters which are a mosaic of quotations and reminiscences from the
Vulgate, with an occasional phrase from a classical poet, the writer’s
adversaries are compared to the most notorious villains of Scripture,
while contempt is poured on them by means of sarcastic puns, Richard de
Luci, the great justiciar, becoming “Luscus”--the one-eyed or
half-blind--and the Archdeacon of Canterbury figuring as the
“archdemon.” The whole correspondence breathes a spirit of intolerance
which augured ill for the efforts of would-be mediators. Of these
mediators the one of whom most might have been hoped, Henry’s mother,
the Empress Maud, died at Rouen on 10th September 1167. As a devoted
daughter of the Church she had condemned the excessive severity of her
son’s anti-clerical legislation, though as “a daughter of tyrants” she
had approved the general trend of the Clarendon Constitutions. Her
influence with Henry was great, and if compromise had been possible it
would no doubt have been exerted to that end, but, as it was, she could
do nothing beyond such moderating measures as interfering on behalf of
an imprisoned and tortured bearer of papal letters.
When the papal legates at last opened negotiations in November 1167, by
an interview with the archbishop at Planches on the borders of France
and Normandy, they found him resolute to agree to nothing without the
addition of the disputed phrase “saving the liberty of the Church,” and
all their arguments were useless. When they made their report to Henry
he dismissed them angrily with some uncomplimentary remarks on the
subject of cardinals. A renewed appeal by the English bishops tied
Becket’s hands till November 1168, and in May of that year the pope
remonstrated with him and ordered him to take no action against the king
until the beginning of Lent, 5th March 1169. At the same time Alexander
made an effort to bring matters to a settlement by appointing two monks,
the Prior of Mont Dieu and Simon de Coudre of Grammont, as
commissioners. They did not act until 7th January 1169, when Henry and
Louis met at Montmirail to negotiate a treaty. Becket was with the
French king, and when the commissioners had presented to Henry a letter
from the pope urging him to a speedy reconciliation, the archbishop came
forward with every appearance of humility and expressed his desire for
peace. Henry was willing to receive him back into favour if he would
undertake to act loyally, but Becket would only pledge himself to
obedience “saving the honour of God,” or in other words “the liberty of
the Church.” In vain Henry offered him every right and possession that
his predecessors in the see of Canterbury had held, provided that he
would obey the laws that they, many of them saints, had obeyed. A
suggestion that Thomas should return to his post without any definite
mention being made of the Constitutions, with a tacit understanding that
the more objectionable sections should be modified, was also rejected,
and the conference broke up.
Shortly after this the commissioners presented to Henry letters from the
pope couched in stern language and warning him of the consequences if he
did not soon come to terms with Becket. Nevertheless Alexander was not
prepared to take extreme measures, and accordingly he appointed yet
other mediators, the Cardinals Gratian and Vivian, and wrote to Becket
ordering him to take no action against the king or his supporters until
they had performed their mission. Before this order reached the
archbishop at Sens, where he had fixed his headquarters since his
expulsion from Pontigny, he had availed himself of the expiration of the
term of inaction previously set him, and early in March excommunicated
the Bishop of Salisbury, Earl Hugh of Norfolk, and other offenders,
laymen and clerks, following this up on Palm Sunday, 13th April, with
the excommunication of the Bishop of London and the announcement of a
similar fate in store for Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Canterbury,
Richard of Ilchester, Richard de Luci, and others. Anticipating his
action the two bishops had already made provisional appeals to the pope,
while precautions were taken to prevent the delivery of the notice of
excommunication. But on Ascension Day, 29th May, during the celebration
of mass in St. Paul’s, a young Frenchman, Berenger by name, under
pretence of making an oblation, handed to the priest celebrant the
archbishop’s letters, charging him to deliver them to the Bishop of
London and publicly denouncing the latter excommunicate. Bishop Foliot,
while accepting the sentence as valid, renewed his appeal to the pope,
who strongly disapproved of Becket’s action and ordered him to suspend
his sentences until the nuncios had seen the king.
Gratian and Vivian reached Damfront on 23rd August, and next day had an
interview with the king, in which he endeavoured to dictate to them,
insisting that the excommunicates should be absolved at once. For a week
no progress was made, but on 31st August, at Bayeux, Henry undertook
that if the excommunicates were absolved at once he would receive back
the archbishop and his friends and allow him to hold his church and
former possessions “to the honour of God, of the Church, of the king and
of the king’s sons.” Next day, however, he insisted upon the further
significant addition of the phrase “saving the dignity of my realm.”
Even to get so far as this had proved a difficult task. The meeting had
been held in the open air, and twice Henry had mounted his horse and
turned to ride off in a rage, expressing his contempt for the nuncios
and their threats of excommunication and interdict. A proposal to
counterbalance the “dignity of the realm” with “the liberty of the
Church” having failed, negotiations were broken off. Becket, as papal
legate for England, having threatened to lay England under the dread
sentence of interdict, by which all public services and religious
ministrations were suspended, Henry issued orders that the bearer of
such a sentence and any persons who obeyed it should be held guilty of
high treason, at the same time prohibiting all monks and clergy from
crossing the seas without his leave, and ordering the search of all
laymen coming into England from foreign countries. He further consented
to another meeting with the archbishop at Montmartre, whither he had
gone to visit King Louis.
The negotiations at Montmartre in November 1169 turned chiefly upon the
question of the restoration of Becket’s estates. While the king was
willing to restore him to the possession of what he held when he left
the country, Thomas insisted upon full payment of all arrears, the
surrender of certain disputed estates and the displacement of such
clergy as had been presented by the king to Canterbury livings during
his exile. Offers of arbitration were refused by Becket; and, while
Henry consented that he should have all that his predecessors had on the
same terms by which they held, his promise of due service to the king
was qualified by the obnoxious phrase, “saving the honour of God.” Henry
therefore refused Becket the “kiss of peace,” and the conference broke
up. The terms offered by Henry appear to have made a favourable
impression upon Pope Alexander, and he determined to make a final effort
for a settlement on those lines. Accordingly, in the early spring of
1170, the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers were appointed to
negotiate; the Canterbury estates were to be restored in full, but the
question of arrears might be waived; there was to be no reference to the
Constitutions, and the kiss of peace was to be given by either the king
or his son. If Henry refused to come to terms sentence of interdict
should be laid upon his continental domains.
Negotiations remained for some little time in abeyance, as Henry had
crossed to England, for the first time for four years, landing at
Portsmouth on 3rd March, after a stormy passage during which at least
one of his forty ships was lost. The chief matter necessitating the
king’s return to England was his intention of establishing the
succession to the throne beyond all doubt by the coronation of his
eldest son, Henry, now sixteen years old. The need for this coronation
of the heir during his father’s lifetime, for which precedents could be
found on the Continent but not in England, is far from clear, and its
ultimate results were to prove disastrous. The most immediate result was
the creation of a fresh grievance for Becket. It would seem that the
pope, willing to please Henry and not knowing that the right to crown
kings was a privilege of the Archbishops of Canterbury, had granted
permission for the Archbishop of York to crown the young Henry, or else
such permission had been granted during the vacancy of Canterbury in
1162. When the news of the proposed coronation reached Becket he wrote
letters to Archbishop Roger and the English bishops in general
prohibiting them from officiating, and similar letters were sent by the
pope; but none of these appear to have been delivered, and on Sunday,
14th June, the younger Henry was crowned at Westminster by Archbishop
Roger, the Bishops of London, Durham, Salisbury, and Rochester
assisting. For some reason the young king’s wife, Margaret,
[Illustration: SEAL OF THE “YOUNG KING” HENRY (1/1)]
had not been crowned with him, although a royal outfit had been provided
for her,[28] and she had been ordered to hold herself in readiness at
Caen, where the queen was in residence. The omission was taken by
Margaret’s father, King Louis, as a deliberate insult, and was possibly
so intended; but it is far more probable that Henry had intended her to
be crowned with her husband, but had been obliged to hasten the
coronation in order to avoid the publication of the prohibitory papal
letters.
Returning to Normandy, Henry met the papal commissioners at Falaise and
agreed to accept the terms which they proposed. They then had an
interview with Becket and persuaded him to come to Fréteval, where the
French and English kings were to hold a conference. On 22nd July,
therefore, Thomas rode out to meet Henry. The king was in an excellent
temper, and as soon as he saw the archbishop he pressed forward, doffing
his cap and saluting him affectionately. The two then withdrew and held
a long private consultation. Becket began by reproaching Henry for his
action in regard to the coronation. The king defended himself, pleading
historical precedents, which Becket rejected as unsound, and producing
papal letters granting leave for the Archbishop of York to crown the
young Henry; these letters, however, dated from 1162, when, as we have
seen, some such coronation was mooted if not actually performed, and
were issued during the vacancy of the see of Canterbury. In the end
Henry promised to do justice in the matter, and added some ambiguous
remarks to the effect that he would punish all who played either him or
the archbishop false. No word was said about the Constitutions, but the
king promised to restore to Becket all that he had held three months
before the date of his exile and to receive him and his friends back
into favour. Becket dismounted and knelt before the king, but the latter
leapt from his horse, raised the archbishop and held his stirrup while
he remounted. The two old friends, once more united, rode back together
and announced the conclusion of peace, to the amazement of all; and even
a passage of arms between the excommunicate Archdeacon of Canterbury and
Becket, due to the latter’s refusal to reciprocate the king’s general
amnesty by absolving the excommunicates, was not allowed to disturb the
serenity of the atmosphere. The only cloud was the king’s persistent
refusal of the kiss of peace, based on the rash oath which he had sworn
in the presence of the French that he would never give it. On this Henry
was resolute, though he expressed his willingness to kiss “his mouth,
and his hands, and his feet a hundred times” when he returned to
England. So much importance did Becket attach to this symbolic act that
he endeavoured to obtain the kiss by a ruse at Amboise in October. For
this purpose he came to the chapel where Henry was going to hear mass,
in the course of which service the king would be obliged to give the
ceremonial kiss; but, warned by the much excommunicated Nigel de
Sackville, Henry ordered the celebration of a mass for the dead, in
which the ceremony of the _pax_ is omitted.
About this time Henry wrote to the young king and the regency council in
England announcing the conclusion of peace between himself and the
archbishop, and ordering the restoration of the former possessions of
the see and the holding of a judicial inquiry into the question of the
honour of Saltwood. Early in November the king sent a message to Becket
regretting that military affairs in Auvergne prevented his meeting him
at Rouen, but urging him to delay his departure no longer, and
appointing John of Oxford, Dean of Salisbury, to accompany him. Becket
accordingly proceeded to Witsand, whence he was to cross to England.
During the previous three months he had been busy corresponding with the
pope, and had procured from him letters suspending and excommunicating
the Archbishop of York, the bishops who had taken part with him, and the
inevitable Archdeacon of Canterbury. The sentence against York, London,
and Salisbury, Becket despatched from Witsand to Dover, where those
prelates happened to be, before his own departure. At last, on 1st
December 1170, the archbishop set sail, and, avoiding Dover, landed at
Sandwich. Here he was met by Randulf de Broc, Reynold de Warenne, and
Gervase of Cornhill, sheriff of Kent. Their threats of violence were
restrained by John of Oxford, and after reproaching the archbishop for
coming into the realm with fire and sword they suffered him to proceed
to Canterbury, where he was joyfully welcomed by the clergy and
populace.
The messengers whom he had sent over after the conclusion of peace
between himself and the king had warned him that the estates of the see
had been plundered, and their appeal to the royal officers for the
promised restoration of property had been postponed long enough to
enable the actual holders to secure the rents payable at Michaelmas.
Becket now found that most of the Christmas rents had been anticipated,
and the manors so thoroughly pillaged that nothing but empty barns and
ruinous houses remained. He had, however, other matters to occupy his
mind: the representatives of the censured prelates came to him desiring
him to absolve their masters. So far as Archbishop Roger was concerned
Becket professed inability, the pope having reserved his case to
himself, but he was ready to absolve the Bishops of London and
Salisbury, conditionally on their undertaking to submit to the pope’s
demands. This they were willing to do, but they were dissuaded by
Archbishop Roger, and all three went over to Normandy to make complaint
to the king. Becket, anxious from personal affection as well as from
policy to pay his respects to the young king, sent Richard, Prior of St.
Martin’s, to Winchester to announce his intention, and presented Henry
with three magnificent chargers gaily caparisoned. The king, or rather
his council, declined the archbishop’s proffered visit, but undeterred
he started for Winchester, intending after his visit to the court to
make a tour of visitation throughout his province. The first night he
spent at Rochester and the next at the Bishop of Winchester’s house in
Southwark, but here he was met by Joscelin of Arundel, brother of Queen
Adelisa, who ordered him to return to Canterbury. This he did, taking
with him a small escort of some five or six men-at-arms. The existence
of this escort was magnified by his enemies into a charge of riding
about with a great army to capture the king’s castles, but it was
certainly necessary, for threats were being openly made against his
life, and the Brocs at Saltwood were indulging in a regular campaign of
outrage and insult. They seized his wine, they hunted in his preserves,
poached his deer and stole his hounds, and as a culminating insult cut
off the tail of his pack-horse.
Becket was not a man to suffer insult patiently, and on Christmas Day he
preached in the cathedral, and, after alluding to the probability of his
murder, delivered a furious denunciation of his enemies, and
excommunicated Robert de Broc and a number of other offenders. The news
of his action was at once conveyed to King Henry, who was keeping
Christmas at Bur-le-Roi, near Bayeux. Infuriated by this fresh breach of
the peace, Henry uttered a wild tirade against the upstart priest and
against his courtiers who sat idle and allowed their master to be
insulted without avenging him. Four knights, William de Tracy, Hugh de
Moreville, Reynold Fitz-Urse, and Richard le Breton, determined to gain
the king’s favour by the murder of the archbishop. Taking horse at once
they made for the coast, and favoured by the wind reached Saltwood
Castle on Monday, 28th December. Meanwhile Henry, while refusing to go
so far as Engelger de Bohun and William Mauvoisin, who urged the
archbishop’s execution, had determined on his arrest. Richard de Humet
was sent to England to Hugh de Gundeville and William Fitz-John, the
young king’s guardians, while Earl William de Mandeville and Saer de
Quincy watched the continental ports in case Becket should try to
escape. The four knights, openly proclaiming that the king had decreed
Becket’s death, collected a considerable force from the garrisons of the
neighbouring castles, and on Tuesday, 29th December, rode into
Canterbury. Failing to persuade the town authorities to assist them,
they warned them not to interfere and rode on to the palace. Striding
into the room where the archbishop and his attendants were sitting, the
four knights, without a word of greeting, sat down in front of him.
After a pause Reynold Fitz-Urse ordered him, in the king’s name, to
absolve the excommunicates and afterwards to stand his trial before the
young king at Winchester. Before they delivered their ultimatum, Becket,
understanding that they had a private message from the king, had caused
his attendants to withdraw, but he now recalled them and delivered a
calm and dignified reply justifying his action and explaining his
position. To their threats he replied that the king had granted him his
peace, but that in any case he would never yield or waver in his
obedience to God and the pope for fear of death.
The knights had entered the archbishop’s presence unarmed, and they now
withdrew, uttering threats and defiance, to bring the argument of steel
to bear where words had proved unavailing. The Brocs and others of their
associates had seized the gatehouse of the palace and placed it in
charge of Simon de Crioill and William Fitz-Nigel, the archbishop’s
steward, who had joined the conspirators; Becket’s own esquire, Robert
Legge, was forced by Reynold Fitz-Urse to assist in arming him, and one
of the archbishop’s knights, Ralph Morin, was placed under arrest. As
the armed crowd pressed forward the great door of the archbishop’s
apartments was shut and bolted and for a moment they were foiled, but
Robert de Broc knew the palace well, and, snatching up an axe left on
the stairs by a workman, attacked a wooden partition that would give
access to their victim’s room. Hearing the crash and splintering of the
woodwork the monks and clerks, powerless against the mail-clad
assassins, seized Becket, and in spite of his protests and resistance
hurried him by a private entrance into the church. Contrary to his
wishes the door was shut behind him, but when the pursuers began to
thunder upon it he insisted upon its being opened, that the church might
not seem to be turned into a fortress. The four knights and their
followers rushed in, headed by Reynold Fitz-Urse, who flung down the axe
with which he had attacked the door and brandished his sword. Hugh de
Moreville faced the terrified people clustered in the body of the
church, while his comrades searched for their victim. In the pillared
gloom of the dim evening Becket was not at first visible, and he could
easily have escaped into the darkness of the crypt or by the
neighbouring stairway to the safety of the roof, but hearing cries of
“Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?” he stepped forward,
saying, “Here am I, no traitor but the priest of God. And I marvel that
you are come into the church of God in such guise. What will ye with
me?” To their threats of instant death he replied by commending his soul
to God, St. Mary, St. Denis, and St. Elphage, and their endeavours to
drive or drag him out of the church he resisted with all his strength,
striking William Tracy a blow which almost felled him to the ground.
Tracy replied with a cut at his head, but Edward Grim, one of the only
three clerks who had remained with their master, intercepted the blow
with his arm. Although most of the force of the stroke was spent on
Edward Grim it drew blood from the archbishop’s head. A second blow,
from Reynold’s sword, drove Becket
[Illustration: THE MURDER OF BECKET
(From Harl. MS. 5102)]
to his knees, and with the third he fell with his arms stretched out
towards the altar of St. Benedict. As he fell Richard le Breton struck
him again with such violence that his sword broke upon the pavement,
crying, “Take that for the love of my lord William, the king’s brother,”
Richard having served the young William, whose early death was
attributed to the foiling of his matrimonial schemes by Becket. As the
assassins turned to leave the church, one Hugh Mauclerc, whose name is
unknown to history save for this infamy, thrust his sword into Becket’s
gaping skull and scattered his brains upon the pavement. Thus fell
Thomas Becket, the obstinate and imperious archbishop, and thus rose
from his dead body Thomas of Canterbury, martyr and virtual patron saint
of England.
Having wreaked their vengeance on the archbishop the murderers turned to
the plunder of his palace. Everything of value they seized, sending off
a parcel of papal bulls and similar documents to their royal master.
Then they rode off, the four knights soon afterwards retiring to
Moreville’s castle of Knaresborough, while the Brocs remained at
Saltwood, whence they threatened to return to Canterbury and outrage the
martyr’s body. Hearing of their threats the monks of Canterbury, by the
advice of the Abbot of Boxley and the Prior of Dover, proceeded at once
to bury the body, which, after lying for some time neglected during the
panic which followed the murder, had been reverently placed before the
high altar. Accordingly the martyred archbishop was laid in a marble
tomb in the crypt, clad in the penitential hair-shirt, which, to the
surprise of all, he was found to have worn beneath his other garments,
and in the vestments worn at the time of his ordination and preserved by
him against his burial. The church having been polluted by bloodshed,
Mass could not be said in it, and so without the rites and services of
the Church were laid to rest the remains of him whose shrine was to be
for future generations the great national centre of prayer and
pilgrimage.