PRTTVrnTITON. N. J. 
 
 DA 209 .T4 T46 1889 
 Thompson, Robert Anchor. 
 Thomas Becket martyr patriol 
 
 Shelf 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2014 
 
 https://archive.org/details/thomasbecketmartOOthom 
 
THOMAS BECKET 
 
 MARTYR PATRIOT 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT ANCHOR U THOMPSON, M.A. 
 
 L O N DON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1889 
 
(The right, of translation and oj r, production are reser 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 LIVES of Archbishop Becket and discussions of them 
 have been so many, that some apology may be necessary 
 for another. 
 
 It is an easy task. We have it on the authority of 
 Mr. Freeman : " There is scarcely any man of past 
 times, for estimating whose life and character we have 
 such ample means. . . . We know all about everybody 
 and everything. . . . As to mere matters of fact, the 
 points of controversy are exceedingly few." 
 
 But he adds : " The peculiarity of the history is, 
 that, with the same facts before them, no two people 
 seem to be content to draw the same inferences." 
 
 Truth is single, but attractive : error manifold and 
 repulsive. There is scope, it appears, for further dis- 
 cussion ; unless we are to infer that the case is hopeless, 
 and the real Becket an insoluble problem. 
 
 It is not a likely inference ; it becomes very unlikely 
 when we find that writers of reputation, with all the 
 ample sources of information in their hands, have made 
 
iv 
 
 Preface. 
 
 many mistakes in matters of plain fact. Discordant 
 conclusions then follow as of course. 
 
 If there is still scope for discussion, there is good 
 cause for it. Becket, in himself, is a man worth know- 
 ing. To Englishmen all the great men are worth 
 knowing, — above others, the great and true men, — who 
 have made the story of their forefathers one in which 
 they can find some interest and some pride. 
 
 Yet, after all that has been written of him, the study 
 of this man, under any form of the materials for it 
 within reach, is, to the general reader, an impossibility. 
 Certain simple facts have been told many times, both 
 fairly and intelligibly, as they were forty years ago by 
 Dr. Giles. But a large portion of the materials, and 
 some of the more important of them, are to be gathered 
 from many hundreds of Latin letters, some of them 
 very long, written both by the principal actors in the 
 events, and by eye-witnesses of their remarkable scenes. 
 
 Dr. Giles and others have published translations of 
 some of them. But even so it takes time and pains, 
 which few readers can afford, to gather the true purport 
 from a voluminous correspondence. 
 
 In the present little work it has been attempted to 
 draw out the important substance of the letters in a 
 fair and often literal translation of their own words. 
 
 The resulting story is that of a man who was not, 
 and who never thought himself, and never aspired to be, 
 a saint to be worshipped in ages following ; but who, 
 also, was not that impossible combination of incongruous 
 
Preface. 
 
 v 
 
 qualities, in which later times have represented him. 
 He was a human being, — of no ordinary type, it is true, 
 and therefore sure to be misunderstood ; yet of a 
 character, if rare, at least perfectly intelligible. 
 
 No bit of history rests upon better evidence. The 
 contemporary biographers, severally and combined, bear 
 their plain marks of candour and truthfulness. They 
 are confirmed by the annalists, sometimes from inde- 
 pendent sources of information, and are fully vindicated 
 and illustrated by the fresh and lucid narratives of the 
 correspondence. 
 
 To many readers it will support their credibility, 
 that they give us simple, straightforward narratives of 
 common facts, unmixed with the tales of miracles, 
 which sprung up abundantly after the catastrophe. 
 The books of miracles stand apart. The biographies 
 are, for that age, singularly free from them ; much more 
 so than the annals and chronicles, which, for centuries, 
 are the only sources of English history. 
 
 These pages, written in 1884, arose unsought in the 
 course of a larger reading of mediaeval authorities, and 
 under no intention of making a book of them. They 
 are issued with no pretension to be exempt from the 
 errors and oversights incidental to most writers, espe- 
 cially among many sources of information ; but, it is 
 hoped, not till after sufficient care and attention, to 
 have left no errors materially important to their main 
 purpose. 
 
 The letters contained in the seventh volume of the 
 
vi 
 
 Preface. 
 
 " Materials " of Robertson and Sheppard, published in 
 1885, bring to light some interesting facts hitherto 
 generally overlooked. These facts, found to be in 
 accord with the writer's previous conclusions, have 
 strengthened his conviction that his view of the great 
 Englishman of the twelfth century is substantially the 
 true one. 
 
 Authorities. — The "Materials for the History of Thomas 
 Becket," with the correspondence (7 vols.) ; the Icelandic Life ; and 
 also the annals and chronicles, and other works referred to, with 
 a few exceptions, are printed in the great and valuable series of 
 national " Chronicles and Memorials," published under the 
 direction of the Master of the Rolls. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 C MATTER FACE 
 
 I. England after a Hundred Years of the Norman- 
 French ... ... ... ... ... ... i 
 
 II. Rise of Thomas Becket ... ... ... 22 
 
 III. Henry of Anjou ... ... ... ... ... 39 
 
 IV. Thomas the Chancellor ... ... ... 56 
 
 V. The King upon the Judgment-Seat — The Battle 
 
 Abbey Case ... ... ... ... ... 77 
 
 VI. Thomas Archbishop ... ... ... ... 89 
 
 VII. The Royal Tyranny thwarted at Woodstock and 
 
 Westminster ... ... ... ... ... ng 
 
 VIII. Law-making under Terror, commonly called "The 
 
 Council of Clarendon" ... ... ... 138 
 
 IX. The Northampton Plot, known as "The Council 
 
 of Northampton" ... ... ... ... 155 
 
 X. King and Archbishop in Appeal to the Pope — Papal 
 
 Duplicities in Evil Times ... ... ... 185 
 
 XI. The King's Vagaries to avoid Sentence ... 227 
 
 XII. The King submits to the Pope — The False Peace 260 
 
 XIII. The Return to England ... ... ... ... 278 
 
 XIV. The Murder ... ... ... ... ... 293 
 
 Appendix ... ... ... ... ... ... 315 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ENGLAND AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS OF THE 
 NORMAN-FRENCH. 
 
 DURING the century following the Norman Con- Twopeopies, 
 
 English and 
 
 quest, and long; after it, England was inhabited French, in 
 
 n ' fe ' & England. 
 
 by two distinct, although kindred peoples, the 
 conquerors and the conquered people, calling 
 themselves the French and the English. 
 
 The old English people were reduced to a The French 
 
 are masters. 
 
 condition of miserable dependence upon foreign 
 lords, most of them to a condition of serfdom, 
 sinking deeper and deeper towards slavery, in the 
 land which for centuries they had made their 
 own. 
 
 Before the end of the Conqueror's life, the lord- 
 ships of English lands, with exceptions thinly 
 scattered over the country, had, by one means or 
 another, been transferred to the foreigners who had 
 taken part in the Conquest on the condition of 
 sharing in the spoils. 
 
 They took the general name of FYenchmen. For 
 
2 
 
 Thomas Bcckct. 
 
 centuries the owners of the soil of England called 
 themselves and were called "the French." To call 
 one of them an Englishman was a heinous insult. 
 The very name was held in contempt. 
 
 The chief losers by the Conquest were the old 
 English lords of lands. Many of them perished ; 
 many fled abroad ; not a few survived among the 
 various conditions of tenants, or even below 
 them. 
 
 Their successors in their lordships were men of 
 Norman or other foreign blood, the offspring of 
 adventurers from many provinces, mostly of France, 
 but of other countries also, who " came over with 
 the Conqueror." In the families where, from 
 marriages of convenience, English blood had got 
 into their veins, they ignored it and were ashamed 
 of it. Norman-French had been the conquerors, 
 and were the commanding people. 
 The Norman The Conqueror William and his successors 
 
 king claims 
 
 aii the land c i a i m ed the whole of the soil of England as their 
 
 as his own. o 
 
 own estate — Terra mea. The great bulk of the 
 lordships he bestowed upon a few hundreds of 
 lords, his "tenants in chief," who held them 
 subject to the dues and services of a feudatory 
 to his lord and king. A multitude of estates 
 were given to his dependents and servants, some 
 to eleemosynaries — these last, most of them, of 
 English race. He took for himself the lordships 
 of, it is estimated, 1422 manors, including many 
 
His Times. 
 
 3 
 
 towns. Some of the towns and manors he and his 
 lords kept in their own hands. They collected 
 their rents and cultivated their lands by bailiffs, 
 who rendered the returns in money or in kind. 
 For some time after the Conquest every king's 
 estate contributed its settled quota of provisions to 
 the royal household. But the greater number of 
 the manors were in the hands of tenants, held, 
 for the most part, at a customary quit-rent, 
 besides the feudal dues and services to the lord. 
 
 Among the greater tenants there remained a 
 considerable number of Englishmen ; probably 
 less than half of them were English when the 
 Conqueror died. But this is a doubtful question, 
 not likely to be solved. 
 
 It is certain, however, from evidences many and constant en- 
 various, that as the king, in the years following oftheiteBch 
 
 . upon the 
 
 his conquest, dispossessed more and more of the English, 
 English lords, and put foreigners in their place, 
 so the French lords, as time went on, managed to 
 eject Englishmen more and more from the larger 
 tenancies, and to have their estates in the hands 
 of Frenchmen, of their kith and kin ; or, other- 
 wise, of Englishmen who had managed so far to 
 conciliate their masters, and to identify them- 
 selves with them, as to be able to call themselves 
 French. 
 
 We have a miserable picture of the dependence who are at 
 of the English upon the French, in a well-known 
 
4 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 writer of about a century after the Conquest.* 
 The men who fought at Hastings lost all hope of 
 keeping their estates and incomes. They were 
 held fortunate to have their lives among their 
 enemies. Others who had not taken part, or had 
 not been able to take part, in the fatal fight, might 
 keep their possessions, but only for their lifetime. 
 The land was the king's, and they had lost all 
 right of inheritance in their families, unless at the 
 pleasure of the lords set over them by the king. 
 
 As was natural, bitter enmity ensued between 
 intruded lords and native tenants, and frequent 
 assassinations. The tenants, oppressed and driven 
 from their estates, complained to the king, and 
 were told, for their consolation, that they had no 
 lawful rights of inheritance, but would be protected 
 in all they could obtain by good behaviour to their 
 lords and agreement with them. What oppression 
 and tyranny must have had sway under such an 
 edict, what arbitrary fines must have been exacted 
 as the price of continuance upon the soil, it is as 
 difficult to imagine, as it is scantily told us. It is 
 more than probable that before the end of that 
 century, not only all the lords, but almost all the 
 considerable tenants, were either French or called 
 themselves French. 
 
 The first Henry, among his early efforts to gain 
 supporters, gave his promise to maintain all tenants, 
 
 * Dialogus Scaccarii, 10 ; in Madox' Excheq., ii. p. 391. 
 
His Times. 
 
 5 
 
 French and English, in hereditary possession of 
 their lands, subject always to a lawful and reason- 
 able "relief" to the lord. It was a promise not 
 easy of performance. The lords took their own 
 views of what was fit, and could turn the " reason- 
 able relief" into an enormous death-tax. 
 
 Among the smaller tenants, there can be nosmaiifree- 
 
 holders. 
 
 doubt that a larger number of Englishmen were 
 able to maintain themselves in their old homes. In 
 some parts of the country, a middle class of small 
 freeholders, the greater number of them of Danish 
 or Anglo-Danish origin, are still in possession in 
 the Domesday record. There are more of them in 
 Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, the chief districts of 
 the Dane-law, than in all the rest of England. 
 How many of them remained a hundred years 
 afterwards is another problem not easy of solution. 
 
 Beneath the tenants was the mass of the old 
 English people, the labourers and tillers of the The English 
 soil ; sprung some of them from the small English 
 freeholders, but mostly from the various classes of 
 the ancient peasantry, crushed by the Norman 
 masters into the one class of the villani, villains, 
 villeins, or villagers. The word "villager" is as 
 nearly descriptive of their actual position as either 
 " villein " or " villain," and is more convenient. 
 "Villain" is now restricted to a baser signification, 
 and " villein " is not easily distinguished from it. 
 
 The villagers were the tillers of the ground. 
 
6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 They worked for their lords and masters under a 
 hard service, doing all the labour of the manor, of 
 which the lord or the tenant had the profit ; and 
 they had for their wages the right of common, 
 and a piece of arable, which they tilled among 
 them, for their maintenance. They had their rights 
 in the land, after the Conquest, as before it ; and 
 their hardest service, when kept within lawful 
 service, was not so hard as that of labouring men 
 has been, under landlords and farmers, in far more 
 recent times. 
 
 But the English people, villagers as well as 
 tenants, had hardships and miseries to endure, far 
 beyond the limits of lawful service. For a time, 
 they were not, either of them, lawfully at the mercy 
 of their masters and lords. The Conqueror did 
 not overthrow the social fabric which he found 
 established. The old Teutonic co-partnership of 
 lords and workers in the lands of the vill or manor 
 was, for some time at least, maintained. The 
 villagers did all the work, and the lord had the 
 lion's share of the produce and profits. But the 
 workers had their homes or hovels, and their rights 
 of portion upon the land to which they were tied. 
 They could not leave it without the lord's consent ; 
 but neither, except in rare instances, could they 
 desire to leave the only place in which they had 
 any rights, and were able, with hard labour, to 
 support themselves. 
 
His Times. 
 
 7 
 
 But, during the century following the Conquest, Reduced 
 
 i r • >ii i • slavery. 
 
 the foreign masters were continually encroaching, 
 not only upon the rights of the old tenants, but 
 also upon those of the villagers ; until, at the 
 end of that time, the villagers were reduced to the 
 condition of slaves, and could be bought and sold 
 as chattels.* 
 
 At that time, and long afterwards, the bulk of 
 the population consisted of a race of lords and 
 great tenants, who spoke French and called them- 
 selves Frenchmen ; with, beneath them, a mixed 
 race of smaller tenants, and, lower still, the most 
 numerous class, the labourers, who spoke English 
 and called themselves Englishmen, and were not 
 ashamed of the name. It was long before the two 
 races were even so far united as to regard them- 
 selves as one English people. 
 
 Under such relations as existed between the two Fusion of 
 
 the races 
 
 peoples, an amalgamation of the races, except slow and 
 among the middle class in town or country, could 
 proceed but very slowly, and could hardly ever be 
 more than partial. 
 
 In the middle classes, no doubt, intermarriages 
 soon became frequent ; and it is within these limits 
 that we must understand another statement of the 
 writer already quoted — that, among freemen, it had 
 become difficult to show who was English, and who 
 was Norman. He is speaking of a law of the 
 
 * Dial. Scac. ; Madox, ii. p. 203. 
 
8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Conqueror for putting a check upon the assassina- 
 tions of Normans, which made the local hundred 
 responsible if the murderer was not found, and 
 held every murdered man to be a Norman unless 
 he was proved to be an Englishman. " Proof of 
 Englishry " was required ; and this would become 
 a difficulty in the middle classes, while there were 
 still distinct races above and below them. No one 
 can doubt, and the writer admits it, that all the 
 villagers were English. It is not less certain that 
 the upper classes long called themselves French. 
 
 The two races lived side by side throughout the 
 country, and regarded themselves as distinct and 
 hostile peoples. We shall meet with other evidence 
 that the French in England, in the reign of Henry 
 II., considered themselves — as every royal proclama- 
 tion, Francis et Anglis, and every official document 
 addressed them and spoke of them — a race distinct 
 from the despised English, of whom they lived in 
 constant suspicion and distrust. After some genera- 
 tions, the English people acquiesced in sullen sub- 
 mission ; but it was not till three centuries after the 
 Conquest, when the English arrows at Cressy and 
 Poitiers reversed the old tradition of conquerors 
 and conquered, that the lords began to call them- 
 selves Englishmen, of one people with their serfs. 
 Thenceforward, it came to be a distinction of class, 
 and not of race, to be descended from one of the 
 Conqueror's men. 
 
His Times. 
 
 9 
 
 The total, although, in most of the counties, Y.%? UiUl 
 
 ' ° "Woe to 
 
 stealthy and gradual, ejection of a great nation of j^jj™-,,, 
 landowners from their lands was not effected with- 
 out enormity of suffering. No book in the world 
 covers so huge a mass of misery, thinly disguised 
 under its cold curt phraseology, as the great terrier 
 of the Norman king's English estate, to which the 
 English people gave the name of Domesday. 
 
 Yet the miseries inflicted by formal process 
 under his "stark" will were but small, compared 
 with the sufferings of the vanquished people under 
 arbitrary tyrannies. Lawful rights of the peasantry, 
 which the captain of the invaders would have 
 maintained, were trampled down by intruded lords 
 and their successors. For a long time, the lords, 
 by their private jurisdictions and by clandestine 
 cruelties, could set the king's law at defiance, and 
 were a law to themselves. The worst sufferings of 
 the village folk, during the century and more after 
 the Conquest, were the arbitrary misdeeds of the 
 lords. 
 
 The first three Norman kings were able to put 
 some restraint upon overbearing masters. If the 
 lords were despots to their serfs, the king was a 
 despot to them. Yet even in those reigns encroach- 
 ment never ceased, and there can be no doubt that 
 horrors were perpetrated in castle dungeons which 
 never reached the light of day. 
 
 In the reign of Stephen, the antagonism of the 
 
IO 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Horrors of races attained its climax. The hatred of suspicious 
 
 oppression. 
 
 masters vented itself with savage ferocity upon the 
 subject people, still obstinate in resistance or sullen 
 and dangerous in submission. The English were 
 accused of a conspiracy to murder all the French- 
 men in the land upon one day. During the 
 horrors which ensued the royal power was in 
 abeyance, under the disputed claim to the crown. 
 Every lord did what he would, and new lords, 
 intruded by violence, were worse than the first. 
 The country was dominated by castles, built, no 
 doubt, most of them, for self-defence. Lords had 
 to protect their homes from foreign mercenaries : 
 villagers sought refuge in the woods. 
 
 But, whatever their first purpose, the castles 
 dominated the country around, and were made 
 strongholds of tyranny and rapine. They were 
 all " dens of thieves " to the villagers. The whole 
 country stood in fear of them. One writer of the 
 time asserts that every third village had its castle. 
 Another, more exact, or affecting to be, numbers 
 them at 1 1 1 5. The English Chronicle, that concise 
 and precious record of the centuries before, dies 
 out in a wail of horror over the deeds perpetrated 
 in the castles. 
 
 Described " Everv powerful man," it relates, " built his 
 
 by the ' r 
 
 English castles, and they filled the land full of castles. 
 
 Chronicle. ' 
 
 They heavily afflicted the poor men of the land 
 with castle-building ; and when the castles were 
 
His Times. 
 
 built, they filled them with devils and evil men. 
 Then, both by night and day, they took the men 
 they supposed to possess any goods, country men 
 and women, and threw them into prison, to obtain 
 their gold and silver, and tortured them with 
 unutterable tortures, for never were martyrs 
 tortured as they were. Some they hanged up by 
 the feet, and smoked them with foul smoke ; some 
 they hanged by the thumbs ; others by the head, 
 and hung burning things on their feet. To some 
 they put knotted cords about their heads, and 
 writhed them till they went to the brain. Some 
 they thrust into dungeons, wherein were adders 
 and snakes, and so they tormented them. Some 
 they thrust into a chest, short, narrow and shallow, 
 and put sharp stones therein, and crushed them 
 inside it, till they broke all their limbs. Many of 
 the castles had strange cruel things, called 
 ' rachenteges.' It was a weight as much as two 
 or three men could lift ; the victim was fastened 
 to a post, and they put a sharp iron collar about 
 his throat and neck, in such manner that he could 
 neither sit nor lie down to sleep, but he bore all 
 the weight. Many thousands they tortured with 
 hunger. . . . 
 
 " They were constantly levying tribute on the 
 towns; and they called it 'Tenserie'; and when the 
 wretched men had no more to give, they destroyed 
 and burnt the towns ; and well might you travel 
 
12 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 all day, and never find a man settled in a town, or 
 land cultivated. So that corn was dear ; of flesh 
 and cheese and butter, none was there in the 
 land. 
 
 " Wretched men starved of hunger. Some went 
 about begging who formerly had been rich men. 
 Some fled the country. Never was greater 
 wretched ness in the land, and never did the 
 heathen men cause worse ills than these did. 
 
 " At last they spared not even the church or 
 churchyard, but took whatever valuable was 
 therein, and burnt the church and all they left in 
 it. If two or three horsemen came near a town, 
 all the townsmen fled, thinking them to be 
 spoilers. 
 
 " It was ploughing the sea ; for the land bore 
 no corn ; it was all foredone by such deeds, 
 and men openly said that Christ and His saints 
 were asleep." 
 
 Such is the dying song of the English Chronicle. 
 So ends the history of the old English people, 
 written in their old English tongue. The old, pure 
 race of Angles and Saxons, the men of fair skin, 
 and blue eyes, and golden hair — the angels of Pope 
 Gregory — had perished with the houses of the 
 nobles. In land-hunger, and greed of gain, and 
 thirst for power, they had spent their centuries 
 since they came to England, eating up the smaller 
 men of their own race ; and they were now eaten 
 
His Times. 
 
 13 
 
 up more thoroughly themselves. The old England 
 comes to an end under the Norman kings. The 
 new England, that is to be, we here find in its 
 condition of chaos, "without form and void." Our 
 short history is that of the man through whom 
 God breathed into it its first "breath of life." 
 
 Its condition of chaos ! Famine and pestilence 
 came in the wake of savage war and inhuman 
 dungeon barbarities. By rapine and violence the 
 land was brought to desolation. Men died in 
 heaps, or ate greedily the flesh of dogs and horses 
 and the garbage of raw herbs and roots. Villages 
 were left without inhabitants ; fields were un- 
 cultivated, or were white to harvest, where no man 
 was left to gather it. 
 
 Amidst the general desolation there remained 
 one singular exception ; not certainly to all the 
 sufferings of the country, but to this extremity of 
 suffering and degradation, and to the base spirit of 
 servitude engendered by it. 
 
 That exception was the city of London. Some London 
 
 i 1 i • • Stephen' 
 
 knowledge of the great city, as it was already "«ign.' 
 regarded, is both interesting in itself and useful 
 lor our purpose ; and fortunately we possess 
 contemporary accounts of it, one especially, with 
 considerable details, from a writer of credit, to 
 whom, both here and otherwise, we shall be much 
 indebted — William Fitz-Stephen, a well-informed 
 and fair biographer of Thomas Becket, his fellow- 
 
'4 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 citizen of London, his companion, and his secretary 
 or chaplain through life. 
 
 London was already a great and prosperous 
 place of commerce, and was the resort or ordinary 
 abode of men of rank who took no part in its 
 trade. 
 
 The first Norman, having plundered the city, 
 after his manner ; having, in the early days of his 
 conquest, carried off what he could of its gold and 
 silver and precious chattels ; having bridled it with 
 his Tower ; and, as in other places, confiscated a 
 large portion of its ground and buildings, and 
 bestowed them upon some of his hireling adven- 
 turers, who became " the barons of the city ; " * and, 
 taking no part in trade themselves, lived at their 
 ease upon rents exacted from traders, for the use of 
 buildings which had been their own ; — the Con- 
 queror, having wrought his will upon the people of 
 London and their accumulated wealth, was wise 
 enough to see that it would be bad policy and 
 against his own interest to check the growth of fresh 
 wealth. He therefore re-established and confirmed 
 the liberties and privileges of the city. His son, 
 Henry, ratified and extended them by a charter, 
 which makes mention of the religious houses, the 
 barons, and the citizens. They are empowered to 
 
 * This is stated with reserve, as what appears to be the most 
 iikely inference from all we know of " the barons of the city." They 
 are sometimes identified with the aldermen j and this may be a true 
 view, without making the other false. 
 
His Times. 
 
 15 
 
 hold the county of Middlesex, or the king's domain 
 in it, in farm for ever, at a rent of .£300 a year. 
 They are to appoint their own sheriff and justiciar, 
 and to be under the jurisdiction of no other justiciar. 
 They are exempted from various tolls and dues 
 over all England, and in all seaports. The rights 
 and privileges of their courts are maintained. 
 Claims of debts by citizens are to be paid or 
 answered within the city, where their husting sits 
 every Monday. Among other provisions the 
 document reserves to the citizens their rights of 
 chase in Chiltern, Middlesex, and Surrey. 
 
 Our picture of the inner life of London is from 
 Fitz-Stephen.* 
 
 " London," he says, in a curious jumble of its 
 advantages, " is fortunate in its healthy air, its 
 Christian religion, the strength of its fortifications, 
 the natural advantages of its situation, the honour 
 of its citizens, the chastity of its matrons, delightful 
 for its games, fertile in noble men." 
 
 In his exposition of these several heads, he 
 informs us that, besides the cathedral of St. Paul's, 
 the city possesses thirteen great conventual churches 
 and a hundred and twenty-six lesser churches. It 
 has three privileged and ancient schools, besides 
 many other schools, in all of which great attention 
 is paid to the art of speaking. 
 
 The Tower, on the east, is a very large and 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 2-18; Robertson, vol. iii. 
 
16 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 strong fortification, with lofty walls springing from 
 a deep ditch. A high turreted wall, with seven 
 double gates, surrounds the city to the north, 
 running from the Tower to two strong forts on the 
 west. A similar wall ran along the south of the 
 city, but was undermined by the river and has 
 fallen. 
 
 Westminster Palace, an incomparable edifice, two 
 miles from the city, stands up above the river, with 
 surrounding walls and forts. It is joined to the 
 city by a suburb of many houses, surrounded by 
 spacious and beautiful gardens and trees. 
 
 To the north of the city are pleasant fields, and 
 streams merry with the sound of mill-wheels. 
 Beyond is a great forest abounding in deer, boars, 
 and wild bulls, i The citizens' rights of chase extend 
 over Middlesex, Hertford, Chiltern, and in Kent as 
 far as Cray. 
 
 On the Strand is a public cook-shop, daily pro- 
 vided with meats for rich and poor. Wines are 
 sold in cellars, and in ships on the river. The 
 commerce of the city is with every nation under 
 heaven. 
 
 Every Friday there is a horse-fair in Smooth- 
 field (afterwards corrupted into Smithfield), a field 
 close without one of the gates, which takes its name 
 from its level surface. There are departments of 
 the fair for pigs, cows, sheep, and agricultural 
 implements. 
 
His Times. 
 
 17 
 
 The city is under the government of its own 
 yearly sheriffs, aldermen, and lesser magistrates, 
 and has its various court-houses, where courts are 
 held on certain days. 
 
 No city has more admirable customs of worship 
 and festivity, or institutions for charity and hospi- 
 tality. The chief troubles of the place arise from 
 the drunkenness of foolish people and from frequent 
 fires. 
 
 Hither resort the bishops, abbots, and nobles of 
 the realm, at the summons of the king or the 
 metropolitan, and reside in their own houses as 
 citizens. 
 
 The writer dwells, with manifest delight, on the 
 various sports of the merry people. They have 
 theatrical passion-plays, representing the deeds of 
 the martyrs. The boys take fighting-cocks to 
 school on Shrove Tuesday, and the morning is 
 spent in fighting them. After dinner they go out 
 and play at ball in the fields, and the rich elders 
 come on horseback to look on. On the Sundays 
 in Lent there is tilting ; the sons of citizens and 
 nobles and of bishop's families go out on horse, 
 with lance and shield. In the Easter holidays 
 there is tilting on the river. A youth, standing at 
 the poop of a boat pulled by oarsmen, would strike 
 with spear at a shield fixed upright upon a pole in 
 the river. His object was to break the spear-shaft, 
 and keep himself in the boat. If he failed to break 
 
 C 
 
i8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 it he was thrown into the water, amid the laughter 
 of the spectators. 
 
 In the summer, the favourite games are archery, 
 running, leaping, stone-throwing, and others, with 
 moonlight dances ; in the winter, bull and bear- 
 baiting, and sports on the ice, with skates made 
 from tibia-bones. 
 London We have also, belonging to the same age, some 
 
 after dark. 1 
 
 accounts of London after dark, which, as in other 
 times, are less pleasant than those by day, and show 
 that the city was not altogether free from the general 
 disorder. The dim night view discovers it subject 
 to depredations by gangs of thieves, sometimes 
 large enough to come under the old English law as 
 armies, and with men of the higher classes for their 
 leaders. 
 
 Bands of men, as many as a hundred or more, 
 men of families accounted noble, would turn out at 
 night and break into houses, or rob and murder 
 passengers. The streets were dangerous after day- 
 light* In 1 174, a gang of ruffians broke into a 
 house through the stone wall. The owner, fore- 
 warned, or having friends within, gave the burglars 
 a warm reception. One of their leaders was 
 wounded and taken, and, to save himself, informed 
 of the others. They were all of the families of 
 noble citizens. The leader, put to the ordeal by 
 water, failed to clear himself by that dubious 
 
 * Benedict, i. 155. 
 
His Times. 
 
 19 
 
 method of trial. He then offered the king a large 
 sum of money for his life — an evidence that such 
 offers were accepted. Henry II., although greedy 
 enough of money, refused the offer and hanged the 
 burglar. 
 
 The city was able to supply to Stephen a force Armed 
 
 1 ii -. r power of 
 
 of twenty thousand horse and sixty thousand foot, the city 
 including, no doubt, mercenaries from without. It 
 was principally to the Londoners that he owed his 
 election to the throne over the head of Matilda 
 the empress. They cared not that her father 
 Henry, with imperious will and " a voice of 
 thunder," as we learn from a writer of that age, had 
 commanded the lords of the land, assembled in 
 Great Council, to take their oaths to Matilda as his 
 successor. Stephen had been the first to swear. 
 That the oath was compulsory, was perhaps the 
 excuse of others, besides himself, for breaking it. 
 
 After the battle called "the Fair of Lincoln," 1141. 
 \\ hen he fell into Matilda's hands, and was sent a 
 prisoner to Bristol Castle, the empress-queen came The 
 
 1 11 Empress 
 
 raging to London, receiving on her way the sub- Matilda at 
 mission of people of all classes. Nobles who had 
 stood with Stephen came offering their allegiance, 
 and were coldly received, repulsed with threats, or 
 driven off with reproaches. Her haughty conduct 
 offended her best friends. Arrived at London, she 
 sent for some of the richest citizens, and demanded 
 an immense fine and immediate payment. They 
 
Thomas Bccket. 
 
 implored her clemency, or, at least, time. Her 
 wrath was violent. " They had not spared their 
 money for her injury. Let them see to it, and 
 bring instantly the sum demanded." 
 
 Fortunately for the citizens, while she was 
 expecting their return with the money, Stephen's 
 queen, a woman of energy and resource, was seen 
 with a body of troops burning their lands on the 
 south of the river. Quick in decision, they made 
 common cause with her. The empress was sitting 
 down to dinner, when she heard a clatter of bells 
 and a rushing tumult, and was told that her house 
 Her flight, would be immediately attacked. She fled at a 
 gallop, and was hardly off when a mob burst into 
 her quarters, ate up her dinner, and pillaged her 
 baggage, which was all left behind. 
 
 The numerous and well-armed forces of London 
 have conspicuous mention at " the Rout of Win- 
 chester," and in other actions of the war ; till at 
 last, more through the exhaustion of all parties 
 than their inclination, the strife was brought to an 
 end. There were still among the leaders of it men 
 who hated peace, because they lived by rapine, 
 who would have prolonged the war without end. 
 Some, it was said, after the brilliant success of 
 Matilda's son Henry, in the capture of Malmes- 
 bury Castle and the relief of Wallingford, wished 
 for a temporary peace, fearing that his decisive 
 success would give them a master. 
 
His Times. 
 
 21 
 
 But the country generally, from lords to serfs, 1153. 
 weary of strife and worn out with suffering, longed Waulngford. 
 for peace on any terms, and accepted gladly the 
 treaty of Wallingford, negotiated under the advice 
 of Archbishop Theobald. By this agreement 
 Stephen was to reign for life, and Henry of Anjou, 
 Matilda's son by her second husband, to succeed 
 him. 
 
22 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 RISE OF THOMAS BECKET. 
 
 King The treaty of Wallingford was made possible by 
 demanding the death of Stephen's son, Eustace. Some time 
 
 the corona- r ' 
 
 t.on ofhis before he died, his father, under a better turn of 
 fortune, had made an effort to secure his succession 
 by having him crowned during his own lifetime. 
 His coronation would have gained him much 
 support, both from formal churchmanship and 
 from religious feeling. But there was a difficulty. 
 
 Is opposed Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, refused 
 
 by Arch- 
 bishop to crown the son while the father lived. All his 
 
 Theobald. 
 
 suffragan bishops supported him. Stephen got 
 them into his custody, and shut them up all in one 
 house to teach them obedience.* Kings and 
 dukes had, in times recent, given sharp lessons, 
 sometimes savagely severe, to refractory eccle- 
 siastics ; and the bishops were probably thinking 
 of them, and of their own danger, when their arch- 
 bishop managed to escape by boat, crossed the 
 
 * " ( iervase of Canterbury," vol. i. p. 150. 
 
His Early Life. 
 
 23 
 
 river, and put the sea between himself and the 
 king. 
 
 Stephen was baffled. A coronation by the 
 bishops, against the prohibition of the primate, 
 would have been worse than futile. And his own 
 position was not strong enough for a prolonged 
 quarrel with the head of the Church in England. 
 It was not long, therefore, before a solution of the 
 difficulty was agreed upon. 
 
 " The coronation of a king's son during his 
 father's lifetime was a religious service without 
 precedent, and could not properly take place but 
 under the special sanction of the pope." 
 
 Such was the matured decision of the archbishop, 
 and he sent his envoys to Rome ostensibly (and 
 what the king may have expected) to obtain the 
 pope's sanction to the desired rite ; really, it would 
 appear, in quest of an " apostolic " prohibition of 
 it. Theobald certainly wished to avoid a step 
 which could only prolong the public miseries. 
 
 Of this embassy the governing mind was a First ap- 
 secretary of the archbishop,* a man high in his Becket in 
 
 mission to 
 
 favour and confidence, who had been known in Rome - 
 London for some years, and stood well in the eyes 
 of the people, especially of the English inhabitants. 
 That man has come down to us by the name of 
 Thomas a Becket, but was known also, in his own 
 time, as he would be known now, as Thomas Becket. 
 
 * " Gervase of Canterbury," vol. i. p. 150. 
 
24 
 
 T/iomas Becket. 
 
 a native of He was born in London, in one of the houses 
 
 London. 
 
 bordering on the Chepe, in or near the year 1117. 
 His father, Gilbert, was of a family sprung from 
 Rouen ; his mother, Matilda, was reputed to be of 
 a family from Caen. There is some reason, how- 
 ever, for believing that he had English blood in 
 his veins on one or both sides. We have his own 
 word for it * that his ancestors, for some genera- 
 tions, had been citizens of London. From his own 
 time there have been those who have claimed him 
 for an Englishman. But we shall see there were 
 other reasons for this, besides the unquestioned 
 fact that he was born in London. 
 
 Gilbert, the father, was a baron of the city, not 
 of great wealth, but independent of trade. He had 
 served the office of portreeve, or sheriff, at that 
 time the highest magistrate ; but became reduced 
 in circumstances through accidental losses, arising 
 principally, it appears, from the fires which were so 
 frequent. According to one account, his means 
 became so far crippled as to interfere with the 
 education of his son, who, although well versed in 
 the learning of the age, was never accounted among 
 its foremost scholars. 
 The boy Thomas received his early education partly in 
 the London schools, partly at Merton, in Surrey, 
 at the famous monastery of the Augustine canons. 
 
 * Letter ccxxiv. The numbers of the letters referred to are 
 Robertson's. 
 
His Early Life. 
 
 25 
 
 In London, he must often have taken part in the 
 public sports of which we have heard, for he 
 obtained a fame of his own, very early in life, for 
 his love of fair play, and his intense hatred of over- 
 bearing arrogance. He was particularly noticed, ffischa- 
 as a boy, for his love of fair dealing and his open 
 aversion to foul play and wrong, especially when 
 shown under assumptions of arrogant and factitious 
 superiority.* 
 
 Our evidence of these facts is all the more con- 
 vincing, because it comes to us from biographers 
 whose purpose in writing was to celebrate him as 
 a saint of the Church. In his boyhood and early 
 life, they have nothing to say of his churchman- 
 ship. They tell us what he was observed to be in 
 himself, and their accounts of him bear the clear 
 marks of truthfulness. 
 
 A youth of his temperament, and not afraid to 
 show it, was sure to be known in the public sports 
 of boys, French and English, under the eyes of 
 onlookers of both the nations. To stand by the 
 weak against the bully, would mostly be to take 
 the part of the English boy against the French. 
 We can easily understand how Becket, if not 
 English by extraction, would be sure by such 
 conduct to bring upon himself, with the French 
 class, the name of Englishman for a nickname ; 
 with the other, to gain that sympathy of English- 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 7. 
 
26 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 men which made them claim him for one of them- 
 selves. 
 
 But, what is more to our purpose, his boyish 
 love of fair play and hatred of overbearing arro- 
 gance show that a strong feeling for justice and 
 liberty was in his nature ; they were characteristics 
 of the boy, and we shall find they were ruling 
 motives with him through life. 
 His visit to During his school-vacations he was sometimes 
 
 Pevensey. 
 
 the guest of a noble knight, a friend of his father, 
 known as Richer de l'Aigle.* The name occurs 
 among those of thirty-eight principal lords, who, 
 years afterwards, attested the proceedings of the 
 notorious Council of Clarendon. He was also the 
 owner of the majestic castle of Pevensey. Thomas 
 is said to have visited him there ; and the famous 
 scenes around could hardly fail to stir a mind like 
 his to thoughts upon the past history of the 
 country, in the future of which, to all time, he was 
 himself to bear so illustrious a name. He would 
 look down from the Norman towers, on one side, 
 upon the great castle-garth within the massive 
 Roman walls, which still surround it to some feet 
 of height. That grassy area, bare and empty, 
 from century to century, as it is now, was the site 
 of the Roman-British city of Anderida, stormed 
 and sacked, six centuries before, by keel-borne 
 Englishmen, who slew the people of the place, 
 " till not one Brit was left alive." 
 
 * Grim, c. 8. 
 
His Early Life. 
 
 27 
 
 On the other side might be seen the mud hovels 
 of English labourers, who were suffering, under 
 Norman lords, some of the hardships inflicted by 
 their fathers upon the people before them. There 
 was scope for a mind that hated wrong. 
 
 In front of him was the landing-place of the 
 Norman invaders ; and, a few miles off, almost in 
 sight, the memorable hill above Hastings, with its 
 great Abbey of Battle, the victor's memorial of the 
 fatal fight. 
 
 Becket was continuing his studies at Paris, and a city clerk, 
 was about twenty-two, when his mother died ; 
 and his father's straitened circumstances, and death 
 soon after, obliged him to return to London, 
 and find means of supporting' himself. He was About 
 
 1 r to 1140. 
 
 employed for three years as clerk of accounts to a 
 wealthy citizen, Osbern Eightpenny, a relation of 
 his family, and had opportunity of gaining a know- 
 ledge of business-affairs in the office of a portreeve. 
 Osbern either held the office himself, or, more 
 likely, was their official, in a capacity something 
 like that of an under-sheriff. 
 
 He was found thus employed by two civilians of ,„ the ser . 
 Bologna — Archdeacon Baldwin and Master Eus- Archbishop 
 
 Theobald. 
 
 tace — who had been invited to England by the 
 Archbishop, to assist him in establishing a school 
 of the Civil Law, which had lately come into 
 vogue in the schools of Italy. They had formerly 
 been the guests of Gilbert Becket in the Chepe, and 
 
28 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 knew enough of his son to wish to introduce him 
 to Theobald, with their recommendation to his 
 service. He went with them to Harrow, where 
 Theobald was residing upon his manor. 
 
 The family of the Beckets had already been 
 known to the Archbishop, both in England and 
 Normandy ; and Thomas had qualities likely to 
 recommend him to a patron. He was admitted 
 to Theobald's household, and quickly gained his 
 confidence and friendship. It was the beginning 
 of his greatness. In those days, the household of 
 the archbishop equalled the king's in grandeur, 
 and surpassed it as a training school of learning 
 and intellect. 
 
 It was not unnatural that his favour with his 
 patron, and his rapid promotion, excited the envy 
 of elder dependents ; and Thomas appears, for a 
 time, to have suffered more than ordinary persecu- 
 tion. Roger Pont l'Eveque, his antagonist in 
 after-years, as Archbishop of York, is mentioned 
 among his adversaries at this time. Besides the 
 rising favour of Becket, they were two men who 
 could hardly associate without feelings of antagon- 
 ism. So much may be assumed, without taking 
 account of the hideous crimes in Roger's public 
 reputation. * 
 
 He gains his Theobald was not long in discovering that 
 
 confidence. 
 
 Thomas was wise in counsel, skilful in diplomacy, 
 
 * v. John of Salisbury, in letter dcclxxvii. 
 
His Early Life. 
 
 29 
 
 strenuous in business, and zealous for his master, 
 in whatever service he might be employed. His 
 friendship and confidence increased, till he made 
 him his confidential secretary, and employed him 
 in the important mission to Rome in which we 
 found him. 
 
 For such services it was necessary to have an His large 
 
 preferments. 
 
 income. It was a custom of the time for public 
 servants to be provided with incomes from Church 
 benefices, and to bear the expenses of missions 
 and public services at their own cost. Becket 
 therefore took minor orders, with no intention to 
 discharge any clerical duties, but to be able to hold 
 Church preferments, of which the duties, as the 
 custom was, would be discharged by deputies. 
 
 His first preferment was the church of Mary-le- 
 Strand, given him by the Bishop of Worcester. 
 He was then presented to the living of Otford by 
 the Archbishop. Soon after, he obtained a pre- 
 bend of St. Paul's, and another of Lincoln. Within 1154. 
 the year of King Stephen's death, Roger Pont 
 l'Eveque was preferred to be Archbishop of York, 
 and Thomas of London, as he was now called, 
 after qualifying himself with deacon's orders, was 
 endowed with his vacated Archdeaconry of Canter- 
 bury, — a preferment accounted as, after the bishop- 
 rics and mitred abbacies, the most valuable in the 
 Church. It was worth ^ioo a year — not less than 
 .£1500 or £2000 of our money. The provostship 
 
30 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 of Beverley was another addition to his load of 
 benefices. 
 
 This rapid accumulation of churches and digni- 
 ties is the best evidence of the value in which he 
 was held as a public servant. Of the modern 
 feeling about pluralities he knew nothing. Every 
 fresh preferment was only another addition to the 
 income necessary to his position and its duties. 
 If his benefices were many, it was commonly re- 
 ported that he might have had far more, and that 
 no patron could refuse him. 
 
 He was thus a wealthy churchman and states- 
 man before he went on this mission to Rome. 
 The papacy The traditionary character of Becket, as a 
 
 a great 
 
 power. champion of the papacy, may suggest, perhaps, 
 to some readers of this transaction, that he was 
 already scheming in its interests. Visibly, there 
 is no ground for suspicion that any thought of 
 the position or powers of the pope, except as a 
 recognized judge of appeal, ever entered his head. 
 His purpose was his master's, and it was one of 
 State policy. The pope could advance it, and 
 they appealed to him. 
 
 The papacy was an ancient and established 
 power, and was universally acknowledged. It was 
 a great world-power, whether it was more than 
 that or not ; and in this age it was towering 
 to its height. Kings and people bowed down to 
 it. The great emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, had 
 
The Roman Predominance. 31 
 
 lately held the stirrup for Adrian IV. ; although, 
 being inexperienced, as he said, in that sort of 
 service, he held it on the wrong side. More sin- 
 cerely, Lewis and Henry, the kings of France and 
 England, were seen, on one occasion, walking on 
 each side of Adrian's successor, Alexander III., 
 holding the reins of his bridle. 
 
 King Lewis always addressed the pope as his Acknow- 
 ledged 
 
 lord ; and " lord," in those days, had a meaning, kings. 
 King Stephen had saluted him, in his letters, as 
 " lord and sweetest father," with " health and 
 obedience." John of England and his successors, 
 or some of them, for three centuries acknowledged 
 the papal lordship in a sense not intended by 
 either Stephen or Lewis.* 
 
 A century later, and we find Edward I., one of 
 the greater English kings, addressing Gregory X. 
 as " father and lord and supreme pontiff of the 
 Holy Roman Church and of the Church universal, 
 with all reverence and honour, and with devout 
 kisses of his blessed feet." 
 
 The " Kisses of the holy feet " became the 
 customary salutation of " the apostolic man," as 
 he was called in all seriousness. 
 
 It is true there were already signs of coming 
 contention between popes and kings, and between 
 popes and peoples. 
 
 The persistent and ever-advancing encroachments 
 
 * Rymer, passim. 
 
%2 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 of the papacy were provoking kings to retaliation 
 and reprisals. The long struggle had commenced 
 between pope and king, to be revived, from time 
 to time, during centuries following ; having for its 
 aim, on both sides, to gather into one all the 
 powers of both. 
 
 Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII. a century before 
 this, had contended, almost on equal terms, with 
 the emperor. In the middle of this twelfth century, 
 we find Adrian IV. in hot contention with Bar- 
 barossa. Adrian IV. began life a poor English 
 lad, the son of a priest of slender means who 
 became a monk of St. Albans. It is well known 
 that he is the only Englishman in the line of 
 popes, and his accession to the lofty throne, which 
 looked down upon the thrones of kings, was an 
 event which the people of England, French and 
 English, lords and villagers, had cause to take 
 heed to ; and there are evidences that they did. 
 
 Adrian died, after a short pontificate, almost at 
 open war with the emperor, leaving behind him to 
 his successor, Alexander, both the war and an 
 emperor's antipope. 
 Beginning^ When the kings were striking their first blows 
 fre^cS? 115 for independence of Italian masters, the peoples 
 also were beginning to reclaim their birthright 
 as reasonable beings — the right to the free use of 
 their own intellects. 
 
 There was a ferment among Church rulers upon 
 
77/<? Roman Predominance. 33 
 
 the appearance, in Stephen's reign, of a sect of 
 people * who held and preached, or were supposed 
 to hold, opinions at variance with the ecclesiastical 
 system which ruled the Western world, with the 
 name and credit of Christianity. 
 
 The real sin of these " heretics " was one to be 
 suppressed at whatever cost. Their conduct, and, 
 no doubt, their preaching, challenged the authority 
 of the Bishop of Rome. It was a heresy which 
 went on spreading after it had appeared to be 
 extinguished in blood. 
 
 Not many years after its suppression at Toulouse, 
 in the reign of Henry II., a company of " heretics " 
 from Germany, men and women, thirty in number, 
 were heard of preaching their doctrines in England. 
 Whether they were of the " Albigenses," or the 
 " Cathari," or other sect of Church history, appears 
 to be doubtful, and is not very material. It was 
 questioned whether they made a single convert. 
 One of the writers here referred to affirms that 
 they made one, who deserted them when they got 
 into trouble. They were taken into custody, and, 
 by the king's orders, were brought before a council 1166. 
 of bishops at Oxford, where they were questioned 
 on what were deemed to be primary articles of 
 the Christian faith. When "heretics" acted with 
 independence of ruling powers, it was always easy 
 to find them in error upon matters of " faith." 
 
 * William of Nevvburgh, i. 133; " Ypod. Neustrix," p. 194. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 They were branded and whipped, and turned into 
 the open country, in winter, stripped to the waist. 
 Any one giving them relief was to be subjected 
 to the same punishment. They perished of cold 
 and hunger. 
 
 Whether these sufferers for their opinions had 
 anything true to say or not, it is clear that the 
 people were sorely in need of teachers. 
 
 The Church of Rome had ruled over the minds 
 and consciences of Englishmen for well-nigh three- 
 fourths of a thousand years, and, at the end of 
 that period, every record we possess, taking them 
 in any order of reading, aggravates, one above 
 another, the dark shades of a society under no 
 government of either Christian principle or natural 
 morals. 
 
 General In the age we are looking back to, the moral 
 
 corruption 
 
 of society, aspect of society was hideous. We will take the 
 picture of it from the pencil of a man who lived 
 in the midst of what he saw and drew, and was 
 competent to draw it.* 
 
 " Rarely," he says, " could you find one who 
 lived justly and piously and without vice. Men 
 are now so eager to do ill, that it is thought a 
 crime to be inexperienced in crime. Not only 
 secular people are enslaved to their evil ways, but 
 prelates of the Church, in bonds to gluttony and 
 covetousness, make sale of justice, rob the poor of 
 
 * Gervase of Canterbury, i. 17. 
 
The Roman Predominance. 35 
 
 their bread and give it to buffoons, harass their 
 dependents, whom they ought to cherish, and, 
 casting behind them the sweetness of God, find 
 their pleasure in worldly desires or rather miseries." 
 
 If the kings of England in the twelfth century 
 had cause to take their stand against papal en- 
 croachment upon their authority, the people had 
 no less cause to question the pope's authority over 
 their consciences. 
 
 Popular resistance to established forms of Religion not 
 
 extinct. 
 
 religion was, in England, for a long time yet, 
 but rare and feeble. It is true that, in the worst 
 of times, there were priests and monks, and here 
 and there a bishop, who, powerless against pre- 
 vailing evils, and knowing no gospel of deliverance 
 from them, yet preached to the poor the gospel 
 of consolation. In the horrors of the anarchy, 
 groups of peasants, bowed down under oppressions, 
 would gather in the solitude of the woods to hear 
 the tidings of a life to come, when all their sorrows 
 would be past. 
 
 The mass of the people stood in awe of Rome Su P er - 
 
 stitious I 
 
 and its rulers. Their powers were imagined to Ro™ e of 
 reach beyond the grave. They held the keys of 
 the kingdom of heaven. Consequently their ex- 
 communication was terrible, not only for the life to 
 come, but for the life present. The accursed man 
 was an outcast from society : he was avoided as 
 a leper ; to associate with him was to be im- 
 
36 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 plicated in his curse. We shall come upon 
 instances of persons who pretended to make light 
 of Church censures, and, when the king encouraged 
 them, were not afraid of showing it. Yet even in 
 these cases a concealed fear often breaks out. To 
 be declared an outcast from the Church by solemn 
 sentence was a terror to king and peasant ; and 
 an interdict upon the land, prohibiting religious 
 rites and services, was a terror to all. 
 
 Kings and people were slowly awakening from 
 the spell of superstition which had held them fast 
 for ages. But, for a long time yet, they were to 
 writhe and turn, and turn in vain, against foreign 
 masters, calling themselves successors of the 
 apostles of Jesus Christ, with a system of teach- 
 ing essentially the very opposite of theirs in its 
 first principles, and in its lasting results to 
 mankind. 
 
 Roman pre- Kings, with their statesmen, contended against 
 
 dominance 
 
 on the the foreign yoke. They protested, they resisted, 
 they threatened to throw it off. But the Italian 
 masters had the advantage. For two centuries 
 yet, and longer, before their power began to wane, 
 their grasp of England was tightened ; till, with 
 audacious effrontery of rapacity, they held all .the 
 best preferments of its Church for the endowment 
 of pope's creatures, foreign prelates and cardinals, 
 mostly Italians, who never crossed the Channel. 
 What might be the opinions of Archbishop 
 
The Roman Predominance. 37 
 
 Theobald concerning papal powers and preten- packet's 
 
 m mission 
 
 sions when he sent his secretary to Rome, is a political, 
 question which does not here concern us. We 
 have to do with the secretary himself ; and his 
 opinions and intentions are to be unfolded upon 
 the consideration of his whole life. We have 
 nothing as yet to show that he had any purpose 
 in his mission to "the threshold of the Apostles," 
 as it was often called, other than the political 
 purpose for which he was sent, and to gain the 
 influence of "the apostolic man" in its support. 
 
 It appears that he went more than once to 
 Rome, and had other delicate questions to manage, 
 besides that of the coronation of Eustace. But 
 the accounts are scanty and imperfect. In the 
 intervals of his missions, he spent a year at 
 Bologna, and some time at Auxerre, in the study 
 of the civil law. There can be no doubt that he He gains 
 
 t . . r « . t-, , esteem at 
 
 gained the esteem 01 ruling men at Rome who Rome, 
 acted with him. He was a man to command 
 respect. 
 
 Of tall figure (over six feet), with an imposing His personal 
 
 . , , 1 r 1 - influence. 
 
 countenance that showed strength of character in 
 its massive jaw, and delicacy of perception in the 
 moving curves of an expressive mouth, and both 
 strength and delicacy in its finely cut, well- 
 developed, slightly aquiline nose ; looking out, 
 under massive eyebrows and a broad intellectual 
 forehead, from large, bright, dark eyes, fascinating 
 
38 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 in their ordinary quiet expression, and, under the 
 glow of emotion, fascinating to subdue ; a man 
 of cheerful temperament, abundant intellectual 
 resource, and speech ready and eloquent ; entering 
 heart and soul into everything he undertook ; — his 
 most remarkable power through life was his per- 
 sonal influence. No man, we are told, .unless he 
 was a prejudiced enemy, could converse with him 
 and not fall under it, as fascinated. 
 
 Whatever may have been his secret instructions, 
 there can be no doubt that he brought back from 
 Rome precisely the decision which Theobald 
 desired. And he got the credit, there and in 
 England, both of the diplomatic skill which gained 
 the decision * looked for, and of the wise policy 
 which suggested the appeal. 
 
 The pope's decision smoothed the way for the 
 accession of the house of Anjou. A service so 
 valuable to the coming king could not fail to have 
 its influence upon the future career of the guiding 
 envoy. 
 
 * Gervase, i. 150. 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HENRY OF ANJOU. 
 
 Thomas had been twelve years in the service of 1154. 
 the archbishop, and was about thirty-seven years 
 of age, when King Stephen died. Henry of 
 Anjou, now a young man of twenty-one, was 
 crowned King of England on the Sunday before 
 Christmas, 1 1 54. Thomas the archdeacon passed Becket in 
 
 .... . . r tne king's 
 
 immediately into his service from that of the service, 
 archbishop, and within a few weeks became his 
 chancellor. He was indebted to the influence of 
 Archbishop Theobald and Bishop Henry of 
 Winchester, Stephen's brother; both of them 
 sufficiently acquainted with the young king's 
 character to see the expediency of having about 
 him a person of Becket's prudence and sagacity, 
 and most likely they also thought of his stead- 
 fastness as a Churchman. Henry himself could not 
 be ignorant either of Thomas's great talents or of 
 his services during the late reign. 
 
 His transference to the king's service was 
 
40 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 effected without difficulty. It was alleged in 
 subsequent times of trouble, and was made a 
 reproach against him, that he paid the king money 
 for the office of chancellor. It is not improbable. 
 Offices in the royal service or household, and any 
 office that brought money to the tenant of it, were 
 seldom bestowed by the hungry kings without 
 their being paid for it. It was believed by some 
 that the chancellorship was an exception, and was 
 not sold ; but the records of the time have 
 evidence to the contrary. Henry certainly was 
 not less greedy of money than the kings before 
 and after him. 
 
 His ex- Up to this time, Becket, although he had been 
 
 perience of 
 
 life. employed with honour abroad, had taken no part 
 
 in public affairs at home. But his life's experience 
 had been eventful ! He must have heard of the 
 compulsory oath of the barons to the Empress 
 Matilda when he was a boy at school. He saw 
 most likely the entry of Stephen into the city, 
 amid the acclamations and shouts of fidelity, 
 which the Londoners kept so well. He was in 
 Osbern's office when Matilda made her incursion 
 to London, to be so ignominiously chased away. 
 Many a tale was told him of the horrors of the 
 castles and the desolation of the civil war and 
 anarchy. It was a youthful experience of men 
 and things, to tell for something upon any mind 
 that was a mind at all, and could not fail to have 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 4i 
 
 influence upon the life's future of such a mind 
 as his. 
 
 King Henry came to the throne under circum- The nation 
 
 weary of 
 
 stances favourable to its stability and to his disorder, 
 personal power. The terrible sufferings of the 
 years of disorder had driven all classes of the 
 community into an intense longing for peace, 
 under the rule of one master. The dominion of 
 many lords had been found intolerable ; all were 
 eager for what, in the condition to which the 
 country was brought, was the only remedy — the 
 rule of one man, and willing, for their relief and 
 security, to allow him unwonted powers. The 
 Norman kings had been masters ; barons and 
 people were now ready for any tyrant, and they 
 found in Henry of Anjou a man fitted both by 
 birth and temperament to play the tyrant. 
 
 The child of lines of tyrants on both sides, it welcomes 
 
 a king ' 1 of 
 
 would have been a marvel if he had been anything tyrants' 
 
 J *» blood." 
 
 else himself. What his mother and her fathers 
 were is plain enough in English history to a 
 reader careful of simple facts in the dilutions of 
 various styles of narration. His father, Geoffrey, 
 Count of Anjou, spoken of by a modern writer* 
 as a prince of discretion and judgment, is marked 
 with infamy by the shouts of rabble courtiers in 
 one of the exciting scenes of the life of Becket. 
 A biographer explains the allusion, and makes 
 
 * Lord Lyttelton. 
 
42 Thomas Becket. 
 
 him infamous to all time for his foul and abomin- 
 able ferocity to the chapter of Seez and their 
 bishop, whom they had elected without waiting 
 Eari for his license. He took his vengeance upon them 
 
 < Jeoffrey's ° 1 
 
 charger. a n j n a hideous parody of the dish of Herod with 
 
 the Baptist's head.* 
 Reputation The blood of the Angevin counts had a notoriety 
 
 of the 
 
 Angevin in popular story as reputed to be mingled with 
 demon's blood. Some of the family made a boast 
 of the myth. Richard, the son of Henry, took 
 delight in recounting to his companions in the 
 Crusade, the strange tale of the same Geoffrey's 
 grandmother. She could never be induced to enter 
 a church, till, at last compelled against her will, 
 she disappeared during the Mass in a sulphureous 
 thunderstorm, and was seen no more. 
 
 It was impossible that the son of Geoffrey and 
 Matilda could have derived from them or their 
 ancestors any idea of his relations with England 
 higher than those of the Normans before him — 
 that the island kingdom, won upon the hills above 
 Hastings, inherited by him from his grandfather, 
 and secured by treaty with Stephen, was his own 
 personal possession ; its lands, his estate for money 
 and hunting forests ; its people, his servants ; and 
 the best servants, they who could extract the most 
 money out of it. 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. lv. But perhaps it was Henry's grandfather : 
 v. Becket, quoted by Grim, c. 35. 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 43 
 
 Descending from his ancestors to himself, we Henry of 
 find copious evidence as to what manner of man A " JOU ' 
 he was. He makes himself prominent in the 
 events of his time ; and we must know him to 
 understand the great controversy of his reign. 
 To form a judgment of Becket, we must know 
 something of the king he resisted. It is hardly 
 fair to speak of one of the antagonists as " in- 
 sincere " and " unchristian," as some late writers * 
 have done, and then to tell us that the motives 
 and character of the other are not to be judged by 
 us, but " left to a Higher Tribunal." f We have 
 ample materials for understanding both the motives 
 and the conduct of both the men. They ought 
 not to be left, with reverence be it said, to the 
 Higher Tribunal. They are to be studied here, 
 and related impartially for our instruction and for 
 the amendment of things here in this world. 
 
 Henry had already in the transactions of his H is 
 early life shown himself the man he was to TJfr^c'king. 
 continue to the end. To what expedients he was 
 capable of having recourse, to what depths of 
 self-abasement he could descend, in quest of his 
 own interests was already open to the world. 
 They were such as might well suggest to Theobald 
 that somebody should be placed by his side with 
 strength and prudence to restrain and guide him. 
 
 * Dean Hook and Bishop Stubbs among others, 
 t Stubbs. 
 
44 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Young as he was, he had already doomed him- 
 self and his family, and with them unknown 
 numbers of people, to incalculable misfortunes. 
 His He inherited the kingdom of England and the 
 
 inherited 
 
 dominions, dukedom of Normandy from his mother, and he 
 claimed and got the county of Anjou as by 
 inheritance from his father. But his father had 
 devised by will that Henry should succeed to his 
 mother's territories, and his next son, Geoffrey, to 
 his own. Before he died, he put Geoffrey in 
 possession of three strong places ; and upon his 
 death-bed, foreseeing, it would appear, the ambiti- 
 ous projects of his eldest son, he bound his bishops 
 and nobles under oath not to bury his body till 
 Henry should have solemnly sworn to give effect 
 to his last will. 
 1156. Henry, arriving after his father's death, took the 
 
 to his C broth C er oath, buried his dead, and broke it. He seized 
 
 l leoffrey. 
 
 upon Anjou, expelled his brother from his castles, 
 and left him a private estate to live upon. 
 
 Geoffrey was in trouble under this harsh treachery, 
 when he heard that the free city of Nantes had 
 asked him to be their lord and ruler. He accepted 
 1158. the offer, and died soon after. Henry immediately 
 claimed and took the city of Nantes as his heir. 
 
 He had already obtained by his marriage the 
 duchy of Aquitaine, and with it all the provinces 
 from Auvergne to the sea, and from the Loire 
 to the Pyrenees. The dukedom of Brittany was 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 45 
 
 under feudal subjection to him as Duke of Nor- 
 mandy, and he managed before long to bring the 
 feudal dukedom under his authority by the marriage 
 of one of his infant sons. He was thus master of 
 all Western France from Flanders to the Pyrenees. 
 But to obtain the duchy of Aquitaine and the His 
 
 marriage. 
 
 provinces united with it he had begun life by 
 selling himself in a way degrading for ever to 
 any man. It was in marriage certainly ; and 
 prudent marriages are common enough, and are 
 seldom hardly judged. But this marriage was 
 quite out of ordinary rule among civilized people 
 of any time ; and its fruits were deadly, for a 
 generation and more to follow, to people of many 
 countries. 
 
 The great inheritance of Aquitaine, including 
 all Western France south of the Loire, had fallen 
 to an heiress, Eleanor by name. Lewis, the King 
 of France, married Eleanor and her provinces Kieanorof 
 
 Aquitaine. 
 
 when Henry was a child five years old. A strait- 
 laced morality might be out of place in a narrative 
 of the conduct of a fair daughter of Languedoc, 
 as Eleanor was ; but the wives of kings were 
 even in those days expected to be decent, and 
 Eleanor trespassed the limits tolerable in any 
 condition. It did not mitigate her guilt that it 
 broke into flagrant notoriety when she was playing 
 the heroine in one of the expeditions of the 
 Crusades for the relief of the city of Jerusalem. 
 
4 6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 She had taken the cross along with her husband ; 
 and she sent spindles for presents to recreant 
 knights who were slow to follow their example. 
 She went with the expedition, called the Second 
 Crusade, at the head of a gay troop of mounted 
 Amazons. Their exploits belong to the tales of 
 the Crusades, where we find this expedition notorious 
 for looseness of morals. The ladies did not assist 
 the military operations ; they much impeded them, 
 and were principally to blame for the bloody 
 defeat of Laodicsea. 
 
 The exploits of Queen Eleanor became no- 
 torious. She disgraced herself and her royal 
 husband by scandalous amours, both with Chris- 
 tians and with infidels. And to tell so much, is 
 not to tell the worst of what is written in the con- 
 temporary annals. 
 
 Her conduct after her return to Paris was not 
 less scandalous and notorious. Both Henry of 
 Anjou and his father Geoffrey were set down in 
 popular rumour as among her admirers. Yet 
 Lewis would have avoided a divorce if possible. 
 They had only daughters, and the great inherit- 
 Her divorce, ance of Aquitaine might be lost. But a divorce 
 became inevitable. Eleanor was allowed to sue 
 for it on a pretext of consanguinity (they were 
 distant cousins), and was not opposed. There 
 must have been urgent cause, and some of the 
 accounts supply one. They tell us, and it is not 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 47 
 
 incredible and not without confirmation of indirect 
 evidence, not only, what is not in doubt, that six 
 weeks after her divorce from Lewis she married U52 
 Henry, but also that three months later she had 
 a son, whom Lewis must have repudiated. Henry 
 acknowledged him, and called him William. If 
 this account be true, it was fortunate for himself 
 and for many people besides that he did not sur- 
 vive his years of infancy. But other chroniclers 
 put the birth of William a year later.* 
 
 The military and naval forces of Aquitaine were Th e mar- 
 riage imme 
 
 of essential service to Henry in his expedition to diate 'y. 
 
 J 1 convenient. 
 
 England the next year. Aquitaine was then a 
 great naval power. If he sold himself, it was for 
 a high price. Only it turned out that he gave 
 more than he took account of ; for this marriage ultimately 
 
 disastrous. 
 
 with such a woman, thirteen years older than him- 
 self, was fruitful in sorrows both to him and to 
 many people who had the misfortune to be his 
 subjects. 
 
 Henry's wars with his sons were the principal 
 events of his later years. Towns were burnt, 
 countries laid waste, thousands of people massacred 
 in the wretched quarrels ; and sympathy with the 
 unhappy father of unnatural children is the stock 
 
 * Lord Lyttelton, in his Life of Henry II., stumbles between 
 the stories. He puts the marriage correctly in 1 152, and the birth 
 of William in 1 1 53 ; but he afterwards tells us that he was three 
 years old at Easter, n 55. As regards Eleanor, the question is a 
 small one ; what she was hangs in no doubt. 
 
4 8 
 
 TJiomas Bccket. 
 
 feeling of the tale. But what sort of sons were 
 to be expected of such a marriage ? The trans- 
 actions are scandalous ; but they are scandals of 
 public conduct, and not only of private life, and 
 it is an outrage upon the truth of history to sup- 
 press them. 
 
 Henry's King Henry went on in life as he began. 
 
 schemes for . 
 
 his children. Having trafficked, to all appearance profitably, 
 with himself, he trafficked not less shamefully with 
 Traffic with his infant children. His second son, Henry, was 
 
 his son 
 
 Henry; bargained with — it would be ludicrous to say 
 betrothed — when he was seven years old, for a 
 daughter of King Lewis, and the town and terri- 
 tory of Gisors, on the French border of Normandy, 
 which was in dispute between the fathers. Mar- 
 garet, a little lady of two or three years, was sent 
 to Henry, to be brought up as his daughter-in-law ; 
 and her portion, Gisors, was put in custody of the 
 Knights Templars, to hold till the marriage. The 
 King of England had the marriage celebrated two 
 years afterwards, and found means to obtain the 
 sanction of two cardinal legates, Henry of Pisa 
 and William of Pavia, of whom we shall hear 
 again. He was then able to induce the Templars 
 to deliver up to him the disputed territory. It 
 was sharp practice, although within the letter of 
 the contract ; and it brought on a war between the 
 fathers. 
 
 The traffic was continued with the other sons. 
 
Henry of An fou. 
 
 49 
 
 Geoffrey was dealt with the very year of his birth, with 
 
 J J J Geoffrey; 
 
 and married the lady and her inheritance in due 
 time. She was Constance, daughter and heiress of 
 Conan, Duke of Brittany. He appears not to have 
 been grateful to his father for his provident 
 management. Contemporaries speak of him as 
 the worst of all the sons of Henry. 
 
 John, the youngest, infamous in English history, with John ; 
 was bound by covenant, at the age of seven, to 
 a daughter of the Count of Savoy. It came to 
 nothing, and, three years after, Henry obtained for 
 him the heiress of the Earl of Gloucester and her 
 inheritance. Thirteen years afterwards they were 
 married. 
 
 Henry's transactions with his son Richard and with 
 his affianced bride were a yet more iniquitous 
 transgression, both of the private duties of a man 
 and of the public duty of a king. First, when he 
 was a year old, he was to marry a Spanish princess. 
 That bargain fell through, and it was then arranged 
 that he should marry Alais, another daughter of 
 King Lewis, who, at three years old, was bound 
 to him when he was seven. She was given, with 
 her sister Margaret, into the charge of Henry, and 
 was brought to England, where she was still 
 detained, more than thirty years after, when he 
 died. But no marriage took place, and there had 
 been negotiations, five years before, for marrying 
 Richard to a daughter of the emperor. 
 
 E 
 
5o 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 In the mean time King Lewis, and then Philip 
 his son and successor, repeatedly demanded the 
 fulfilment of the contract, and called in the aid 
 of the pope, who threatened the kingdom of 
 England with an interdict. Henry found means 
 to avoid the sentence. At last, after his death, 
 his successor Richard informed King Philip that 
 it was impossible for him to marry his sister Alais ; 
 she had been his father's mistress, and had borne 
 him a son. The sad tale was true. Philip con- 
 sented to take her back, with money for her 
 maintenance, and the restoration of Gisors. 
 
 Nor was this the only instance of King Henry's 
 contempt both of private honour and of public 
 obligation to a princess entrusted to him. Another 
 in some respects was even worse, at least in the 
 opinion of that age. A daughter of Eudes, Count 
 of Brittany, became his prey, when in his charge 
 as a hostage for some engagements with her father. 
 This breach of a sacred trust was all the worse, 
 because she was a near cousin to him, being a 
 daughter's daughter of a sister of Henry's mother, 
 Matilda. 
 
 It is no wrong to him, therefore, to infer that 
 his base and reckless selfishness was under no 
 restraint of either private honour or public duty. 
 His horrible impiety, reaching to open defiance of 
 God, is one of the things which historians have 
 permitted to be known. 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 51 
 
 He was a broad-built man, of middle height, 
 with spherical head ; square, weather-tanned face ; 
 full, round, prominent blue-grey eyes, mild as a 
 dove's when he was in good humour, blood-shot 
 and flashing fire when angry. His rages of wrath, 
 ungoverned upon the least opposition to his will, 
 upon continued resistance became savage to the 
 verge of insanity. It was not unknown that his 
 fingers would find their way to an offender's eyes ; 
 and if he did not go the length of the miscreant 
 Belesme, and tear them out, he confessed to a 
 difficulty in restraining himself. Once, at least, he 
 drew blood, and was hindered by others from 
 doing worse. 
 
 With the legs of a horseman, he is described as 
 having the "broad chest and brawny arms of a 
 prize-fighter." He was great as a sportsman and 
 a mighty hunter, and would keep his saddle over 
 hill and dale till nightfall, and sit down to supper 
 with neglected hands, livid with wounds. Except 
 when eating or in the saddle, he seldom sat. And 
 yet also, we have evidence, he could find pleasure 
 in conversing with learned men, and even in in- 
 tervals of quiet study. He was a learned king for 
 his age.* 
 
 Already, when only twenty, by his conduct both 
 in his continental provinces and in England, 
 especially in the relief of Wallingford and the 
 
 * Letter dccc. ; Girald. Camb., v. p. 302. 
 
52 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 operations which led to it, he had proved himself 
 a brilliant soldier, and had gained a reputation for 
 military capacity, which was hardly borne out by 
 any achievements of his subsequent life. 
 
 Otherwise, he was a young man of quick intel- 
 ligence and imperious will ; prompt and decided 
 in action ; not easily diverted from any purpose, 
 sometimes open to persuasion, never turned by 
 opposition. These qualities are seen both in other 
 matters of business, and particularly when, after 
 the examples of the kings before him, he sat upon 
 the judgment seat. Along with them, there is a 
 continual effort to assert a superiority, personal 
 as well as kingly, over all around him. It is a 
 mark of the same vanity that the transgression of 
 any alleged law or custom is taken as a personal 
 insult ; any resistance of his will, even the contra- 
 diction of any assertion he might make, although 
 mistaken, as deserving the punishment of a rebel. 
 
 Becket's chaplain, Herbert, was sent into exile 
 after him, and, in a hearing by the king, upon 
 petition for his return because he had committed 
 no offence, happened to speak of " the King of 
 Germany." 
 
 "Why do you not call him by his proper title, 
 Emperor of Germany?" Henry interposed. 
 
 " His title," Herbert answered, " is King of 
 Germany ; and when he calls himself emperor, it is 
 Emperor of the Romans." 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 53 
 
 To which the king replied, "This is abominable. 
 Is this son of a priest to disturb my peace, and 
 throw my kingdom into commotion ? " 
 
 It was thus an offence against king and kingdom 
 to question his knowledge of facts. Accordingly 
 he pretended to have everything under his eye, 
 and within his grasp, and could not endure that 
 people should think affairs were managed by any- 
 body but himself. Magistrates of every class, in 
 all places, were subject to his personal interference. 
 
 It would be easier to believe that his activity 
 was conducive to public order, if we found it so 
 in his own household. We have a very different 
 picture of it. He travelled about attended by 
 marshals notorious for their own rapacity, and for 
 their negligence of the followers of the court. 
 
 It need not, in those days, have been beneath 
 the notice of so busy a man, that his attendants 
 and followers were imposed upon with unwhole- 
 some meats and drinks. Of a master whose eye 
 was everywhere we ought not to have heard com- 
 plaint that the bread of his household was "heavy, 
 mixed with cockle, half baked;" the wine "acid 
 or mothcry, muddy, greasy, rancid," with some 
 other adjectives, showing that the writer was most 
 alive to this grievance; "the beer, horrible to the 
 taste and abominable to the sight ; the meat, 
 scarcely sound ; the fish, four days old." Or, if the 
 care of such things was beneath a king, at least he 
 
54 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 was directly and personally to blame for what we 
 further learn : " If a command had come down 
 that the king would start early next morning for 
 some place, for a certainty he would not rise before 
 noon. Then you would see sumpter beasts wait- 
 ing with their packages, carriages motionless, 
 couriers nodding, tradesmen anxious, all muttering 
 and whispering. To learn when the king would be 
 ready you must visit the loose women and vintners, 
 for this class of people generally know the secrets 
 of the court ; for the court of Henry II. is crowded 
 with jesters, singers, gamesters, pastry-cooks, bank- 
 rupts, mummers, barbers, spendthrifts, and others 
 of a similar class." * 
 
 It is a stock tale of English histories that this 
 king initiated the reign of law. The English 
 people have this one idea of his reign. When we 
 look with attention at the facts to follow, every- 
 thing will confirm the inference that the reign of 
 law which he sought to establish in England was 
 the reign of his own individual will. 
 
 Of any qualities of a high order, whether of 
 statesmanship, or of fatherly interest in his people's 
 welfare, we see few or none. He was good-natured, 
 and capable of generous impulse, when all went 
 smoothly. A writer of credit informs us that he 
 was capable of compassion to the poor, and ready 
 
 * From " Peter of Blois," quoted by Mr. Hardy, "Descriptive 
 Catalogue," ii. p. xxxviii. 
 
Henry of Anjou. 
 
 55 
 
 and liberal in helping them ; but we shall search 
 in vain, through his laws and "assizes," for any 
 enactment for their benefit that looks beyond the 
 punishment and repression of crime. 
 
 With his vast powers, at the head of dominions 
 more extensive than almost any king of his age, 
 it is difficult to discover that he had any policy 
 higher than to provide great stations for his 
 family, or to extend his despotism over the Eng- 
 lish people, and employ it for the augmentation of 
 revenues to be expended, for the most part, in 
 petty wars of no interest to them. 
 
 Whether or no he was endowed with powers of 
 mind which might have made him a great king 
 it is not easy to say, because, whatever his powers, 
 they were soon overclouded by his despotic in- 
 stincts, his self-will, his excessive vanity, his mad 
 rages of wrath, and his ungoverned self-indulgence 
 in the very various pleasures to which he was 
 addicted. 
 
56 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THOMAS THE CHANCELLOR. 
 
 1154. The young king has been allowed to share with 
 his ministers in the credit of their early and 
 vigorous measures for the re-establishment of 
 order, in pursuance of the provisions of Walling- 
 ford. He was fortunate in the inheritance of two 
 men of large powers, Richard de Luci, already 
 chief justiciar, and the new chancellor. The 
 principal merit in the renovation of society be- 
 longs to them, one or both of them. 
 The inter- De Luci and other ministers of higher rank, 
 
 regnum. 
 
 Public order with Archbishop Theobald for their chief, had no 
 
 maintained. 1 
 
 difficulty in maintaining order during the weeks 
 between the death of Stephen and the arrival of 
 his successor. The state of the country had been 
 very different upon the last vacancy of the throne. 
 As soon as it was heard that Henry I. was dead, 
 all the forests were broken, and the herds of thou- 
 sands of deer disappeared as if by magic. The 
 hungry villagers kept unwonted carnival. 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 57 
 
 When Henry, grandson of the former Henry, 
 arrived he found the country undisturbed. The 
 experience of twenty years had not been all a loss 
 to the nation. Their terrible sufferings had taught 
 the people patience, and quickened the intellect of 
 their rulers. 
 
 The return of peace was already giving new m. 
 
 est 
 
 life to the exhausted nation. The continuance of 
 peace, under a firm government, brought renewed 
 prosperity. Stephen's mercenary soldiers, who had 
 possession of Kent and some other districts, were 
 ordered to leave the country, and saw the neces- 
 sity of compliance. William of Ypres, their chief, 
 set sail with tears in his eyes. " The Flemings 
 went home to their looms," so it was said. Pea- 
 sants came back from the woods to the villages ; 
 the labourer returned to his plough, and the lord 
 to his manor-house. King Stephen had already 
 demolished many of the castles which had been 
 so much abused. All those built during his reign 
 were now destroyed, except a few, thought likely 
 to be useful in the king's hands. Three or four 
 lords who offered resistance were compelled to 
 submit. The king was strong enough to resume 
 possession of all the Crown estates bestowed by 
 Stephen upon his adherents. Those of Norman 
 lords who had fallen during the troubles were 
 restored to their families. 
 
 Some restraint put upon the barbarities of 
 
58 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 wreckers upon the coasts showed a more minute 
 attention to good government. 
 
 What was of larger importance, the Scottish 
 king, after some hesitation, surrendered the three 
 northern counties, Northumberland, Westmoreland, 
 and Cumberland, of which he had held possession 
 for some time, and did homage for the Lothians. 
 
 Early in the reign, itinerant justices were sent 
 over the country to assess the royal revenue, and 
 decide questions concerning it; and, what was their 
 secondary duty, auxiliary to the other, to punish 
 crimes. They were no new institution, but had 
 lately fallen into disuse. 
 
 In short, there was so much life and wisdom in 
 every department of the administration, that the 
 condition of the kingdom was soon marvellously 
 improved. During the last year of Stephen, and 
 the first four or five of Henry, it passed from a 
 state of dissolution to one of growing prosperity 
 under a settled government. There was evidence 
 of a mind, or minds, of large intellect and expe- 
 rience. The young soldier-king, whatever his 
 powers, had neither the knowledge nor the experi- 
 ence for such a work in its manifold complexity, 
 although, no doubt, he entered into it, and, it would 
 appear, with heart and spirit. But he was in close 
 friendship and daily intimacy with a man whose 
 capacity for affairs had raised him from middle life 
 to his high place ; who, as Theobald's secretary, 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 59 
 
 had been so highly esteemed, that he could com- 
 mand any preferment he chose to ask for ; and 
 whose talents were as well-known at Rome as they 
 were in England. What we are told by an impar- The work 
 
 • 1 -i °^ becket. 
 
 tial annalist is, therefore, what we might expect. 
 Thomas the Chancellor was spoken of as "the 
 guide and master of the king." * 
 
 We cannot reasonably doubt that the surprising 
 change upon the face of the country, and the 
 general prosperity of the first ten years of the 
 reign, f were mainly the work of Becket. When, 
 after eight or nine years, he ceased to be chan- 
 cellor there was a rapid change, both in the king 
 himself and in the measures of government. In 
 his personal conduct Henry became his own guide, 
 and what that meant we shall see. His public 
 measures took their complexion from the justiciar, 
 who resumed the full influence of his office which 
 the chancellor had eclipsed. 
 
 The chancellor, in that age, had peculiar oppor- Dutiesofthe 
 
 . ... . chancellor ; 
 
 tunities for guiding the administration by his 
 influence upon the royal mind. Originally, as an 
 officer of the household, he had charge of the royal 
 chapel. His duties had been enlarged, till at this 
 time he was the king's general secretary of state. 
 He attended all councils, sealed the royal edicts 
 
 * Gervase, i. 169. 
 
 t " The first ten years of the reign were singularly happy and 
 prosperous" (Stubbs, "Select Charters," p. 123). 
 
6o 
 
 Thomas Beckel. 
 
 and all deeds that required sealing — some, after 
 their adoption by the council, others without it. 
 He was the keeper of the seal. It had also fallen 
 to his office to receive the incomes of vacant 
 bishoprics, abbacies, baronies, and to relieve the 
 king of all the more arduous duties which might 
 interfere with his absorbing pursuits of hunting 
 and hawking — " might disturb him in his pleasures, 
 or in more weighty business of State." That is 
 the amiable alternative of a highly esteemed 
 chronicler.* 
 
 In the age we are upon, the chancellor acted, 
 or was supposed to act, under his master's eye. 
 During the king's long absences in his continental 
 states the high justiciar was generally at the head 
 of the administration, with the title of " prefect 
 of the kingdom." Sometimes there were two 
 justiciars ; Robert Earl of Leicester held the office, 
 for some years, with De Luci. But for matters 
 requiring more than ordinary tact and ability the 
 king would sometimes send his special commission 
 to his chancellor Thomas, 
 enlarged One instance of such special commission is 
 
 under . . 
 
 Becket. particularly mentioned. The king was desirous 
 to obtain the homage of the chief estates to his 
 son Henry, as his successor. The younger Henry 
 had been for some time in the charge of the 
 chancellor, and, with some of the sons of the greater 
 
 * William of Newburgh, book ii. c. i. 
 
Chancellor, 
 
 61 
 
 barons, was brought up under tutors in his house. 
 The king was beyond sea, and sent his commission 
 on this important matter, not to the justiciar, but 
 to the chancellor. It was one, says a well-informed 
 biographer, which could hardly have been carried 
 through without tumult, in the king's presence. 
 To the surprise of everybody, it was effected, 
 under the management of the chancellor, without 
 resistance of word or act.* 
 
 Becket was chancellor when an important Institution 
 measure took effect which, incidentally or with money. s 
 intention, struck a serious blow at the baronage 
 and the feudal institutions. Since the Conquest, 
 the barons had been bound, on summons, to be at 
 the king's service with their knights and forces 
 for forty days of the year. This service was now 
 commuted for a scutage, or money payment of so 
 much for every shield. The king got English 
 money, instead of English men with their Anglo- 
 Erench captains ; and he hired mercenary soldiers 
 for his service abroad, in wars of no English 
 interest. Whether the king or his chancellor 
 looked further or not, it is accounted an important 
 measure of the reign ; and it is not the only one 
 that tended to abate the independent powers of 
 the barons, which had been so much abused. 
 
 It was a further innovation, that the new tax it is levied 
 
 upon bishops 
 
 was levied upon the ecclesiastical barons ; and the and abbot*. 
 
 * Rog. Pont., c. 15. 
 
62 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 measure was enforced by Becket, against the 
 remonstrances of his patron the archbishop. His 
 friends excused him by the peremptory commands 
 of the king, but more as a conjecture than a known 
 fact* Whether he was principal or agent, the 
 king would take note of his conduct. It was 
 another proof that Thomas was no Church-partisan. 
 He did not care to maintain any immunities of the 
 wealthy clergy to the detriment of the king's 
 exchequer. 
 
 General His whole conduct, when he was chancellor, was 
 
 vigour of , 
 
 Becket'sad- marked by the same ability and vigour. It was 
 
 ministration. 
 
 a time of active rebuilding. The Palace, or Tower 
 of London, which he found a ruin, was repaired 
 between ^Easter and Whitsuntide by the employ- 
 ment of a staff of workmen so numerous " that 
 a man could hardly hear his neighbour speak." 
 Splendour People were surprised by the magnificence of 
 household, his retinue and household. He had his hawks and 
 hounds, like the king, but took little interest in 
 sports, or had not time for them. Whatever his 
 motives, he outstript all royal officers before him 
 
 * Bishop Stubbs thinks " it was perhaps advised by the 
 chancellor, who did not till a much later period betray any 
 sympathy with the cause of clerical immunities" ("Constitutional 
 History," p. 454). I find good evidence, although not quite of 
 perfect demonstration, that he had before this shown sympathy 
 with clerical immunities ; and I should infer from his whole life 
 that he must have done so. The question will recur. And did he 
 ever betray sympathy with any clerical immunity from taxa- 
 tion ? 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 63 
 
 in surrounding himself with the splendid trappings 
 of wealth and high official rank. It can hardly be 
 doubtful that he kept his state with the king's 
 approval, and perhaps, in some degree, as his repre- 
 sentative. He must have known that his great 
 scale of housekeeping, his board resplendent with 
 gold and silver, his sumptuous daily table, were no 
 offence to his master, but the contrary. Earls and 
 barons sat down to it daily. It was accounted 
 among his luxuries that his hall floor was covered 
 every day in winter with fresh hay or straw, and 
 in summer with fresh rushes or green leaves, on 
 which the knights could throw themselves in their 
 fine dresses when the benches and long settles were 
 all filled. Henry himself would sometimes ride 
 into the hall and take a draught, or, dismounted, 
 would leap over the table and sit down to eat. 
 Yet he sometimes made a joke of his chancellor's 
 splendour. Riding together in a London street on 
 a cold winter's day, the king espied an old man 
 scantily clad and shivering, and pleasantly sug- 
 gested that it would be a charitable act of the 
 chancellor archdeacon to make the man a present 
 of a gorgeous new cape of scarlet and fur which 
 he wore. Thomas did not readily agree to the 
 proposal ; and the king laid hold of the cape, 
 and was so bent upon pulling it off, that, after a 
 struggle, it became prudent to let it go. The old 
 man was enriched ; there was loud laughter of 
 
c 4 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 attendant knights, and many cloaks and capes were 
 at the chancellor's service.* 
 His The event of his chancellorship which more than 
 
 pompous ... , . . ...... 
 
 embassy to anything impressed the vulgar mind with his mag- 
 
 Paris, 
 
 Ii6 °- nificence, was long remembered, and has been often 
 told, was his great fantastic retinue when he went, 
 as king's envoy, to demand the hand of Margaret, 
 the infant child of King Lewis of France, for the 
 younger Henry. His progress from town to town, 
 from the coast to Paris, was more like a strange 
 triumphal procession than an embassy, and the 
 particular account of it which we have f is worthy 
 of notice in itself, as well as in the conduct of a 
 personage so remarkable. 
 
 First marched two hundred and fifty footmen, in 
 companies of six to ten, singing the songs of their 
 country. After them, at a distance, packs of 
 hounds and harriers, in couples, with their keepers 
 all gaily dressed. Then eight huge waggons, each 
 of them drawn by five fine cavalry horses, every 
 horse with walking groom, and every waggon with 
 driver and guard, and a noble dog, like a bear or 
 lion. One waggon carried the furniture of the 
 chancellor's chapel ; another, that of his chamber ; 
 another, of his kitchen. Three were laden with 
 comestibles and baggage, and two with huge iron- 
 bound barrels of fine English beer, for the delecta- 
 tion of the Parisians. After the waggons marched 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 14. t Ibid., c. 18. 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 65 
 
 a troop of baggage horses, each with its load ; one, 
 prominent before the others, bearing the sacred 
 vessels, ornaments, and books of the altar ; the 
 others, laden with furniture and clothing and coffers 
 of plate and money, for use and for gifts. Every 
 horse had its groom, riding knees on haunches, 
 dressed suitably to his charge, with a long-tailed 
 monkey perched upon the top of the load. After 
 a respectful interval came a company of squires, 
 bearing the shields of their knights and leading 
 their chargers ; then other squires, pages of the 
 household, falconers with their birds upon their 
 fists, butlers, stewards, attendants, ushered on the 
 greater personages of the procession, — a cavalcade 
 of knights and clergy, two and two, going before 
 the great chancellor himself, with his friends and 
 attendants all on horseback. 
 
 The procession, it may be imagined, excited 
 amazement and curiosity wherever it passed. 
 Frenchmen poured out to see it, exclaiming, 
 " Whose family is this ? " 
 
 " It is the chancellor of the King of the English." 
 
 " What a wonderful man the King of the English 
 must be, if this is the state of his chancellor on 
 his travels ! " 
 
 It must have been to astonish the people, and 
 to commend the king and his embassy to the 
 French Court, that the great show was devised, and 
 was followed up, as it was, by costly gifts of gold 
 
 F 
 
(6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 and silver vessels, rich garments and horses to 
 French nobles and citizens of Paris, and by 
 suitable presents to the royal servants, and to the 
 masters and scholars of the schools. At all events, 
 the service was done to the king's satisfaction, as 
 Theobald's had been at Rome. 
 Whence his Yet this magnificence of life and this costly 
 
 means for 
 
 parade gave rise, naturally enough, to keen 
 remark. There were people who inquired — there 
 are still — and in no friendly spirit, where he found 
 the money for his enormous outlay. The legiti- 
 mate income of the chancellor, supported by all 
 his Church preferments, could not suffice, it was 
 assumed, for so much profusion. It is a question 
 which will arise again ; and may call for some 
 attention when it does. 
 And for his Thomas the Chancellor also gained distinction 
 
 warrior 
 
 exploits? j n another and quite different employment. In 
 deacon's orders, and loaded with Church prefer- 
 ments, he was also a soldier of great fame. In 
 a war with the King of France about Toulouse, 
 and in that concerning Gisors, the chancellor's 
 equipments and exploits surpassed those of any 
 of the barons. 
 
 war of At Toulouse, Henry was at the head of a great 
 
 Toulouse, 
 
 "59. army, drawn from all his dominions, and with 
 English money. Becket brought into the field 
 seven hundred knights, and a large company of 
 mercenaries. In corslet and helmet, he led his 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 67 
 
 men in battle, took strong castles, and fought in 
 single combat with a valiant French knight, and un- 
 horsed him. The London games turned out useful 
 to him. No soldiers were better than his, and no 
 general was more capable. If Henry had followed 
 his advice, Toulouse would have been taken, and 
 the French king along with it. So it was said : 
 it was also said that Henry held back in a 
 chivalrous regard to his feudal superior. 
 
 It is possible that such may have been his 
 motive, although it was not believed, at least in 
 France. If it was, it is to be noted as a peculiar 
 scruple of the age. Even the red-faced king was 
 said to have his knightly scruples. 
 
 The chancellor was troubled with no such com- 
 punctions. What he did, he did thoroughly, in 
 war or peace. His deeds in war were a sore per- 
 plexity to some of the biographers of the saint. 
 " At the head of a strong force," says one of them, 
 " he burnt towns and villages without pity, and 
 was the cause of death to many people." * 
 
 Thus, in every public action, and in many wide versa 
 
 ■ >T<I T> 1 tilitv of 
 
 spheres of action, Thomas Becket stood among conduct, 
 the first of men, and always with something that 
 was all his own. He was a great soldier ; he was 
 one of the greatest of rulers and administrators. 
 While showing the king the way to victory, while 
 transforming a kingdom from horrors of intestine 
 
 * Grim, c. 15. 
 
68 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 disorder to peace and prosperity under a settled 
 government, he was, at the same time, continually 
 relieving the king of his high judicial duties — he 
 was the first chancellor who sat as judge, to 
 administer justice, — and also, with a staff of fifty- 
 two clerks, was doing the ordinary work of his 
 office : and, ready for any service, could rebuild 
 the ruined Tower in a few weeks ; or, sent upon 
 embassy, with instructions to create an impression, 
 did astonish the natives among whom he went, 
 as perhaps no ambassador has done before or 
 since : and all with such facility, that he was 
 ready, at a moment's notice, to take part with his 
 young master in boyish romps, or to do the gleeful 
 honours when he came suddenly into his hall and 
 jumped over the table. 
 
 Services so various must have gained him a 
 high name among English patriots, if he had not 
 merited a patriot's honours by a higher service 
 still, and lost them all in — what, to that age, was 
 a higher glory — the honours it paid him as its 
 saint and martyr. 
 His steady Great as were his services to England as chan- 
 
 rectitude. 
 
 cellor, they were still greater in his consistent 
 rectitude of conduct, both personally and in his 
 relations with the king. His personal character 
 comes out consistently, and is the same in all his 
 greatness as it had been observed in the London 
 playgrounds. His biographers, without intending 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 69 
 
 it, show us by facts that he was still the old 
 Thomas of London. His love of justice and 
 liberty, his hatred of oppression and wrong, grew 
 and increased along with his ability to maintain 
 them. In all his splendour and pomp, his doors 
 were always open to the miserable and the wronged. 
 The cause of the widow could always reach his 
 ears. He never failed, when occasion was given 
 him, to see justice done, and to avenge the poor. 
 He had now the ability ; and he used it, both as 
 a just judge and as a wealthy lord. If earls and 
 barons frequented his table daily, there was pro- 
 vision also for many guests who had no dinner of 
 their own. 
 
 These accounts of him rest upon evidence that 
 carries its own demonstration to a certainty beyond 
 what is common for the Middle Ages. There were 
 people then who said it was all ostentation. 
 There are people still who say it ; sometimes with 
 the additional imputation that the biographers of 
 " the saint " were not only full of the superstition 
 of the age, but were misguided by prejudice in 
 their narratives of common facts. The imputation 
 is groundless ; but the best answer to it is the 
 whole tenor of the man's life. Events to follow 
 will confirm all we know of him already. 
 
 If the love of justice was in his nature, and his Mismanage 
 
 ment of the 
 
 old intolerance of overbearing tyranny still alive kin s 
 in him, they must have caused him many a weary 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 contention, or still more wearisome submission of 
 silence, when he was serving a king sprung from 
 " the tyrants' broods " — it is the language of con- 
 temporaries, — the houses of Normandy and Anjou. 
 In all his grandeur, and he was all but king, he 
 confessed with tears, and more than once, to 
 Theobald, that he was weary of his life, and wished 
 himself free from the ties of office.* 
 in his We have particular accounts, in several instances, 
 
 despotic 
 
 outbreaks. G f his struggles against tyranny and wrong; and 
 his patient endeavours, and even artifice, to curb 
 and turn the capricious freaks of the royal self-will. 
 It was an arduous work, no doubt, to control and 
 guide this king. 
 
 The Archdeacon of London had given some 
 offence to the king, and his revenge was quick 
 and arbitrary.! He sent and turned the whole 
 household of the archdeacon into the streets, closed 
 the house, and published it for sale by auction. 
 Thomas did not rest till he had done all he could 
 to repair the outrage. He was able to talk the 
 despot into reason, and obtained restitution of the 
 property. 
 
 In the dispute between the rival popes, the courts 
 of England and France, with many bishops and 
 nobles, met at Neuf-Marche % to discuss the question. 
 It was decided to adhere to Alexander. Presently 
 
 * John Salisbury, c. 7. t Fitz-Stephen, c. 16. 
 
 X "Novum forum, " Fitz-Stephen, c. 17. 
 
CJiancellor. 
 
 7i 
 
 the king heard that the aged Archbishop of Rouen, 
 without asking his consent, had sent his Archdeacon 
 Gilo to his suffragan bishops, requiring them to give 
 their obedience to Alexander. The archbishop 
 had waited, it appears, for the decision of the two 
 kings, but did not wait for Henry's commands. 
 Perhaps he made some show of independence. If 
 he did anything unlawful, a king who has obtained 
 the credit of a lawmaker might have been expected 
 to deal with him in something like a lawful and 
 deliberate manner. Instead of that he acted as 
 the tyrant he really was. He did not venture to 
 discharge his wrath upon the aged archbishop, but 
 he issued his order to pull down the house of the 
 archdeacon, his messenger. Thomas again inter- 
 posed : " My lord and king, the house you have 
 ordered to be pulled down is the Archdeacon Gilo's; 
 but I am lodging in it at present." That saved it. 
 
 The next day, the king heard that the Bishop 
 of Le Mans, then with the court, had followed the 
 example of the archbishop, and had sent his 
 obedience to Pope Alexander. Henry fell into 
 one of his fits of rage, because the bishop had acted 
 without his royal license and command. His 
 marshals, to pacify him, or under his orders, went 
 to the bishop's lodgings and turned him out. They 
 tossed his baggage into the street, and let loose 
 his horses. The bishop had to get out of the way 
 with what speed he could. 
 
72 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Le Mans was Henry's birthplace, and he took 
 an interest in the town and people. He showed 
 it now by an order he had drawn and sent to them, 
 immediately to pull down their bishop's house. 
 Before it went, he held it up in his hand to the 
 crowd of courtiers, exclaiming, "The people of 
 Le Mans will hear news of their bishop." Every- 
 body was shocked ; the chancellor, more than all, 
 must have felt deep shame. 
 
 But the royal fury was seen to be too hot to be 
 touched incautiously. Thomas therefore managed 
 that the messengers should spend four days upon 
 their journey to Le Mans, instead of two. The 
 next day he got the bishops to go in successive 
 parties and entreat the king to pardon the Bishop 
 of Le Mans. He came last himself. It was all 
 in vain. Again, the day following, with like failure. 
 Henry was determined to appear great in the eyes 
 of the people of his birthplace, and this was his 
 idea of greatness. At last, when he expected that 
 his order was beyond recall, he granted the pardon 
 so earnestly desired. The chancellor immediately 
 despatched it, with strict orders to hasten day and 
 night. His messenger was in time, and the king, 
 when his fury cooled, was thankful that he had 
 been deluded, — a man not without generous feel- 
 ing in his quiet moods, but often unreasoning ; 
 not seldom frantic ; always, before all things, selfish. 
 The conduct of Thomas Becket during the years 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 73 
 
 following, when he was archbishop, has ever since 
 moved the attention and the curiosity of English- 
 men. In reality, if we consider a little, the years 
 of his chancery will appear quite as remarkable. 
 That he should have been able to manage such 
 a man as Henry of Anjou, and to retain his 
 friendship, is a marvel of tact and patience. 
 Everything was in his hands so entirely, that 
 there was no question of any act he did ; nor, it 
 will appear perhaps, of any moneys he received. 
 
 A distant acquaintance with King Henry II., Henry > 
 
 reputation 
 
 a little knowledge of whence and what he was, and asaiaw- 
 
 giver 
 
 what he did, cannot fail to suggest the question, — 
 how he can have gained the character he holds 
 with Englishmen, of a king to be honoured for his 
 endeavours to establish a government by law ; 
 and, as some writers will tell us, of a ruler pos- 
 sessed, even from his accession, almost in his 
 boyhood, of large and enlightened ideas for his 
 people's welfare, and of a mind centuries before its 
 age, in its aims for amending the laws ! 
 
 It is true that new rules and methods for the 
 detection and punishment of thieves, and mur- 
 derers, and other criminals were issued, from time 
 to time, during the reign. Whatever merit they 
 may possess belongs chiefly to De Luci. The is De Luci's. 
 
 i . , ...... r His own 
 
 king may share it with him, in so far as the purpose nut 
 
 law but 
 
 eagerness of his grasping despotism became a seif-wiii. 
 motive of action to the minister. His inordinate 
 
74 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 self-will, his vain-glorious affectation of mastery — 
 qualities essentially defiant of law — became the 
 origins of his reputation as a law-maker. Not 
 an inhabitant of England, from the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury to the meanest villager of a lord's 
 manor, but must feel himself dependent for life 
 and home, and in every action of his life, upon 
 the master of the land. No man's duty, however 
 sacred, must cross his purpose : no privilege must 
 impede his plans : no franchise must be closed 
 against his entrance. 
 
 These characteristics, already indicated, will find 
 their ample evidence in facts hereinafter to follow. 
 The reign The measures of the reign vary, in three distinct 
 
 alters with 
 
 the minister, periods, with the guiding mind. The activity of 
 law-making, already essayed by De Luci during 
 the supremacy of Becket, came into full action 
 upon his retirement, when De Luci became the 
 leading minister ; reached its height in the " Con- 
 stitutions of Clarendon" of 1164, and the penal 
 edicts of the "Assize of Clarendon" in 11 66; and 
 slackened or almost ceased when De Luci retired 
 from office, ten years before the king's death. His 
 successor Glanvill, a great judge and writer, did 
 not show the same zeal for fresh penal expedients. 
 Laws, old What may have been the value and ultimate 
 and new. effects of the criminal and fiscal enactments of the 
 reign, is a question that needs more extensive 
 comparison with laws before and after them than 
 
Chancellor. 
 
 75 
 
 it has obtained. The old English laws, from 
 Ethelbert of Kent to Edward called the Confessor, 
 show some real regard for the people's welfare. 
 Those of Henry II. discover no regard for the 
 miseries of the poor, as long as they do not lead 
 to crime. Then they interpose, with cruel and 
 inhuman punishments, and for small offences. 
 
 The Norman kings had need of cruel edicts, to Purpose of 
 
 cruel penal 
 
 preserve their lives and acquisitions among an laws - 
 outraged people. One king, and many lesser men, 
 from the king downwards, paid the penalty of 
 their misdeeds. The laws and assizes of the first 
 Angevin have generally a purpose beyond this. 
 It is their common purpose, conspicuous upon the 
 most cursory study of them, to provide, directly 
 or indirectly, for securing and increasing the profits 
 of his great English estate. With this view, they 
 are always clear and searching ; and, for the 
 detection of frauds and evasions, are so skilfully 
 drawn, whoever drew them, that they would do 
 credit to any banker or accountant of the present 
 day. 
 
 Any idea of laws for his people's welfare, Henry 
 could neither have inherited by blood, nor gained 
 by education from his ancestors on either side. 
 We have had instances of his disposition to arbi- 
 trary rule, regardless of all law. We shall have 
 accounts of his endeavours to extend his despotism 
 and to rivet its fetters. The honour of a zeal for 
 
76 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 law can hardly be allowed to a man whom we find 
 defiant of all law or right that happens to cross his 
 will and pleasure, or to thwart him in any course 
 of angry personal revenge. 
 Penal laws In the department of penal laws, the " Constitu- 
 
 no boast to 
 
 England, tional History of England " is not a study in which 
 Englishmen can find much cause for pride or 
 pleasure. 
 
 The criminal laws of this king and his successors, 
 and their ministers, down to a time within living 
 memory, resulted in the horrors of men, women, 
 and even children, continually hanged in gangs 
 all over the country, for a multitude of small 
 offences, and often innocent people among them. 
 
 But English life and liberty have no more had 
 their origins in penal laws or administration, than 
 they owe one spark of their vitality to Henry of 
 Anjou or his Norman progenitors. 
 
( 77 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE KING UPON THE JUDGMENT-SEAT — THE 
 BATTLE ABBEY CASE. 
 
 BECKET was chancellor, when a celebrated dispute H57- 
 between Hilary, Bishop of Chichester, and the 
 Abbot of Battle was heard and determined by 
 the king himself, sitting with his council.* The 
 abbot claimed, by his charters, to be exempt from 
 the bishop's jurisdiction. The bishop denied his 
 claim of privilege, and was supported by the arch- 
 bishop, and by papal letters of Pope Adrian, re- 
 quiring the abbot to submit himself to his bishop. 
 The proceedings in the case have peculiar interest 
 in several particulars, although the question itself 
 may now have none. 
 
 The abbot laid his complaints before the king. Privileges 
 The origin of the abbey and its privileges made Abbey!' 
 it peculiarly a case for the royal eye, and Henry 
 summoned both parties to Bury St. Edmunds at 
 Whitsuntide, 1 1 57. He was there on the festival 
 
 * " Chronicle of Battle Abbey." 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 day, which happened to be St. Dunstan's (May 19), 
 and kept it right royally, wearing his crown in a 
 great assembly of bishops, abbots, earls, barons, 
 and a multitude of people. The bishop and abbot 
 and their friends were there ; but the king could 
 not hear the case, because, the " Chronicle of the 
 Abbey" informs us, he was occupied with other 
 business. 
 
 Trial at It was therefore adjourned to Colchester, and 
 
 was there heard in the chapter-house of the 
 monastery, in an assembly of lords and prelates 
 and a multitude of people. 
 
 The chancellor took a leading part in the pro- 
 ceedings ; he and the justiciar appear as the two 
 principal persons, after the king — acting, however, 
 both of them, rather as advocates than as judges. 
 De Luci is the abbot's brother, and pleads his 
 cause. The chancellor's part is visibly in accord- 
 ance with the feelings and intentions of the king, 
 but not without good ground for believing the 
 abbot to be in the right. 
 
 The Abbors The case was opened by De Luci — " My Lord 
 
 claim stated 
 
 by De Luci, anc i King : Y our excellency has deigned to issue 
 
 May 24, o J ° 
 
 your summons to the Abbot of Battle, my brother, 
 to appear in this place for the settlement, in your 
 presence, of the long-standing dispute between him 
 and the Bishop of Chichester.concerning the liberties 
 and privileges of their churches. The abbot is in 
 attendance with his charters and proofs of privilege." 
 
The Case of Battle Abbey. 
 
 79 
 
 The charter of foundation, and some others con- 
 firmatory of it, were then read. The original 
 charter of King William,* attested by himself, by 
 Archbishop Lanfranc, the Archbishop of York, 
 four other bishops, and as many lords, which is 
 still in existence, exempts the Abbey of Battle 
 from all subjection to bishops, and from lordship 
 of all persons whatsoever, as entirely as the Church 
 of Christ at Canterbury. The king took the The kings 
 
 interest in i 
 
 charters in his hands, and thanked God for the 
 wisdom of the illustrious king who had founded 
 the abbey and made it what it was. If ever it 
 should please God to put it into his mind to found 
 an abbey, he would take care that it should be 
 endowed with exactly the liberties and dignities 
 conferred upon the Abbey of Battle. He ordered 
 all the charters to be carefully preserved. 
 
 De Luci resumed his pleading, and skilfully 
 identified the privileges of the abbey with the 
 royal authority. It was the king's own free chapel, 
 and the pledge of his royal crown. He appealed 
 to the pride and self-interest at once of the foreign 
 king and the Norman lords. The abbey was called 
 the Abbey of Battle, because there the battle was 
 fought by the illustrious William, and the victory 
 gained, to which King Henry owed his crown, 
 " and we, the Normans, our greatest possessions." 
 
 When he ceased, the barons took up a cry in 
 
 * Rymer, at date. 
 
8o 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 The barons which they were so much interested. The king, 
 
 shout their . 
 
 assent. they said, will maintain the abbey as he would his 
 crown. The king declared that the abbey should 
 lose none of its privileges. He would confer with 
 the bishop, and arrange matters peaceably. 
 DeLucion In this, apparently, he failed. The court sat 
 Kng n Hsh a in d again, after a few days' adjournment, and De Luci 
 
 England. . 111 
 
 resumed his argument, and dwelt yet more strongly 
 upon the wide distinction between the two peoples 
 of the land. He prayed the king, in the name of 
 the assembled Norman nobles, and for the stand- 
 ing assertion of his own supremacy and of theirs, 
 to maintain the privileges of the abbey against all 
 adversaries, and especially, and with all the royal 
 authority, against the plots of the English people. 
 
 This appeal to the king, in an assembly of Nor- 
 man-French and English people, is sufficient, if it 
 stood alone, to impose upon the incidental state- 
 ment concerning the two races, already referred to, 
 the limited signification that no precise line of 
 separation could be drawn between the French 
 and the English. That is true ; nevertheless they 
 were, most of them, wide of the dubious line, and 
 regarded themselves as two peoples still. 
 Answer of After the speech of De Luci, the chancellor 
 
 Bishop 
 
 Hilary. called upon Bishop Hilary for his answer. Hilary 
 was not a man of discreet speech, and soon en- 
 tangled himself in a question between the Church's 
 jurisdiction and the king's. He magnified the 
 
The Case of Battle Abbey. 
 
 81 
 
 authority of bishops : " No bishop could be deposed 
 from his office without the permission of the prince 
 of the apostles." The king interrupted him : 
 " True, he cannot be deposed ; but," and he held 
 out his hands, " by outstretched hands he can be 
 expelled." There was laughter. The bishop, 
 however, held to his position, and went on to deny 
 the right even of a king to confer liberties and 
 dignities on churches without confirmation by the 
 pope. 
 
 The king got angry, and desired Hilary to sub- it offends 
 
 the Icing- 
 
 mit himself to correction for his crafty attack on 
 the royal prerogative, charging the archbishop and 
 the bishops to do justice upon him. 
 
 Loud murmurs ensued and lasted for some time. 
 Then the bishop, reminded by the chancellor of 
 his oath of obedience to the king, disclaimed all 
 intention of disobedience, and endeavoured to 
 appease the king with flattering words. He was 
 roughly repulsed, but was allowed to resume his 
 argument. 
 
 During the reign of Stephen, he said, the abbot 
 had paid him all due obedience. He had received 
 him, as was due to his bishop ; had entertained 
 him hospitably, and had made him gifts at his 
 departure. " For which," interposed Henry of 
 Essex, "you are making him an ungracious return. 
 It won't encourage others to show you hospitality." 
 
 Hilary went on to allege that the abbot's con- 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 duct was changed after the death of the Bishop of 
 London ; insinuating, it was understood, that the 
 abbot had been a candidate for the vacant see, and 
 suspected the bishop of injuring his prospects of 
 the succession. He concluded by entreating the 
 king to decide the matter in accordance with the 
 customs of the Church. 
 
 The king expressed his displeasure that the 
 bishop had spoken lightly of charters of the kings, 
 his predecessors. " Far be it from me, far from 
 the excellency of my kingdom, that what I shall 
 decree, upon mature consideration, with the advice 
 of my archbishops, bishops, and barons, should be 
 called in question by you, or any like you." 
 
 The abbot briefly replied, again exhibiting the 
 original charter, which the bishop declared he had 
 never seen or heard of till now. The abbot would 
 have proceeded, but Henry stopped him : it was 
 not for him, but for himself, to defend the claims of 
 the abbey as his own prerogative. The decision of 
 the matter was with the king himself. 
 a tumult A desultory conversation ensued, and lasted for 
 
 stayed by 
 
 De Lud. some time, till De Luci prayed the king that the 
 abbot might be allowed to take counsel with his 
 friends. The king assented, and went to hear Mass, 
 while De Luci withdrew with the abbot, the Arch- 
 bishop of York, the chancellor, and several others. 
 
 The chan- ]yf ass over, Henry resumed his seat, and the chan- 
 cellor pleads J 
 
 cellor came forward to speak. Great attention, we 
 
 the abbot's 
 case. 
 
The Case of Battle Abbey. 
 
 83 
 
 are told, was paid by all, while he made his eloquent 
 speech. The purport of it appears to be, not only 
 that the privileges of the abbey should be main- 
 tained, but that Bishop Hilary should be punished 
 and humiliated for putting Church authority in 
 opposition to the royal prerogative, and for bring- 
 ing papal letters into the kingdom without the 
 king's knowledge and consent. 
 
 The chancellor begins with courteous answer to 
 the bishop, relying principally upon the original 
 charter of the abbey. Then adverting to some 
 incidental facts, he is more severe. The abbot, he 
 says, never suspected him of any ill service con- 
 cerning the see of London ; but the guilty person 
 thinks all things are against him, and perhaps the 
 bishop's conscience of ill service has led him to see 
 the abbot in a false light. 
 
 To an assertion of the bishop that King Stephen 
 had summoned them upon the case, and that the 
 abbot failed to appear, a flat denial is given. The 
 abbot did, on the day appointed, appear before the 
 king and several witnesses, whose names are given. 
 They can certify to his appearance, and to the 
 king's promise of protection. 
 
 The bishop now alleges that he excommunicated 
 the abbot : but he had not treated him as excom- 
 municate. On the contrary, when, in the first year 
 of the king's reign, they attended Mass together, 
 and the king was present, in Westminster Abbey, 
 
34 
 
 Thomas Bcckct. 
 
 Hilary received the Pax to kiss and handed it, first 
 to the king, and then to his neighbour the abbot, 
 thereby signifying that he gave him the kiss of 
 peace, as a son of the Church and a good Christian. 
 
 This was a hard hit for Hilary. " If in that," he 
 replied, " I acted ignorantly or inadvertently, the 
 fault is mine. I will confess it to the archbishop, 
 and do whatever penance he imposes." 
 
 Then, after another quiet allusion to the ratifica- 
 tion of the abbey charter by Archbishop Lanfranc, 
 and the prelates and nobles of the time, he returns 
 to the attack. The bishop complains that the 
 abbot entered his chapter-house of Chichester with 
 haughty and contentious bearing. " Not so," he 
 answers ; " he came under compulsion, and con- 
 Hilary had ducted himself peaceably. Your two deans of 
 
 obiained a 
 
 popes bull Lewes and Hastings, with five priests, came to him 
 
 in his favour 
 
 at Battle with a letter of Pope Adrian, which you 
 had obtained, summoning him to appear on a 
 certain day in the cathedral of Chichester, to hear 
 the pope's commands. The king was abroad at 
 the time, and the abbot could not submit the 
 summons to him, and take his pleasure upon it. 
 Therefore, upon the advice of the archbishop and 
 his own friends, he presented himself on the day 
 appointed, and entered the chapter-house to hear 
 the pope's commands, in the presence of the 
 messengers you had sent to him. Your clergy 
 then and there endeavoured to put constraint upon 
 
TJie Case of Battle Abbey. 
 
 85 
 
 him, to induce him to an act which would have 
 been derogatory to the royal authority " (to sign a 
 profession of obedience to the Bishop of Chichester). 
 " This he refused to do : and he withdrew, and 
 made everything known to the king." 
 
 Hereupon the king's countenance was altered, which e.*- 
 
 asperates 
 
 "The form of his visage was changed." "What, the king, 
 he said, " is it the fact, that you obtained this letter, 
 as we have heard ? By the faith you owe me, and 
 your oath upon it, I insist that you give me a 
 truthful answer to this question." 
 
 The bishop was evidently alarmed by the royal Hilary de- 
 
 , , T T 1 1 1 1 1 • n ' eS h ' S 
 
 words and countenance. He declared, by his 
 sworn fealty, that it was not he who obtained the 
 papal letter, nor any one else with his knowledge. 
 The abbot himself had brought it in. He had sent 
 one of his monks to Rome, to defame his bishop. 
 " But I am well known to all the members of the 
 curia. My honour and my integrity are not un- 
 known to the dwellers at Rome. The abbot could 
 not possibly injure me there by his defamation. 
 The result was, he brought down the pope's letter 
 upon himself." 
 
 "A mighty strange thing," the king interposed, 
 "that the abbot should have brought in the pope's 
 letters against himself and his church." 
 
 At the same point of Hilary's speech, the arch- 
 bishop, who knew that Hilary had procured the 
 letter in question, devoutly crossed himself, in 
 
86 
 
 Tliomas Bccket. 
 
 The arch- 
 bishop 
 claims to 
 decide. 
 
 The king 
 himself will 
 decide. 
 
 Mode of 
 proceeding. 
 
 deprecation of Divine judgment upon the audacious 
 
 falsehood. 
 
 The chancellor went on : The king was not 
 only resolved to know the truth of the letter which 
 the abbot had had, but required Bishop Hilary to 
 produce any other papal letters, injurious to the 
 Abbey of Battle, which he might hold, or others 
 for him. 
 
 The bishop replied, upon oath, to the amazement 
 of all, that he had no papal letters whatever to the 
 detriment of the abbot or church of Battle, pro- 
 cured either by himself or any other person for 
 him. 
 
 Hereupon, the archbishop asked the king's per- 
 mission that they should consider and determine 
 the matter by the judicial procedure of ecclesias- 
 tical custom. 
 
 " Not so," the king said : " I will not ask you to 
 decide these questions. I will take your advice 
 and assistance, in open council, and will myself 
 give the final decision." 
 
 He rose, as he so said, and went out with the 
 whole council, except the bishop and abbot, into 
 the monks' churchyard. After a consultation there, 
 he sent for the bishop. Further discussion ensued, 
 of which apparently the chronicler has no particular 
 information ; but the tenor of it is plain from what 
 follows. 
 
 The Earl of Essex was sent to bring in the 
 
The Case of Battle Abbey. 
 
 87 
 
 abbot and his monks. As soon as they were placed, 
 the king gave a sign to the bishop, who rose and 
 made declaration before all, that he acknowledged Hilary i; 
 the church of Battle to be a royal chapel, over humbled 
 which he had and ought to have no jurisdiction, 
 and to be free and quit of every claim he had 
 alleged over it ; that he absolved the abbot, and 
 had exceeded his rightful powers in excommuni- 
 cating him ; and that, considering the pre-eminent 
 dignity of him and his church, he neither could 
 claim, nor ought to have demanded anything from 
 him, except of kindness and goodwill : and he 
 made his public declaration, that from that day 
 forward and for ever, the abbot was free of all 
 bishop's claims and customs. 
 
 "And this," the king added, "it is understood 
 you do and declare, under no compulsion, but 
 of your own free will." 
 
 " Yes ; of my own free will, right and reason so 
 compelling, I so do and declare." 
 
 Then the archbishop, praying the king's pardon 
 for whatever the bishop had spoken unadvisedly 
 against his royal authority, entreated him to give the 
 bishop the kiss of peace. " I forgive him all," he 
 said, " and for your prayers and love, I will give 
 him, not once but a hundred times, the kiss of 
 peace ! " He rose and embraced Hilary, and kissed 
 him. Then, upon the archbishop's intercession 
 and at the king's command, the kiss of peace was 
 
88 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 exchanged between the bishop and the abbot, and 
 between the bishop and the justiciar. 
 
 All parties pretended to be satisfied : evidently 
 the king was; and in this transaction we see him 
 at his best, when things went in accordance with 
 his wish and will. 
 Significance The proceedings of this council, and of some 
 proceedings, others in the life of Becket, give us an insight into 
 the great councils convoked by Henry, from time to 
 time, of which, generally, we know little or nothing, 
 except the decrees issued in his name and theirs. 
 They consisted of lords clerical and lay, and other 
 chief tenants of the king, or as many of them as 
 he chose to summon ; for he could always con- 
 stitute the assembly as he thought proper. Opinions 
 were freely expressed ; too freely, when they were 
 in accordance with his will and pleasure. To ex- 
 press opposite opinions brought insult and humi- 
 liation to the speaker ; and, we shall see, worse 
 consequences, if they were persisted in. 
 
 The claim of Archbishop Theobald to decide 
 a question of Church franchises according to eccle- 
 siastical custom, was overruled, we have seen, by 
 the king's word. He was always ready — it implied 
 no depth of policy — to assert his personal supre- 
 macy. But there were, in this case, special reasons 
 for the king's personal jurisdiction. 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THOMAS ARCHBISHOP. 
 
 Archbishop Theobald was not likely to be well 
 pleased with the conduct of the chancellor in the 
 case of Battle Abbey. His action concerning the 
 scutage money gave offence to many churchmen. 
 And these were not his only faults. A short time 
 before his death, Theobald even threatened to ex- 
 communicate the chancellor. 
 
 It would appear thatwhateverwere Becket's merits 
 in other respects, Theobald and Henry of Winchester Churchmen 
 
 , . . , . , . . ' , . disappointed 
 
 had counted too much upon him as a churchman, m Kecket. 
 It was not that he was changed in himself by his 
 change of masters. In either service, he was no 
 churchman in any professional sense of the word. 
 In both of them he was a faithful servant : but 
 he could hold his own, where it was right and neces- 
 sary ; for he did so with the king. Sometimes, 
 as we have seen, he was able to frustrate an impul- 
 sive outbreak. That he always succeeded is not 
 likely. But we have evidence, in more than one 
 
go 
 
 Thomas Bcckct. 
 
 instance, that even when chancellor, he persisted 
 in opposition to the king, where he believed him 
 to be wrong. 
 
 a s chan- It is remarkable that the few instances we have, 
 
 cellor he had 
 
 deferences [ n which he strove and failed, are in matters con- 
 
 with the ' 
 
 king. cerning the Church ; and we shall find that his 
 conduct upon them, when he was chancellor, is 
 entirely in accordance with his conduct upon simi- 
 lar questions when he became archbishop. 
 
 One instance of his opposition to the king and 
 his failure, was the marriage of Mary, a daughter 
 of King Stephen. She was Abbess of Ramsey, 
 when Henry gave his consent to her marrying a 
 younger son of the Earl of Flanders, with the 
 county of Blois for her portion. The chancellor 
 1160. opposed the marriage. It took place, however, 
 after she had been got away surreptitiously ; and 
 Thomas had an enemy for life in Matthew, Earl 
 of Boulogne.* 
 
 In another instance of the kind, one more im- 
 portant, the king desisted for a time from his 
 purpose, but revived it against Thomas the arch- 
 bishop. It will be more conveniently considered 
 when it comes to the surface. 
 
 Death of Henry and his chancellor were on the terms of 
 
 Archbishop 
 
 Theobald, intimacy which had subsisted between them for 
 seven years, when Archbishop Theobald died ; 
 and it became necessary for the king to look out 
 • Matt. Paris, " Hist. Maj.," vol. ii. p. 216. 
 
A rchbishop: 
 
 91 
 
 for a new primate. The see remained vacant 
 for some time. Whatever the reason, twelve 
 months elapsed before it became known that 
 Thomas the chancellor was to succeed to it. Most 
 likely the account is true, which speaks of trans- 
 actions with the monks with that intention. 
 
 A few persons had conjectured, from the first, The arch- 
 bishop " de- 
 
 that he would be the man. He was the king's signate." 
 devoted servant — in the king's eyes (and there 
 were those who knew it) the one qualification for 
 the primacy. If Henry had known as much of 
 his chancellor as the chancellor knew of him, the 
 subsequent history of England would have been 
 different. 
 
 Henry knew well that the man he had selected An arbitrary 
 
 appoint- 
 tO be the head of the English Church, judged by m ent. 
 
 all the religious feelings and prejudices of the time, 
 was, of all his subjects, one of the least qualified 
 for the office. He was no Churchman. He was 
 not even a priest, and had never said Mass. He 
 had taken minor orders only to qualify for drawing 
 salaries from Church benefices. But fit or unfit, it 
 was the king's resolve to have a man for arch- 
 bishop who would be serviceable to himself. 
 
 His motives are mostly or quite intelligible. 
 
 He could rely upon Thomas, as the friend and The king's 
 supporter of his house in the succession. He had motlves ' 
 served him well in Stephen's reign, and had had 
 his son, the younger Henry, his pupil in his house. 
 
9 2 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 Henry could have the same confidence in him, 
 if any question should arise between the king and 
 the pope. Troublesome questions had arisen and 
 were likely to recur. In some of these, the papacy 
 was, at this time, almost at open war with the 
 empire. If the contention should reach England, 
 and it was possible, it would be important, if not 
 necessary, for the king's free action, to have the 
 archbishop with him. The Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury held an independent position, which made 
 him a formidable power, to be taken account of 
 even by the king. 
 
 An archbishop in opposition would be trouble- 
 some, and might be dangerous. Former arch- 
 bishops had sometimes been both troublesome and 
 dangerous ; but, with one or two exceptions, they 
 had all been monks. Thomas was no more a 
 monk than he was a priest. His whole life past 
 was far removed from either. Certainly he was 
 no monk : his manner of life was the reverse of 
 monkish. 
 
 Not only was he neither priest nor monk ; he 
 was wanting in what Churchmen required of all 
 men — a due regard and veneration for the authority 
 of the Church. His temper was secular, not eccle- 
 siastical. He had shown, on several occasions, a 
 carelessness of Church interests which had offended 
 Theobald. The king could, therefore, count upon 
 his support, under any apprehension of papal 
 
A rchbishop. 
 
 93 
 
 aggression or encroachment. For the moment, 
 the papacy was weak and divided ; and Pope 
 Alexander was more likely to be a solicitor for 
 Henry's help and support, than an aggressor upon 
 his royal rights : but that was a condition of things 
 not likely to last long. 
 
 There were also causes nearer home, urgent, in 
 the king's view, for having a pliant archbishop. 
 With Thomas for chancellor, he had sometimes 
 issued his arbitrary commands, touching the lives 
 and property of his subjects, without taking counsel 
 with anybody. When he called a council, it might 
 be a junto of lords selected by him, as it was at 
 Colchester. But the archbishop, of necessity, was 
 one ; and he led the bishops. When they met, the 
 king would hear their opinions, but reserved the 
 decision to himself, although it was called the reso- 
 lution "of the king and council." Becket had gone 
 decidedly with him and for the Abbot of Battle, 
 whose case was good, yet he winced under tyranny 
 in the mode of procedure. Writing, years after- 
 wards, to the pope, he says of the decision con- 
 cerning Battle Abbey, " It was so resolved by the 
 king and his council, but the council did not dare 
 to contradict his will on any point." * 
 
 To be absolute master of the kingdom, there Hischiel 
 
 motive. 
 
 remained one step to be taken, which no king had 
 
 * Letter dcxliii. Mis personal feeling of tyranny mingles with 
 his politic endeavour to have the pope's assistance. 
 
94 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 yet achieved. He must have the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury among his servants, as the chancellor 
 was. 
 
 The people of the realm had long since lost all 
 control over their own affairs. They threw it 
 away, long before the Xorman Conquest. 
 
 The Conquest, when it gave the spoils of England 
 to the conquerors, gave a despotic authority to 
 their captain. The lords of all the lands of the 
 kingdom, under constant apprehension, as De Luci 
 has told us, of the plots of the English, had 
 generally consulted for their common safety by 
 submissive concert with their leader, and had been 
 themselves the sufferers, when they attempted to 
 break loose. 
 
 The personal authority of the king was much 
 strengthened by the reaction from the anarchy of 
 Stephen's reign. The lords rushed into slavery. 
 They cringed to Henry as they had not done even 
 to his Norman ancestors. We shall come upon 
 abundant evidence of this fact. At least they 
 had chafed with rage, and meditated revolt, under 
 the boisterous mandates of the first Henry. In 
 the great councils, so-called (for the name of 
 council remained), of the second Henry, we shall 
 see that the lords of England gave their assent, 
 in pitiful subservience or coarse applause, to every 
 royal mandate. Not a man, save one, was left 
 among them, who could dare to utter an opinion 
 
A rchlrisJiop. 
 
 95 
 
 of his own, and to persist in it, against the royal 
 will. 
 
 Save one, and him the archbishop and primate 
 
 of the Church. 
 
 The Archbishop of Canterbury, from the earliest Indepen- 
 
 times, and whatever might be the method of his arch- 
 bishop's 
 
 promotion, was universally accredited with an position, 
 authority not derived from the king, and not de- 
 pendent upon him. As head of the Church, it 
 was both his right and his duty — and the nation 
 acknowledged the one and expected the other — 
 to stand always for truth and right, as a servant of 
 God, in the royal councils. In all the troubles and 
 changes of the past, he had never yielded the right 
 and had never lost it. 
 
 Consequently, to set the key-stone to his despot- Henry 
 
 • i wishes to 
 
 ism, to bring the kingdom under complete subser- repress it 
 vience to his will, the king must have an archbishop 
 who will be his servant — an archbishop after the 
 model of Thomas the chancellor. Thomas he 
 could have ; but Thomas the chancellor, no ! 
 Thomas Becket was far above that. 
 
 Henry knew well that the Primate of England 
 had never been the king's servant as the chancellor 
 was. Bishops had been kings' chancellors, but no 
 archbishop had held the office. He held a higher 
 commission than of the king ; he had always 
 claimed this, and all men acknowledged it. Henry 
 knew, or ought to have known, that an archbishop 
 
9 6 
 
 T/iomas Beckct. 
 
 who would be his servant in all things, as his chan- 
 cellor was, would degrade his office, and would 
 trample on every sacred duty. And he thought that 
 Becket was capable of doing this, and selected him 
 for the successor of Theobald, because he believed 
 it and expected it. 
 
 His knowledge of the man, with whose services 
 for seven years he had been so well satisfied, was 
 very superficial. He could not have had much 
 insight into character. There were others who saw 
 further into the mind of Thomas : it was said that 
 the king's mother, the empress, did, and that she cau- 
 tioned him. But he had resolved : it was his will. 
 
 It is not difficult, from what we know of the two 
 men, to read some of the feelings of Thomas also 
 when he heard of the royal decision, although not 
 so fully as we can the king's. He knew much 
 more of the man Henry than Henry knew of him. 
 Long and often he had looked him through. He 
 knew quite well why he was designated for arch- 
 bishop ; he knew what he was expected to do and 
 to be ; and he could hardly feel himself honoured 
 by the proposal. Still, the motives to it were no 
 reason for his refusal of the office, if he could 
 accept it with honour to himself, and hold it with 
 usefulness to the people of the realm. 
 
 It may be a question also, whether an absolute 
 refusal might not have been a resistance of the 
 royal will, which would have been resented. 
 
Archbishop. 
 
 97 
 
 In looking forward to the probable results of and pros- 
 pects in the 
 
 his promotion, he could not lose sight of Henry's office, 
 despotic instincts and his utter disregard of both law 
 and reason when he was in his fits of rage. Royal 
 acts of violence against person and property, which, 
 as chancellor, he had striven, by persuasion or 
 by stratagem, successfully or without success, to 
 hinder and counteract, were sure to break out 
 again when he should sit in council as archbishop, 
 and would be the only man there who was bound 
 to withstand them. As chancellor, if he strove 
 and failed, he had done his duty, and he had done 
 his best. It became his wisdom and his duty to 
 be silent. 
 
 But if he sat in council as archbishop his meri- 
 dian of duty would be altered. Royal outrages 
 against law he must then resist with all the autho- 
 rity of his office, and all the influence of the Church. 
 In the sight of wrong to the weak subject, he could 
 not sit in a silence which would be interpreted as 
 consent to it, or concurrence in it. He must 
 oppose it with all his might, although it were 
 almost to resist a madman armed with despotic 
 authority. 
 
 Could he fail, even thus early, to foresee that to 
 be consecrated archbishop would be the sacrifice of 
 all the world could give him, for a life of miserable 
 contention ? He knew that, if strife arose, and 
 arise it must, Henry was a man who could never 
 
 H 
 
9 8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 yield to opposition — could never allow it to be said 
 that he had given in. 
 
 W hether, with these thoughts, which could not 
 escape him, he was moved by any ambition for the 
 high dignity ; whether he was eager to gain the 
 higher dignity of personal freedom, and to throw 
 off his subservience to such a master, which must 
 often have stung him to the quick ; whether to be 
 lord of himself was not more to him than many 
 landed lordships ; whether he sought, at this time, 
 to do some work of God for men, rather than pos- 
 sess all that man could give him for himself — these 
 are questions between him and God, and we cannot 
 answer them. 
 
 But thus far it is certain. Although, as yet, he 
 might not anticipate the lengths to which the king 
 would be carried against an unyielding resistance, 
 yet he could expect nothing better, as archbishop, 
 than the troubles and exile which had fallen to 
 other archbishops when they came into collision 
 with the royal pleasure. 
 His efforts Whatever his feelings were when he learnt the 
 promotion, king's determination, we know something of his 
 acts. He called attention to his lay habiliments. 
 " A strange man, truly," he said, "you have chosen 
 for your archbishop : do I look like an arch- 
 bishop ? " If it was a question of dress, the answer 
 was apposite : — " It is easy to change your dress, 
 and look like an archbishop." More than this : 
 
Archbishop. 
 
 99 
 
 he plainly cautioned the king that his promotion 
 would put an end to their friendship, and make 
 them enemies. He knew, he said, that the king 
 would make demands to which, as archbishop, he 
 could not consent. Already in Church affairs the 
 king had shown a disposition to measures which 
 he could never submit to.* He avowed his fear 
 that, if he became archbishop, he must either sin 
 against God or give offence to the king. 
 
 If this account of what he said may be exactly 
 relied on (and it will have confirmation), it would 
 appear that he had already disapproved of some 
 projects affecting the Church, and therefore, as 
 they were not pressed, had most likely averted 
 them. At all events, his objection to them had 
 been no secret. 
 
 His remonstrances had no effect : he was to be 
 the new primate. The fact is, the chancellor had 
 managed the king too well. He had allowed him 
 to believe that he was managing the chancellor ; 
 and Henry had such confidence in himself, that 
 he felt sure of holding him under his hand as 
 archbishop. He was confident that Becket was 
 the man he wanted ; and, with utter disregard of 
 the highest interests of his people, and of the out- 
 raged feelings of all classes of them, he resolved 
 that the monks of Christ Church should elect him, 
 and the bishops confirm the election. 
 
 * Herb. Bos., iii. I. 
 
IOO 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 He thought he had the one man of all England, 
 who would work with him and under him : he 
 had one of few who would have resisted him 
 perhaps the only one who could do it effectually. 
 
 Having said all that honour and duty called 
 for, Thomas awaited the event in silence. It may 
 have helped him to a decision, that he would enter 
 upon the office with the approbation of the highest 
 authority of " the Church." A pope's legate, Car- 
 dinal Henry of Pisa, who had known him at Rome, 
 urged him to comply with the king's wishes, and 
 to accept the promotion. He was believed, in fact, 
 to have persuaded him, when he shrunk from it. 
 Koyai The king was abroad during the vacancy of the 
 
 mission to . _ 
 
 canterbury, see, which had lasted a little more than twelve 
 months, when a royal commission, consisting of 
 De Luci the justiciar, three bishops, and the 
 Abbot of Battle, arrived at Canterbury. Their 
 purpose was to secure the canonical election of 
 the king's nominee, which, by ancient custom, 
 rested with the prior and monks of the cathedral. 
 The archbishop was their abbot, and the king 
 could not appoint abbot or archbishop without 
 their concurrence. It was necessary either to per- 
 suade them or to coerce them. More recently, the 
 bishops of the province had claimed a voice in the 
 appointment ; and their claim helped the king and 
 was encouraged. Bishops were apt to be more 
 compliant than monks ; and, at any rate, in a case 
 
A rchbishop. 
 
 101 
 
 of obstinacy, he could play off the one against the 
 other. 
 
 The commission summoned the monks to as- Dealings 
 
 , with the 
 
 semble in their chapter-house, where De Luci, as monks of 
 
 r ' ' Christ 
 
 spokesman, made known to them the royal con- Church, 
 descension. " The sheep of the Church must no 
 longer be endangered by lack of a pastor. The 
 king acknowledged and conceded to them their 
 full and entire freedom of election ; but on con- 
 dition that they elected a worthy and competent 
 man, one who would be at unity with him. Tliat, 
 above all things, was important. They knew well 
 that the king's first desire in the matter was the 
 honour of God, and the advantage of holy Church. 
 What mischiefs might arise to souls, what public 
 troubles, what loss of goods (he meant worldly 
 goods) to themselves, if the king and the arch- 
 bishop should be at strife ! " 
 
 Cogent argument from both worlds ! 
 The prior withdrew to consult with his elder Action of 
 brethren, and they prudently resolved that it was and monk- 
 important, first of all, to learn the king's wishes ; 
 and that, for this purpose, they must consult his 
 commissioners. Enlightened upon the royal plea- 
 sure, they invoked the Holy Spirit of God to guide 
 their deliberations, and declared themselves moved 
 by that Divine influence to elect the king's chan- 
 cellor, Thomas, to be their abbot and archbishop. 
 Some of them, for a time, were otherwise moved. 
 
102 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 To elect a secular and a king's minister to the 
 primacy was going beyond the accustomed rules 
 of the comedy. But the malcontents were silenced, 
 by some means ; and the chapter declared itself 
 unanimous. 
 
 And of the The convent gained to this outrage on reason 
 and conscience, this ancient and venerable hypo- 
 crisy, the commissioners proceeded to obtain the 
 concurrence of the bishops. For this purpose they 
 summoned the prior and his brethren to London, 
 to a council of all the bishops and abbots of the 
 kingdom, with the earls and barons and king's 
 officials. They attended ; and the prior declared 
 before the assembly that, inspired by the Holy 
 Spirit, he and his monks had elected Thomas the 
 chancellor to be archbishop. The commissioners 
 bore witness to the election, and praised the virtues 
 of the archbishop-elect. All concurred, with joy- 
 ful thanks to God, except one dissentient, Gilbert 
 Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, who made unreasonable 
 objection, and inconveniently declared the real 
 source of the inspiration. " The king," he mock- 
 ingly said, " has done a marvellous thing ; he has 
 converted a secular and a soldier into an arch- 
 bishop." He had to be silenced ; and it was not 
 done without a threat of exile to himself and all 
 his relations. " The lion hath roared, who will 
 not fear ? " That was his own excuse. Two years 
 and a little more, and Foliot will be angry with 
 
A rchbishop. 
 
 103 
 
 the man he despises, because he hears the lion roar 
 more loudly, and is not afraid. 
 
 Gilbert Foliot will come back many times in our Bishop 
 
 Foliot. 
 
 narrative. A foreigner, originally a monk of Cluny, 
 he was highly esteemed by his own fraternity, for 
 his learning and conduct, both as abbot and bishop ; 
 and for his ascetic life, for he abstained from both 
 wine and flesh. He was also the king's confessor, 
 by special appointment of the pope. Beyond his 
 fraternity, the opinions of him were various. The 
 Icelandic historian of Becket writes of Foliot : " He 
 was a man of high kin, and a great clerk, keen of 
 speech, but of middling uprightness in his dealings." 
 Constrained by fear, he went over to the majority, 
 and to the master, and had the reward of men who 
 know when to bow. The next year, we find the 
 king, the archbishop, and the pope, all desiring him, 
 by their letters, to be translated from Hereford to 
 the important see of London.* 
 
 Henry, the king's son, was present at this council. 
 He had been called the young king, since he 
 received the homage of the barons. Bishop Henry 
 of Winchester made demand, before him and the 
 council, that the new archbishop should enter 
 upon his office, acquitted of all secular obligations, 
 not liable to be called to account for moneys that 
 had passed through his hands as chancellor, but 
 absolutely free to employ the fruits of his new 
 
 * Letters xvi.-xviii. 
 
104 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Full dis- office, in the discharge of its duties.* If any 
 
 charge of al! ' 
 
 claims upon accounts were to be called for, let them be called 
 
 the new 
 
 archbishop. f or n ow \ if there was anything against him, or 
 suspicion of anything, now was the time. He 
 appealed to the young king. 
 
 There was nothing. Now and for ever he was 
 acquitted in full of all obligations, on the word of 
 a king. It was so declared by king's officers ; for 
 the father had sent his word in writing, that what- 
 ever was done in his son's presence he would 
 confirm. A discharge of this kind was nothing 
 unusual. The head of a religious house could not 
 be promoted to another without it : and for obvious 
 reasons. 
 
 Thomas, then, was to be archbishop. It was 
 already an event in the history of England. If 
 he was not an Englishman by extraction, he was 
 the first by birth, since the Norman Conquest, to 
 ascend the primate's throne. 
 Ordained He was ordained priest in Rochester Cathedral 
 J^z.'' on Friday, 1st of June ; and, the day following, he 
 arrived at Canterbury, attended by a great company 
 of monks and clergy, and was met by a crowd of 
 bishops, abbots, and nobles, amidst the joyful shouts 
 of an innumerable concourse of people, 
 consecrated On the Sunday, they conducted him to the 
 cathedral, where, amid public rejoicings, with tears, 
 and not of joy, he knelt under the hands of the 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 25 ; Grim, c. 16 ; Rog. Pont., c. 20. 
 
Archbishop. 
 
 105 
 
 Bishop of Winchester, and was consecrated a 
 bishop. The young king Henry and the justiciar 
 De Luci were present. It was the octave of 
 Whitsunday, and the Church of England celebrates 
 his consecration to this day, without intending it ; 
 for the festival of Trinity Sunday, in the English 
 calendar, was of his institution* 
 
 Messengers were despatched to the pope, Alex- 
 ander III., then in exile at Montpelier, and they 
 brought back his confirmation of the election and 
 the customary pall. 
 
 The contemporary biographers dwell, with eager- Reputed 
 
 1 * change of 
 
 ness, on what they call the change in his manner life, 
 of life after his consecration. They are perfectly 
 honest : none the less so because they seldom look 
 beneath the surface. Yet they can tell us of no 
 real change, except in outward things, of as little 
 importance as a change of dress. We have stories 
 of flagellations and hair shirts, and even incredible 
 tales of dirt and vermin. We see there is some 
 truth in ascetic practices, strange to our age, 
 believed in that, to be conducive to the holy life of 
 individual souls. With such things history has 
 nothing to do. They may be dismissed with the 
 endless tales of miracles, which some of the 
 biographers gathered and recorded and believed. 
 We must either pass over tales of wonders and 
 miracles, while we receive the narratives of ordinary 
 
 * Gervase, i. 17 1. 
 
io6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 facts by the same writers, or we must throw aside 
 their writings altogether ; and then the history of 
 England, for centuries, becomes a blank. We 
 know nothing of it, but from monks, all of them 
 superstitious ; who more or less interlard their 
 records of events with incredible tales and wonders. 
 In most cases, we have little difficulty in winnow- 
 ing off the light fable from the more solid fact. 
 Superficial. That the stories of change in his manner of life, 
 when he became archbishop, do not signify very 
 much, is confirmed by such incidental admissions, 
 as that even the outward change of dress,* which 
 custom required, was not accomplished without the 
 remonstrances of friends, and from apologies for 
 his omission to say Mass every day.f Whatever 
 may be thought of the stories of his hair shirts, it 
 can hardly be doubtful that the monks were 
 offended to see him, when archbishop, attending 
 the services of the Church in a secular dress.J 
 
 A careful attention to the various narratives tends 
 to the inference, counter to some vague assertions, 
 that there was no material change, either in the man 
 or in any professions or pretensions. Thomas the 
 archbishop was the same essentially with Thomas 
 the chancellor, Thomas the secretary, Thomas the 
 clerk of accounts, Thomas the London boy. 
 
 We have accounts of his blameless life from his 
 
 * Rog. Pont., c. 24. t Herb. Bos., iii. 13. 
 
 % Grim, c. 17. 
 
Archbishop. 
 
 107 
 
 youth which are credible, because we find no breath 
 from enemies of any imputation to the contrary. 
 In his private life, there was no change ; because 
 there was need of none. In his early days, he was 
 not driven into vice by the jeers of companions in 
 the schools of Paris ; and, when he was chancellor, 
 he would take part with the king in horse-play, but 
 eluded his attempts to trick him into a participation 
 in his own loose habits.* 
 
 As archbishop and as chancellor, all accounts In things 
 
 important 
 
 agree that he was a strict and righteous administrator ™ change, 
 of justice. They tell us, what we expect from his 
 life and character, that in his courts justice was not 
 to be bought with money, and was not perverted 
 by gifts. t No officer under him took gifts. And 
 that was some ages before it was prohibited in the 
 king's courts to take money from suitors. In this 
 reign, and in others before and after it, it was the 
 first purpose of the royal courts to make money by 
 the administration of justice, f It was the anxious 
 care of the king, and the manifest purpose of 
 rigorous laws and ordinances, to secure all the 
 money to himself, and not to have it shared with 
 him by archdeacons, sheriffs, or other officers. 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. II. t Herb. Bos., iii 14. 
 
 X Some years after this was written, the writer was surprised by 
 a passage to the same effect in Dr. Stubbs's Constitutional History, 
 i. 387 : "Under the Norman kings, it was mainly for the sake of 
 the profits that justice was administered at all." A gleam of latent 
 history in a footnote, and not the only one ! 
 
io8 
 
 Thomas Bcckct. 
 
 The influence of powerful men had no more 
 weight in the courts of Becket, chancellor or arch- 
 bishop, than the money of suitors. " Against the 
 injustice and insolence of the powerful he was an 
 impregnable tower. No prayers or letters of the 
 king could draw him to show favour against 
 justice." * In that regard, he was, what he had 
 always been, a righteous man, although not exactly 
 according to the accepted standards. There was 
 always something out of the common way in his 
 religion and manner of life, as they appeared to 
 his intimate friends. They fail to find in him the 
 saintly characteristics they look for. They speak 
 of his piety as of the rational and useful kind. 
 " Reason was his guiding queen." \ " Under the 
 guidance of reason, he was virtuous." So writes 
 his biographer, who knew him best ; and he adds, 
 " His chief virtues were prudence, justice, fortitude, 
 temperance." He tells us also, what we are so 
 often told of him, " He was a comforter of the 
 oppressed, a husband of widows, a protector of 
 orphans." " His archbishop's house had food for 
 the homeless and poor, and winter garments for 
 many. He took delight in visiting and conversing 
 with his sick monks.'' 
 
 He is the reputed saint of the Roman Church ; 
 and we find that his ideal of the Christian religion 
 and his practice of it were not those of Latin 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 28. f Ibid. 
 
Archbishop. 
 
 109 
 
 Christianity. They are not shown in observances 
 of ceremony or ritualism, in priestly authority, or 
 in forms of belief. They are more after the teach- 
 ing and example of the Author of the Christian 
 religion Himself. They look for the higher life 
 to come, through the melioration of things on 
 earth. 
 
 It was not long before the archbishop found His first 
 
 , . ..... . , measures as 
 
 himself involved in dissensions with the king, as he archbishop, 
 had foreseen and foretold. They arose, as was to 
 be expected, on questions of purely secular interest. 
 
 During the hundred years since the Conquest, 
 during the years of regulated plunder, still more 
 during the later years of riot, the churches had 
 been despoiled by powerful neighbours, although 
 they suffered lightly compared with the old land- 
 owners. The church of Canterbury was no ex- 
 ception. In the early inquiries into its possessions, 
 which, in duty to the see and in prudence for him- 
 self every new incumbent is bound to make, 
 Thomas found upon his entry that lands and 
 lordships had been alienated from it, partly by 
 violence, partly by wrongful grant. It was an ac- 
 knowledged right, and would in many cases be a 
 duty, to reclaim the lost estates; and he had asked 
 and obtained the king's consent to the proceedings, 
 more onerous than pleasant, which might be 
 necessary. There was nothing singular in his con- 
 duct. The king had rescinded the grants of his 
 
I 10 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 predecessor. The abbot of Battle reclaimed and 
 recovered in this reign lands and churches of his 
 abbey, which had been taken from it during the 
 troubled times before ; and, there can be little 
 doubt, similar claims were enforced all over the 
 kingdom. We should never have heard of any 
 such claims of the archbishop, if there had been no 
 subsequent quarrel with the king. 
 
 Besides these facts, which prejudice has too 
 much overlooked, it may almost be taken for 
 granted that a man like Becket would have a 
 purpose in such proceedings, beyond the particular 
 aggressions upon his church. The ruin of the 
 English people was the fruit of ages of encroach- 
 ment by the strong upon the weak. Long before 
 the Norman Conquest, by violent seizures and by 
 the chicanery of " commendation " to one lord as 
 the price of his protection against all others, the 
 English lords had grown greater and greater, 
 diminishing in numbers, while they added house 
 to house, and field to field, vill to vill, and honour 
 to honour. It might well appear to such a man, 
 reared as he had been in times of violence, and 
 prone as he was to instinctive anger at the crimes 
 of the strong against the weak, that, if the authority 
 of his high office was to be of any use to the people 
 of England, it must be seen and felt as a power 
 that could put a check upon the frauds and 
 violence of the great. 
 
A rchbishop. 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 Of the wisdom of his efforts in particular claims 
 it would be difficult even at the time to speak 
 with confidence ; it is impossible now. In such 
 cases everything depends on circumstances known 
 to few and soon forgotten. He gave offence, as 
 was to be expected, both to usurping lords and to 
 others who had cause for sympathy with them. It 
 may appear, perhaps, that there was something 
 unfortunate in some of his proceedings ; and he 
 may have shown, he often did, a certain vehemence 
 of temper, not saint-like, and not advantageous to 
 his case in hand, which a less ardent nature would 
 have controlled. He often put no curb upon what 
 was either a very bold or a very ungovernable 
 tongue. 
 
 The castle and honour of Tonbridge, which heciaimtc 
 claimed as belonging to the see of Canterbury, lonbrid ' 
 were held by Lord Clare, a man connected with 
 most of the great families, and, what was more 
 unfortunate, whose sister, said to be the most 
 beautiful woman of the kingdom, had attracted the 
 admiration of King Henry. The archbishop may 
 have scorned to take account of such things, but 
 they would have their weight when Lord Clare 
 made his complaint to the king. 
 
 Another complaint was made by William of Heexco 
 Eynesford, lord of that manor. The archbishop akfn?s 
 
 tenant. 
 
 appointed a parson of Eynesford, and William, 
 claiming the right of presentation himself, drove 
 
I 12 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 out the archbishop's nominee and his people. The 
 archbishop immediately excommunicated him, and 
 in so doing trespassed beyond his lawful powers, 
 according to the laws of the Norman kings ; be- 
 cause William was a tenant-in-chief of the king 
 who claimed a right of notice and consent to such 
 excommunication.* He sent the archbishop his 
 commands to give his tenant immediate absolution. 
 Thomas replied that it did not appertain to the 
 king to say whom he should either absolve or 
 excommunicate ; but when he heard that Henry 
 was getting angry he did absolve the knight. Too 
 late, however ; Henry was heard to say that he 
 owed him no thanks. It appears difficult in this 
 case, according to the accounts we have, to defend 
 the action of Becket as altogether prudent. But 
 there is something to be said on the other side ; 
 and it is not easy to be confident in blaming 
 him. 
 
 He forbids Another offence, little known, it would appear, in 
 
 a marriage . . „ . . 
 
 of the king's England, is mentioned by some rrench writers. 
 
 brother. a J 
 
 The king's brother, William, who was not, like 
 Geoffrey, endowed by his father with any terri- 
 tories that Henry could covet for himself, and was 
 in better favour with him, would have provided for 
 himself by marrying the Countess of Warenne, a 
 rich widow. Becket opposed the marriage, on the 
 ground, it would appear, that they were too nearly 
 * Diceto, i. p. 312. 
 
ArchbisJiop. 
 
 113 
 
 related, and it did not take place. It has been 
 inferred that there was some enmity between 
 William and the archbishop, and that the king 
 was much offended ; but there is little evidence 
 of either inference, none whatever that the offence 
 was serious or lasting, or was at all likely to be. 
 
 Henry was in Normandy when he received the 
 complaints of the archbishop's proceedings and, He resigns 
 
 the office of 
 
 about the same time or perhaps sooner,* his resig- chancellor, 
 nation of the office of chancellor. This step was 
 more likely than anything yet to try his patience. 
 He neither wished nor expected it, and would have 
 taken some trouble to hinder it. But the resigna- 
 tion came to him in a manner which gave him 
 no opportunity of remonstrance. Thomas alleged,, 
 as his reason, that he was not equal to one of 
 the offices, much less to both. The king showed 
 his displeasure, but as yet there was no serious 
 quarrel. 
 
 Upon the complaints brought to him, one after 
 another, he deferred consideration till his return to 
 England, which took place soon after the Christmas 
 following. Bccket and his old pupil, the younger 
 Henry, awaited him at Southampton, where they 
 met, to all appearance, on their old familiar terms, 
 although not without some signs of aggrieved 
 royalty. Yet they went together to Canterbury, 
 where the king was guest, and their prolonged 
 
 * Diceto, i. p. 307. 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 conversations seemed to show that their friendship 
 was as yet unbroken. It was evident that Henry 
 was willing to bear with much from Thomas in his 
 contentions with others, as long as he did not come 
 into direct antagonism with himself. 
 
( H5 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ROYAL TYRANNY THWARTED AT WOOD- 
 STOCK AND WESTMINSTER. 
 
 Up to this time, with the exception of pope and Becket's 
 
 great posi 
 
 kings, no man in Europe stood higher than Arch- tion - 
 bishop Thomas. He crossed the sea, nearly twelve 
 months after his consecration, to attend the Council 
 of Tours, convened by Pope Alexander. In his 
 route he was received everywhere with royal 
 honours. The king spent some days with him at Hitrecep 
 
 i m t tion by th 
 
 his manor of Romney, while he waited the wind, pope at 
 
 Tours, 
 
 The Earl of Flanders came to meet him at Grave- 1,6 3- 
 lines, where he landed. The Flemish nobles, the 
 lords of Normandy and Maine, vied with one 
 another in attendance upon him as he passed by. 
 On his approach to Tours, a few days before the 
 opening of the Council, the assembled ecclesiastics 
 and the population of the city poured forth to meet 
 him. Even the cardinals went with the crowd, 
 leaving only two of their college with the pope. 
 The pope himself, who rose from his chair only to 
 
n6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 royal persons, advanced to receive him in his 
 chamber. We have the account from one of his 
 attendants, his chaplain Herbert, of whom we shall 
 hear again. 
 
 No doubt the honours paid him were a recogni- 
 tion of the importance of the King of England, 
 in his support of Alexander against the anti-pope. 
 There and everywhere they were the highest 
 honours that could be paid to a subject. 
 
 In short, he held the greatest position except 
 the papacy attainable by any man in Europe, and 
 was in possession of all that life could give him. 
 Everything was his without fear of disturbance, if 
 he kept the king's grace. That is a condition 
 which galls few men even now. After some signs 
 of displeasure on matters of difference, the king 
 had still shown, not only his consent, but even his 
 anxiety that their old friendly relations should be 
 maintained. 
 
 His sudden Yet within a few months his greatness and all 
 
 •fall." S 
 
 his wealth had vanished. The king's intimate 
 companion, who by the royal self-will, in defiance 
 of the public feeling, in disregard of the public 
 welfare, had been forced upon the nation for its 
 archbishop, was denounced to all the world as the 
 king's enemy and a traitor, and was an exile, with 
 a crowd of fellow-exiles, in a foreign land, de- 
 pendent upon the charity of foreigners for their 
 bread. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 117 
 
 What was the cause of the sudden change ? 
 of what is commonly called, " a fall " so strange ? 
 
 One might have conjectured that Archbishop 
 Thomas must have given offence in some mighty 
 business of state, or moved the king's jealousy by 
 his splendid reception at Tours and on his way. 
 But there is no ground for any suspicion of the 
 kind, and nothing in the king's conduct to sug- 
 gest it. 
 
 The causes of rupture were of a much humbler The cause 
 
 of it. 
 
 kind, quite in keeping with all we know of the 
 two men, and quite sufficient for everything that 
 ensued. They broke out at what has been called 
 the Council of Woodstock. 
 
 It had become a custom for lords of estates to 1 "he sheriffs' 
 pay to the sheriffs of their counties a yearly cess of monfy. 
 two shillings on every hide of their land. What the 
 payment was for has been a question of some 
 difficulty ; the best account of it is to be gathered 
 from the biographies of Becket. That it was 
 universally regarded as a voluntary payment, does 
 not admit of question. The sheriffs collected cer- 
 tain royal revenues, with large discretionary powers. 
 Some of these consisted of fines incurred by various 
 offences, not only of any lord of lands, but also of his 
 servants or villagers. If one of these cut firewood 
 in his master's domain, upon land within the king's 
 forest laws, and without the supervision of a royal 
 forester, his lord was subject to a heavy fine. 
 
H8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 For the hidage money of two shillings, the 
 sheriffs, we are told, indemnified the lords against 
 fines incurred by their dependents. It appears 
 also, under the form of a compensation to those 
 officers for their public services, to have been, in 
 fact, an acknowledgement that they had used their 
 powers with moderation. It w r as thus a sort of 
 mutual insurance, both against the faults of the 
 villagers, and against undue severities of the 
 sheriffs. Any lord dissatisfied with the sheriffs 
 conduct might refuse to pay his hidage money. 
 
 This cess had fallen under the eye of the king. 
 While he computed how much two shillings a hide 
 from all the lands of the kingdom would add to 
 the revenues of his exchequer, he could not fail 
 to see that such a payment to the sheriffs must 
 "Council tend to diminish them. The result was that, at a 
 
 of Wood- 
 stock, Council held at Woodstock, he declared his inten- 
 
 1163. 
 
 tion, and expected it to pass unquestioned, to 
 have the two shillings a hide paid into the ex- 
 chequer as royal revenue, and no longer to the 
 sheriffs.* 
 
 Upon this, as on other occasions, Henry's action 
 has the good fortune of being directed against a 
 custom which can hardly be reconciled with good 
 government. But it was a custom, good or bad 
 in itself, useful, however, under the circumstances 
 of his age, and so regarded by his contemporaries. 
 
 * Rog. Pont. , c. 26 ; Grim, c. 23. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 And in this, as we shall see in most or all other 
 of what some writers have called his reforms, 
 the immediate effect, and sometimes the avowed 
 purpose of his action, was to increase his own 
 revenues at the expense of other people. On this 
 also, as on other occasions, whatever question may 
 arise as to the value of his desired change, there 
 can be none as to the manner in which he sought 
 to carry it out. At Woodstock, the Council were 
 addressed as the mere registrars of his will. 
 
 They felt themselves the victims of a flagrant 
 act of tyranny. Bishops and barons, alarmed at 
 the threatened conversion of a voluntary gift into 
 an oppresive tax, heard in silent amazement. 
 Every member of the Council had the right and 
 the power to speak out. All were silent, till the The arch- 
 
 bishop 
 
 one man spoke, who, with the right of a councillor, resists him. 
 was also under the duty to speak with the authority 
 of the archbishop, and felt himself obliged to say, 
 No! What we are told of his feelings is perfectly 
 credible, and is what we should expect of him. 
 " He was anxious that public wrong should not be 
 done through his silence." He answered temper- 
 ately, explaining the nature of the payment, and 
 argued that a voluntary gift to the sheriffs ought 
 not to go into the royal revenue as a compulsory 
 tax. 
 
 The king was presently in one of his storms of Hot word 
 wrath, and swore by his customary oath that the 
 
120 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 money should be reckoned for in his exchequer. 
 The archbishop then answered more decidedly ; 
 whether in anger or considerately, it is not easy 
 to say. His words have an angry sound, and he 
 may have spoken with heat, and still not without 
 consideration : " By the reverence due, my lord 
 and king, to the eyes by which you have sworn, 
 the money shall not be paid of land of mine, nor 
 one penny of it from any possession of the Church." 
 in season. That answer, in its bold defiance, from a man 
 whose first duty it was to be an example of 
 humility, was the answer which the times required. 
 It was that, whatever his ruling motive was. For 
 all things there is a season. It was the trumpet- 
 blast to the enchanted castle, beneath which all 
 else were dumb. If anybody but a priest had 
 spoken it, David Hume and the writers of history 
 after him would never have wearied of their praises. 
 It was the first resistance of arbitrary taxation, 
 the first clarion note of English freedom since the 
 foreign Conquest. The spirit which dictated it 
 awakened a national spirit. It led to Runnymede, 
 and many like things to follow. 
 
 In whatever temper the words were spoken ; 
 even if in heat, if they were the outbreak of long- 
 pent indignation under royal paroxysms, it is not 
 easy to say that they were in fault. They showed 
 a determination for active resistance, if it were 
 necessary ; and they were successful for their end. 
 
Rupture with the King. 121 
 
 The impost never came into the exchequer, and 
 there can be no doubt that these words hindered it. 
 
 But if the king did not sweep the hidage into 
 his own net, there is reason for doubting whether 
 it continued to be paid to the sheriffs. The alarm 
 would be likely to put an end to it, and an effective 
 restraint upon their arbitrary powers would be lost. 
 We have here, perhaps, an explanation of the loud 
 and general complaints of sheriffs' extortions which 
 ensued, and in n 70, upon the king's return to 
 England after an absence of four years, resulted 
 in the " Inquest of Sheriffs." 
 
 We shall come back to this ; we are now at 
 Woodstock. The bold answer of the archbishop 
 silenced the royal demand. Henry was struck 
 dumb by a resistance so unlooked for and so 
 unexampled. But he was not a man to sit down Retaliation 
 foiled. Beaten in one direction, he could double 
 in pursuit of his game. The powers of the primate 
 had curbed the royal power. The prelate's power 
 must be abated. 
 
 That was the view of the king's subsequent 
 conduct taken by the archbishop and his friends. 
 The recorded facts bear out their opinion, and will 
 show that it was substantially the true one. 
 
 It happened about the same time as the proceed- by the case 
 ings at Woodstock, that a canon of Bedford, Philip 
 de Broi by name, was tried in the court of the 
 Bishop of Lincoln for the manslaughter of a knight. 
 
122 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 It had been found that there was no evidence ; 
 and De Broi purged himself of the charge by his 
 oath, as in such a case he had by custom a right 
 to do. The dead man's relatives were satisfied, 
 and, by all known law and usage, the case was at 
 an end. 
 
 To a prisoner tried, acquitted, and discharged, 
 according to all the forms and customs of existing 
 law, nothing could be more unexpected than a 
 notice that he would be tried over again. Such 
 a notice was now served on De Broi.* He was 
 summoned by the sheriff of Bedford to appear 
 before the king's justices itinerant. A summons 
 so irregular could hardly have issued without 
 assurance that the king would maintain it, if, under 
 all the circumstances, we may not infer that it went 
 with his knowledge or by his command. De Broi 
 appeared, however, at Dunstable, and, naturally 
 enough, allowed himself to use insulting language 
 to the sheriff. That he did so tells for something 
 in the case. He could hardly have so ventured, if 
 he had not felt himself safe by all known rule. 
 His words were reported to the king, who took 
 them as an insult to himself, and angrily gave his 
 orders that a new trial in his court should proceed. 
 The arch- The archbishop once more stood forth against 
 
 bishop re- 
 sists again. hi m; anf j i n defence of the law. The royal com- 
 mand was not a mere infringement of Church 
 * Rog. Pont., c. 27. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 123 
 
 canons ; it was a violation of laws and customs of 
 the realm, long established and observed. 
 
 That the king's contention was a bad one, is Com- 
 
 0 promise. 
 
 certain from the fact that a middle course was 
 adopted, and that he reluctantly consented to it. 
 It was compromised, that a special court of bishops 
 and barons should be convened at Canterbury, 
 under the presidency of the archbishop, to investi- 
 gate the charges against the canon. 
 
 De Broi appeared again, and was again acquitted 
 of the main charge. He admitted his offensive 
 language to the sheriff, pleaded anger and expressed 
 his regret. 
 
 The king, in his angry moments, lost all sense of 
 dignity or generosity. He rejected the apology, 
 and insisted on the canon's punishment for the 
 offence he had acknowledged. The court com- 
 plied with his demand, and sentenced De Broi to Arbitrary 
 
 sentence 
 
 two years' banishment, and sequestration of his |^Y. the 
 canonry to the king. It would appear by one 
 account that he was flogged ; but, comparing it 
 with another, it is possible that he only under- 
 went the shame of presenting his bared back to 
 the executioner. 
 
 It was an arbitrary sentence, passed without law, 
 to propitiate the royal wrath. The writer who 
 says " it was adopted with the view of pacifying 
 the king," gives the only possible explanation of 
 it ; and therefore Becket, at this point, went to 
 
1 24 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 the verge of right and justice, or beyond it, in his 
 desire "to pacify the king." He may have been 
 overruled, but the sentence could hardly have 
 passed without his consent. 
 
 De Broi, however, had learnt by this time how 
 the land lay, and was as' glad as the king was 
 angry that he had escaped with his life. 
 
 Nor was this the only case of the kind. In 
 some others, about the same time, clerical offenders 
 were unlawfully branded, or otherwise punished 
 beyond law, " to appease the king." 
 Synodat It was at this conjuncture that a svnod of 
 
 West- . J J 
 
 minster, bishops and clergy met at Westminster, not many 
 
 October t, r ** J ' 
 
 1 163. weeks after the Council of Woodstock. 
 
 It was called ostensibly to settle a dispute — it 
 was an old one — between the two archbishops. It 
 was no sooner known that he of Canterbury was 
 at feud with the king, than he found himself the 
 mark of many assailants.* 
 
 womes of Roger of York revived an old claim of the 
 
 the arch- 
 
 bishop. northern archbishops, to have their crosier borne 
 before them in the province of Canterbury. It 
 was a claim of equality with the other archbishop, 
 made of much account then, petty enough to 
 readers of it now. 
 
 Bishop Foliot, lately translated from Hereford 
 to London, refused to make new profession of 
 obedience to the archbishop, on the pretext that 
 
 * Letters xxvi., xxix., xxxvi. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 125 
 
 he had made it already at Hereford, and that 
 another profession was unnecessary. The arch- 
 bishop saw, in this refusal, a disposition to throw 
 off the obedience of the Church of London to that 
 of Canterbury, and it turned out afterwards that he 
 was right. 
 
 Clarembald, abbot-elect of St. Augustine's, Can- 
 terbury — for there were two abbeys there, and we 
 see the remains of them still, among modern sur- 
 vivals and revivals — refused to make his profession 
 of obedience, unless the archbishop came to St. 
 Augustine's to receive it. 
 
 All these questions worried him, as they were 
 intended to do, by contention at home, and by 
 appeals to the pope. There were appeals on all 
 of them, and they were not the only causes of 
 anxiety to him. 
 
 The synod of 1 163 at Westminster was sum- 
 moned upon the first of these questions, — the juris- 
 diction of the two archbishops. The king was 
 present, and surprised the prelates before they had 
 touched upon the expected business, by complaints 
 of the archdeacons and their courts, and particu- 
 larly of their punishing offences by fines.* 
 
 The question was not a new one. It had been 
 raised in a case tried at York before the king and 
 some prelates, in the time of Theobald. A dean 
 had exacted a fine in punishment of some offence, 
 
 * MS., Lambeth, c. 12. 
 
126 
 
 and the king made strong objection to the practice. 
 The deans and archdeacons, he said, obtained in 
 this way, and expended in luxurious living, more 
 than came into his own exchequer.* The dean was 
 sentenced to pay back the fine, and to be at the 
 archbishop's mercy. 
 
 "And what," said De Luci, "do you adjudge to 
 the king, whose constitution he has transgressed ? " 
 
 " Nothing," was the answer, " because the offender 
 is a cleric." 
 
 "To that decision," De Luci answered, "I shall 
 not give my consent. He has committed an offence 
 against the king, and must pay a fine." 
 
 Nobody, therefore, was to take money in a court 
 of justice except the king. To him it was the 
 ordinary practice, and his first recorded complaint 
 of the clerical courts is upon a claim for a fine. 
 
 Thus, at the opening of the great controversy, 
 his motives and purpose are avowed. It is not 
 the reform of any grievance ; it is not uniformity 
 of law. It is to gain money by the administra- 
 tion of justice, and to hinder all others from inter- 
 cepting it. 
 
 Failing, at York, to obtain a fine, he insisted that 
 the case should be heard again by the archbishop ; 
 but he was called abroad immediately after by the 
 death of his brother Geoffrey, and, it was thought, 
 forgot the matter. Probably there was some better 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 33. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 127 
 
 cause for its postponement. At all events, it was 
 
 not forgotten. It was now taken up at West- H63. 
 
 minster, and was carried further. 
 
 From his complaint of the archdeacons, the king The king 
 
 1 0 complains of 
 
 went on to speak of breaches of the peace and 
 crimes of the clerical people ; and, declaring his 
 resolve to maintain order in his kingdom, he 
 desired that clerics, convicted in the bishops' 
 courts of grave offence against his laws, should 
 be, there and then, degraded from their orders 
 and handed over to the officers of the royal courts, 
 to be punished like other people. He desired 
 also that a king's officer should be present at the 
 degradation, to take the culprit into custody 
 before he could escape. 
 
 To modern eyes, nothing could appear more 
 reasonable; although the demand was without and proposes 
 
 a new law. 
 
 example in the history of the English people in 
 times past. It was a demand for the enactment 
 of a law at variance with all previous custom. 
 The king requested the assent of the archbishop 
 and his prelates to his proposal : their assent 
 would have sufficed ; and it was necessary, accord- 
 ing to the customs of the realm, or it would not 
 have been asked. 
 
 The archbishop made strenuous opposition. In 
 a sermon lately preached, he had dwelt at some 
 length upon laws Divine and laws human, with 
 their distinct jurisdictions and different punish- 
 
128 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 merits — their " two swords." He now made earnest 
 appeal to the ecclesiastical prejudices of the 
 bishops, who were as unwilling as the lay lords 
 were, to resist the violence of the royal will. In 
 private conference, he found them inclined to 
 yield. They talked of life and ease, and the de- 
 pravity of the times. He argued that it was in 
 times of depravity, not in times of ease and peace, 
 that they were called upon to contend, and that 
 the Good Shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 
 He called God to witness, that he believed it un- 
 safe to give up " the form of government ivliich they 
 had received from their fathers." 
 %*hich^ His great personal influence prevailed. By ar- 
 
 rejected by . 
 
 the estate, guments suitable to them, and by his persuasive 
 
 whose assent 
 
 wasneces- eloquence, he so turned the minds of the bishops 
 
 sary and ' * 
 
 twc desired. tnat ne was a ble to report their unanimous refusal 
 
 to consent to the desired change of the law. 
 New method Henry raged and swore, after his wont. Foiled 
 
 of law- ■ * - 
 
 making. once more, he again took a new departure. He 
 curtly demanded whether the bishops intended to 
 observe, in all things, the constitutions and customs 
 of the kings before him. The archbishop again 
 answered for all : " Certainly we will, in all things, 
 saving our own order." 
 
 This saving clause was nothing new. It was a 
 customary reservation in bishops' oaths of alle- 
 giance, and, in any ordinary circumstances, would 
 have passed unnoticed. But Henry had resolved 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 129 
 
 to be absolute master of the archbishop and clergy, 
 and would brook no word of reservation. Mad 
 with fury, and with his usual oath, " I will have 
 no mention," he said, " of your order ; it is cap- 
 tious. My customs you shall allow and confirm, 
 absolutely and without reserve." The contention 
 was prolonged : " he was angry all day : " but the 
 bishops were firm ; and, at last, he abruptly took 
 his departure, uttering fierce words and loud 
 threats, and left London the next morning at 
 daybreak. 
 
 It has been a common understanding of this Erroneous 
 dispute, that the king contended for a beneficial points^ 
 
 issue, 
 
 amendment of the law ; and that Becket, con- 
 verted since his promotion, into a Church partisan, 
 and obstinate in defence of Church privileges, was 
 an obstacle to reform. 
 
 Both inferences are in error. The king had no 
 view of any changes beneficial to the nation, which 
 could properly be called reform ; and the arch- 
 bishop's aim and purpose were not to maintain 
 Church privileges, although, secondarily and in- 
 cidentally, this was the effect of his contention. 
 
 His great purpose, in the long contest which 
 followed, is to be fully ascertained upon the whole 
 view of it. That it was no narrow zeal for Church 
 privileges is already evident. 
 
 The question concerning the clerical courts and 
 their powers had been raised, we have seen, by 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 De Luci at York, and allowed to sleep. This most 
 likely was what Thomas alluded to, when, upon 
 being named for archbishop, he reminded the king 
 that there had been a difference between them 
 concerning the Church, in which he could never 
 yield his consent, 
 both as to After their intimate relations during some years, 
 
 motives, 
 
 the king could not be ignorant of his convictions 
 upon any question of the kind. If this was the 
 difference he called to mind, and events to follow 
 will justify the inference, it would result that the 
 question of clerical jurisdiction raised by De Luci, 
 under no ardour for good laws, but with the avowed 
 purpose of bringing in money, was not to have 
 been revived if there had been no other difference ; 
 and was now revived at Westminster, and after- 
 wards, as we shall see, enlarged and impetuously 
 urged, not for any beneficial purpose of reform, 
 nor even for the lower purpose of money, but to 
 humble the archbishop, and to provoke discord 
 upon the very point which he had told the king he 
 could never yield. 
 
 But whether or not, if this was not the question 
 of which he reminded the king, yet this much is 
 beyond controversy, that Thomas the chancellor 
 had been in contention with the king upon some 
 Church question, as Thomas the archbishop now 
 was. 
 
 But the unclerical chancellor is not likely to 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 have taken the part he did, under any professional 
 bias, as a deacon of the Church. It could only 
 have been a question of right or wrong with him, 
 or a question of sound policy or public utility. 
 
 The inference is reasonable. His conduct was 
 governed by the same motives now as it had been 
 before. He had not changed with change of cir- 
 cumstances, but new circumstances may have given 
 force to old convictions. Under a pretext of law, 
 he had seen a purpose of tyranny without restraint. 
 He had found himself, as archbishop, the last 
 remaining check upon violence and despotism. 
 He had seen the want of a barrier against it in 
 royal caprices of self-will, and in the cases of 
 clerical offenders, branded and otherwise punished, 
 under no law, but by arbitrary sentence, before the 
 new law for them was even proposed. It was 
 therefore of high importance to the public welfare 
 that his office should be maintained in all its 
 authority ; and, for this end, that the Church should 
 retain its ancient rights and privileges. To degrade 
 the Church was to degrade the head of it ; and the 
 king saw this as well as he did. 
 
 The assertion of the biographer Grim is, there- 
 fore, justified ; the king, finding that the archbishop 
 had the advantage of him upon the secular question 
 of the hidage money, turned his fury upon the 
 clergy, expecting, through them, to strike a blow 
 at their head. 
 
132 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 and as to the So much for the motives and intentions of both 
 
 new law 
 
 wanted. parties. As regards the king's proposed new law : 
 the change, if it had been his single purpose, would 
 not have been beneficial to the nation in that age. 
 The question, however, is not one to be viewed 
 through the spectacles of modern times. 
 
 The clerical The clergy, or clerical people of that time, cannot 
 
 people are 
 
 not the be identified with any class corresponding to the 
 
 clergy only. J 1 ° 
 
 clergy of our own. Any of the people who had 
 obtained a little education might be numbered 
 among the clergy. A man who could read, or at 
 least read and write, had no difficulty in obtaining 
 admission to the clerical order. To hold for a time 
 one of the numerous inferior offices of the Church, 
 to take some minor part in the services of a 
 monastic or parish church, conferred all the 
 privileges of the clergy. Probably, in most places, 
 the clergy included almost the whole of the limited 
 middle class which then existed between the lords 
 and the villagers. We should be much nearer to 
 the truth if, by privileges of the clergy, we under- 
 stood privileges of the educated people. 
 The ancient The laws and customs of England, from time 
 
 laws. 
 
 immemorial, long before the Norman Conquest, 
 made a difference between laymen and clerics 
 accused of crime or misdemeanour. Till the time 
 of the first Norman king, both were tried in the 
 courts of the hundred ; but they were under 
 different laws, and were subject to different punish- 
 
Rupture zvith the King. 
 
 133 
 
 ments. The Conqueror was the first to enact that 
 the different modes of jurisdiction should have 
 their separate courts. It is a law of his that a man, Law of 
 
 . . . . r , , i_- 1 . William I. 
 
 impleaded of any cause or fault under bishops 
 laws, should be tried, not in the court of his 
 hundred, but in the bishop's court ; and that no 
 sheriff, judge, king's minister, or other layman, 
 should intrude himself into questions of law apper- 
 taining to the jurisdiction of the bishop. 
 
 The consequent separation of the king's and itseffec 
 bishops' courts had resulted, not without encroach- 
 ment, in the trial of all offences of clerical people, 
 and also of all offences against them, in the bishops' 
 courts. If a clerical murderer escaped capital 
 punishment, the murderer of a clerical person had 
 the same immunity. 
 
 But for centuries before the Conquest, probably Penalties 
 
 under 
 
 since the age of Augustine, the punishments of ancient law 
 clerical criminals had been different from those 
 of laymen. For centuries the punishment of a 
 priest for murder was degradation from his orders 
 and banishment from the kingdom. There were 
 also special laws for clerical people convicted of 
 various offences. These laws are still on record, 
 and are read by students of early English history. 
 
 In so far, then, as uniformity of law would have 
 subjected all persons guilty of murder or other 
 serious crime to the same severity of punishment, 
 the proposed change of law might properly be 
 
134 
 
 TJiomas Bcckct. 
 
 called a reform. But the change in view went far 
 beyond this. The king's laws and courts inflicted 
 punishments of savage severity upon small offences. 
 Norman Bodily mutilations were favourite punishments of 
 
 penal laws. . • 
 
 the rrench kings, Norman and Angevin, and for 
 very trifling offences. If an English peasant stole 
 a goose from a field which had once belonged to 
 his forefathers, he might have his eyes torn out, 
 and was fortunate if he had only a hand or a foot 
 lopped off. For a long time, to kill the king's 
 game was a worse offence than to kill a man, and 
 was more severely punished. 
 
 But these cruel punishments were seldom inflicted 
 except upon men of the lowest classes. The rich 
 man could generally compound for crime by a 
 money payment, and the great lord could hinder 
 The bishops' punishment by force. The clerical people fell 
 humane"" 6 under the more humane penalties of the bishops' 
 courts. A clerical culprit might be degraded from 
 his orders, which would not protect him a second 
 time ; he might be banished, or flogged, or sent 
 to end his days under severe discipline in some 
 monastery. But the bishops' courts shed no blood ; 
 and, on this account, were as popular as the king's 
 were odious. The mutilated wretches scattered 
 over the country, for the purpose, as Norman French 
 laws coolly stated it, " of striking terror," could not 
 fail to excite hatred and disgust at the foreign 
 masters of the land, and their laws and courts. 
 
Rupture with the King. 
 
 135 
 
 The authority of the bishops' courts extended 
 also to all cases affecting the rights of widows and 
 orphans ; and this was another cause of their 
 popularity. 
 
 The king and barons were known to the people Popular 
 
 ideas of the 
 
 as spoilers, tyrants, oppressors, boasting themselves ^"^ nd 
 foreigners ; the king himself, a newly imported 
 foreigner, with no interest in them but to suck 
 their blood. 
 
 Most of the bishops also were foreigners. But universal 
 
 the clerical people were, almost all of them, English- fnf concern- 
 ing the 
 
 men. Their sympathies were English, and the proposed 
 
 new law. 
 
 sympathies of Englishmen were with them when 
 the foreign king wanted to bring them all under 
 his jurisdiction, and to lop off their limbs or scoop 
 out their eyes as freely as he did those of the 
 peasantry, or to extract money from them by court 
 fees, and fines, and hush-money to save life or limb. 
 Such money payments, impossible to poor serfs, 
 might be looked for from clerical offenders. 
 
 That among the large body of men who could 
 claim clerical privileges many every year were 
 guilty of offences great or small, is what we might 
 expect. But the king's pictures of priestly delin- 
 quencies are very exaggerated. They get darker 
 and darker as he gets more angry in the prolonged 
 strife which follows. If clerical crime had been 
 as rife as he often alleges, he would have begun his 
 campaign, one must imagine, with a better case 
 
1 3 6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 than that of De Broi, who could not be convicted 
 of crime, and could only be punished by exaggerat- 
 ing his indignant protests to the sheriff into a 
 personal insult to the king, 
 singular There is a curious story that Henry, after the 
 
 interview of 
 
 the kin K and synod at Westminster * desirous to try the effect 
 
 archbishop. * 
 
 of his personal influence, invited the archbishop 
 to meet him at Northampton. The archbishop 
 was arriving there with a great retinue of mounted 
 attendants, when he received the royal command 
 to remain outside the town, which was not large 
 enough for two such companies, and the king 
 would presently come out and confer with him 
 where he was. They met, or would have met, but 
 their fiery chargers made it impossible, and had 
 to be changed for quieter beasts. When they were 
 able to converse, the king upbraided the primate 
 with his favours to him, and was answered in terms 
 which provoked him to say that he had not sent 
 for the archbishop to preach to him. The rebuff 
 was followed by the question, intended to be 
 insulting, whether Thomas was not the son of one 
 of the king's vill-people. " It is true," he answered, 
 quoting Horace, " that I had not kings for my 
 grandfathers, but neither had St. Peter, the prince 
 of the Apostles." " True," said the king, " but then 
 he died for his Lord." "And I, also," he said, "shall 
 die for my Lord, when the time comes." Such an 
 
 * Rog. Pont., c. 29. 
 
Rupture with the King: 
 
 137 
 
 interview left them, of course, on worse terms than 
 before. 
 
 It is a remarkable conference between a king of 
 England and an Archbishop of Canterbury — all 
 the more so of an archbishop whom great his- 
 torians describe as " a candidate for martyrdom." 
 Why, he avows it, in this very scene ! A candi- 
 date for martyrdom, on his fiery charger, vying 
 with the king on his ! He has changed it, certainly, 
 for a quiet beast. It is what, in his life's work, to 
 the end of it, he never did ! 
 
138 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LAW-MAKING UNDER TERROR, COMMONLY 
 CALLED THE COUNCIL OF CLARENDON. 
 
 The troubles in England, when they reached the 
 ears of Pope Alexander, gave him no small per- 
 plexity. An exile from Rome himself, he had 
 already enough on his hands with the emperor 
 and the antipope. It was important, if possible, 
 to allay this new trouble with a king so powerful 
 as Henry. With this view, he sent a Cistercian 
 The pope abbot, of high condition (his abbot almoner), 
 
 interposes. 
 
 with letters from himself and from some of the 
 cardinals, and instructions to mediate and make 
 peace, if possible, between the king and the 
 primate. Thomas was urged by letter to order 
 himself modestly and flexibly to the king's will. 
 The prospects of the Church were overclouded by 
 the schism, ecclesiastical severity would be im- 
 politic. 
 
 ih d e V king's hat The papal messengers, after conference with the 
 ance!s r his" king, assured the archbishop that Henry had 
 dignity. declared to them, on his oath, that he intended 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 139 
 
 nothing to the prejudice of the Church. He had 
 felt aggrieved by the primate's public opposition 
 to him, and wanted nothing more than to be 
 honoured as a king by his formal and verbal sub- 
 mission. The royal pledge was made known to He urges 
 
 submission. 
 
 the pope, who urged the archbishop not to mis- 
 trust it, and took all responsibility upon himself. 
 Thomas was obliged to yield to this advice ; but, 
 knowing the king, as he did, it was not without 
 misgivings. 
 
 However, he went with the abbot to Woodstock, Thomas 
 
 submits in 
 
 and gave the king- his word, without any reser- word, as 
 
 to & ' J required, 
 
 vation, that he would observe the customs. The but the j kin = 
 
 proceeds. 
 
 king replied, " You opposed me in public — you 
 must submit in public." To secure his submis- 
 sion, and to publish it, and a code of " Consti- 
 tutions " to be issued along with it as the customs 
 of the realm, was to be the work of a " great 
 council," summoned for this special purpose, which 
 has been made famous in English history as " the 
 Council of Clarendon." 
 
 It was a great assembly of the high estates of January, 
 the realm, spiritual and temporal, at the king's " 64 ' 
 hunting-palace, at Clarendon, near Salisbury.* 
 The lords who attended it must have sheltered 
 themselves as they could, in tents pitched upon the 
 borders of the forest. 
 
 * W. Cant, i. 15; Grim, c. 28; Herb. Bos., iii. 28, 29; Rog. 
 Pont., c. 33-36. 
 
140 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 The king 
 rages and 
 threatens. 
 
 The lords 
 uproarious. 
 
 Loud and 
 open threats. 
 
 On the matter in question, as soon as it arose, 
 the king came directly to the point : " Let the 
 archbishop repeat his submission, as to the observ- 
 ance of my customs." Thomas, as may be 
 imagined, had his fears for what might be coming, 
 and answered more cautiously than was expected. 
 He had already seen reason to apprehend that 
 much more was to be required of him than the 
 papal nuncio, upon the king's oath, had promised. 
 He did not give the short, direct answer which 
 was looked for, but entered upon some discussion 
 of the matter in question. 
 
 This was not what the king intended. He 
 expected a repetition in public of the short, direct 
 form of submission which had been made to him 
 in private. He not only became angry ; he was 
 very soon " mad with rage." His words and 
 manner were those of an insensate, infuriate bully. 
 He " would have recourse now, not to counsel, but 
 to the sword. He had sworn to administer justice, 
 and so he would. The archbishop protects homi- 
 cides and thieves. But he would bend their necks. 
 He would be another Saul to the Lord's priests, if 
 his will were not instantly obeyed." 
 
 His anger seemed to be contagious. The 
 assembly was in an uproar. The king's depen- 
 dents hurried through the chambers with fierce 
 anger in their faces, declaring themselves ready to 
 commit any crime for their master. With their 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 141 
 
 cloaks flung off, and arms uplifted, brandishing 
 their shining axes, a band of them came near the 
 bishops, exclaiming, " Hear, ye that set at defiance 
 the laws of the realm and the king's commands : 
 these hands are not ours, they are the king's : our 
 arms, our bodies are at his service, ready to do his 
 will, be it what it may. Advise yourselves : turn 
 your minds to the king's bidding : avoid danger 
 while ye can." * 
 
 The bishops stood mute and trembling ; the 
 lower clergy slunk away in terror ; the archbishop 
 alone was calm, and pleasantly told his brethren 
 that such things were what true priests should 
 look for. 
 
 The bishops, although fearful, were not disposed 
 to shrink from the position they had taken with 
 him, upon the question of their own privileges. 
 The Bishop of London, when contending some 
 time afterwards with the king against the arch- 
 bishop, boasted that at Clarendon he and the 
 bishops had no fear, and were ready to suffer 
 torture and death rather than surrender. 
 
 The tumult was at its height, when two of the Two bishops 
 
 threatened 
 
 bishops, Salisbury and Norwich, who lay under ^• 1 1 > e the 
 some old grudge with Henry, drew the archbishop 
 aside and intreated him with tears to have pity on 
 them. They had both of them had warning 
 that they would be made the exemplary victims 
 
 * Foliot's letter, cexxv. 
 
142 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 of the royal displeasure, and would suffer horribly 
 in life or limb if he were not obeyed.* 
 at the hands After them, came two great earls, Leicester and 
 
 of two great _ . . . . . . 
 
 earu. Cornwall, the king s uncle, entreating the arch- 
 bishop to have pity upon the two bishops and 
 upon themselves. The king, they said, was terribly 
 angry, and had given them orders to commit an 
 unheard-of crime with their own hands ; and it was 
 impossible for them to disobey him. " The king 
 and kingdom," they declared, "will be the laughing- 
 stock of all peoples around, for a nation as destitute 
 of council as it is of law." f 
 
 What was the crime they were to enact upon 
 the two bishops, and, reluctant as they were, were 
 ready to perpetrate under the royal orders — if, as 
 most likely, it was told to the archbishop — was not 
 divulged, and was left a mystery to times following. 
 Two After the two earls, came two eminent knights 
 
 promise 5 templars, one of them the English master of the 
 
 peace for a 
 
 word. order, confirming the horrid tale he had heard 
 already ; but to assure him that the whole differ- 
 ence would be at an end if he would only give 
 verbal satisfaction before the assembled council. 
 He would gain peace and friendship by a word. 
 Nothing was to be written down ; there would be 
 no record of his verbal submission. They pledged 
 
 * Rog. Pont., c. 34; W. Cant, i. 15; Grim, c. 29; Gervase, 
 i. 177. 
 
 f Grim, c. 29. 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 143 
 
 themselves ; they pledged their souls to damnation, 
 if anything more was required of him.* It is a 
 tale of the times, and there is no ground for dis- 
 trust of it. 
 
 No point of Becket's conduct has given occasion 
 to more controversy than this. The only intelli- 
 gible account of it comes to us from his adversary 
 Foliot, in a letter f which has been thought so 
 incredible, that it has been much disputed whether 
 it is genuine. The letter helps us to understand 
 everything, and bears testimony to itself. 
 
 After these strange visits and revelations from Position 
 
 of the 
 
 the two bishops, the two earls, and the two archbishop, 
 templars, Thomas found himself in the predica- 
 ment of the casuists, anxiously pondering the 
 question whether, in any case, to prevent worse 
 evil, a man may tell a lie. He could no longer 
 give an honest assent, even verbally, to the alleged 
 customs. By this time he had learnt enough of 
 them to know that some of them were no customs 
 of the realm, and some, as he believed, pernicious 
 to the Church and people of England. He knew 
 well that he could never honestly sanction them 
 with his consent. 
 
 But he was also well acquainted with the son of 
 Geoffrey of Anjou, and, we may be pretty sure, 
 had heard him speak of his father's methods of 
 dealing with refractory priests. At least, he could 
 
 * Rog. Pont., i. 35. + Letter ccxxv. 
 
144 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 judge, no man better, how far the son was capable 
 of piously following his father's example. It was 
 plain that he was willing to profit by it. 
 
 Was he at liberty, in such a case, to give the 
 word the templars begged him to give, with the 
 intention of breaking it ? Was a lie permissible, 
 for the sake of averting from the two bishops and 
 the two earls, from the king himself, and from the 
 kingdom, the atrocious crime immediately threat- 
 ened ? Anselm would not have done it ; but 
 Becket was no Anselm, and did not aspire to be. 
 He was too great in himself to be an imitator of 
 anybody. The old saints and martyrs of the 
 Church would not have done it ; but he was no 
 candidate either for saintship or martyrdom. With 
 a change of dress, he was still, what he had always 
 been, a godly man, according to his light, but a 
 statesman and a man of the world ; with high 
 political aims, and pursuing them by ways which 
 have always, to most people, appeared strange and 
 unaccountable ; but yet were his ways, and were 
 successful, although at the cost of his life. 
 
 The contention was prolonged from day to day. 
 woileevii! It was the third day when Becket received these 
 private communications. Perplexed and troubled, 
 he had made up his mind what to do when he 
 returned to the bishops ; and it can hardly be 
 surprising if there was something strange and 
 awkward in his abrupt avowal, that he was about 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 145 
 
 to do the very thing which, with all his eloquence 
 and earnestness, he had persuaded them must not 
 be done. Foliot's report of his words may be quite 
 accurate. " It is my lord's will," he said, " that I 
 shall perjure myself ; for the present, I yield. I will 
 perjure myself, and hope for pardon by penitence 
 hereafter." * 
 
 We can well believe that the bishops were as men 
 struck dumb, and said the captain had deserted 
 his army. We don't find, however, that the army 
 mutinied. They were sooner persuaded to go 
 with him and make their submission, than they 
 had been to hold out and resist. He led them to 
 the king. 
 
 He began with an apology for his scruples in a he gives a 
 matter that concerned God and the Church. He verbal sub- 
 
 • ■ mission. 
 
 now declared, with trust in the royal wisdom and 
 clemency, '* I consent to your demands, and give 
 my word that I will observe the customs of the 
 realm bond fide!' 
 
 It was to this extent that he gave his word. 
 
 The words were hardly out of his mouth, when 
 the king followed with loud voice : "You have all 
 heard how the archbishop has submitted ; now let 
 the bishops, upon his command, do the same." 
 
 They did so. Then he pursued: "I think you The bishops 
 
 follow. 
 
 all understand that the archbishops and bishops 
 have submitted to me, to observe in future the 
 
 * The same letter, ccxxv. 
 
 L 
 
146 
 
 TJiomas Becket. 
 
 laws and customs of my kingdom. Now therefore, 
 to prevent future contention, let the wiser and the 
 elder of the nobles and clergy retire, and make 
 record of the customs of my grandfather Henry, 
 and with all speed bring them to me carefully 
 written out." 
 
 The written It was soon done, if they were not all ready 
 
 " customs." 
 
 beforehand. De Luci and Jocelin de Bailleul, of 
 whom little else is known, were reputed to be the 
 draughtsmen. A parchment containing the alleged 
 customs was brought in and read, amidst clamorous 
 applause. One of them is the identical law which 
 the king had failed to carry at Westminster. 
 
 The archbishop listened with calmness, made 
 his running comments, and stated his objections to 
 them one by one. As soon as the reading was 
 finished, the king exclaimed : " These are the 
 customs to which you have submitted : and, to 
 prevent future question, I will that the archbishop 
 put his seal to them." 
 He refuses " Never, by the Almighty God," was the answer 
 of Archbishop Becket, " as long as breath remains 
 in this body, will I put seal to these ! " * 
 
 That word he kept. To the written instrument 
 he never put seal, and never gave word of promise. 
 
 * Grim, c. 31 ; Rog. Pont., c. 36; Hoveden, i. p. 222. An 
 opposite statement that he did seal is best refuted by the preamble 
 of the code itself, as published. There is a copy of it in Robert- 
 son's "Materials," etc., vol. iv. p. 207, and in Stubbs's "Select 
 Charters." 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 H7 
 
 It might afterwards have been maintained that 
 his general oath to observe the customs, when no 
 customs were defined, bound him to nothing. But 
 he knew the royal purpose, in one at least of the 
 " constitutions " so called — that regarding the trial 
 and punishment of clerical criminals ; and on this 
 account he felt that he had forsworn himself. 
 
 Acknowledging that he had sinned, although 
 under constraint, he declared, however, that the 
 whole proceeding was a fraud upon him. The 
 two templars must have been more amazed than 
 he was. They could hardly have pledged them- 
 selves as they did without the royal word pledged 
 to them. It was less out of regard for their souls, 
 than for the credit of his own mastery, that the 
 king ceased to insist upon the sealing. It was 
 plain that the primate would yield no further, and 
 to persist in the command to seal, was to tarnish 
 the poor triumph he had gained. 
 
 As it was, he could claim the victory. He pub- 
 lished " the constitutions," as " customs of the 
 realm which the archbishops and bishops, in the 
 presence of the attesting witnesses, had promised 
 by word of mouth, viva voce, with all good faith 
 to observe." A copy of them was given to each 
 of the archbishops, and a third remained with the 
 king's officials. Thomas took his departure, pro- 
 testing that his acceptance of the copy was not to 
 be taken as a submission to its contents. 
 
148 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 How far Was his conduct faulty or unchristian ? It is 
 
 blamable. 
 
 not an easy question to answer. Whether to 
 hinder a terrible crime, a man may lie, or, under 
 all circumstances, and whatever foreseen conse- 
 quences, the simple word of truth must still be 
 spoken, is a question on which different opinions 
 will always be held. Few will maintain — nobody 
 with any knowledge of lunatics — that nothing but 
 the exact truth must ever be spoken, even to a 
 madman. 
 
 If anybody think that Becket did wrong, he 
 must admit at least that he did it manfully, for 
 the purpose, as he believed, of preventing worse 
 wrong. He faced the difficulty, and confessed his 
 perplexity, like a man honestly conscientious. 
 
 What these " Constitutions of Clarendon " were 
 is a question quite secondary to the proceedings 
 Tyranny of concerning them. No laws can be of much use 
 
 the pro- 
 ceedings. or value to any people in subjection to a king, 
 
 who, after one of their estates has given its rightful 
 " Nay " to a new law of his proposal, proceeds, 
 with hectoring and threatening, to compel the 
 members of the same estate to declare their 
 general assent to the customs of his realm, and 
 then includes in a pretended record of such cus- 
 toms the very law they have vetoed ! 
 were they Still it is a question of interest : — Were they 
 
 customs? m 
 
 ancient customs of England, as they were pre- 
 tended to be ; and were they, or any of them, 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 149 
 
 likely to be useful enactments if they were new ? And useful 
 Words were heard when they were read, " These 
 are no ancient customs ; " and of some of them the 
 words were true. 
 
 " That a chief tenant of the king be not excom- 
 municated without his consent," " that no appeal 
 be made to the pope," and " no bishop leave the 
 country for the pope's court without the king's 
 leave," were laws or edicts of the first Norman, 
 although it had been found impracticable to en- 
 force them. 
 
 But " that criminous clerks should be tried in 
 the king's court, and suffer the same penalties as 
 laymen," the principal law here in question, was 
 at variance with every law and custom of the 
 realm from its earliest records. That it is a law 
 good in itself, or can be made so when a people 
 desire it, and that it ultimately became the law of 
 England, are truths quite beside every question 
 here. 
 
 " That the revenues of vacant bishoprics should 
 belong to the king," was to write in the laws of 
 England one of the abuses of shameless Rufus 
 and unscrupulous Flambard. Before the Con- 
 quest the bishop of the diocese took care of the 
 revenues of a vacant abbey, and the archbishop of 
 a vacant see. Rufus and the kings after him 
 seized the estates of vacant sees and abbeys, and 
 took the revenues as long as they pleased. 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 "That upon the vacancy of a bishopric, the 
 electors should be summoned to make their elec- 
 tion in the king's chapel, and be kept there till 
 they elected with his assent " {i.e. till they elected 
 his nominee), was open to a like objection with 
 the last. It was a mode of election enforced 
 before this, but by usurpation. It would have 
 been a new thing to sanction it by law. It is 
 true also that the king, by means fair or foul, 
 seldom failed to get his own way in these elec- 
 tions. It would have saved him trouble, no doubt, 
 but it would have been hardly fair to the electors 
 to have always to go up to the king's chapel to 
 be coerced, instead of his having to run after them 
 to coerce them. 
 
 Nor was this all. The new constitution em- 
 powers the king to summon the chief persons 
 (potiores personas) of a chapter to make the election. 
 Under such a law, he could select whom he would. 
 
 The last of the " Constitutions," "that no son of 
 a peasant should be admitted to holy orders with- 
 out the consent of the lord on whose land he was 
 born," was an invasion of a valued and valuable 
 privilege of the peasantry. It indicated, not only 
 that the landlords of England felt no honour in the 
 career of Nicholas Breakspeare, but that the exalta- 
 tion of a poor English boy to the papal throne 
 increased their fear of their English villagers ; as 
 well it might. 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 151 
 
 What is yet more extraordinary, and it is pointed The saving 
 
 , • <- 1 1 • clause was a 
 
 out by JBecket in one of his letters, the king s custom, 
 lawyers and writers who drew the " Constitutions " 
 were guilty of the singular oversight of allowing 
 one of them to bear its quiet testimony for the 
 archbishop against the king upon a point of con- 
 tention, the very mention of which " always drove 
 him into a fury." 
 
 Archbishops and bishops, abbots and priors, 
 after election in the king's chapel, are to do homage 
 to the king, for land and life and members, saving 
 the rights of their order — salvo ordine sno. It 
 stands to this day, in the twelfth of the famous 
 " Constitutions of Clarendon," an unanswerable 
 testimony to the ancient and universal custom. 
 
 The king, it is probable, was but imperfectly 
 acquainted with the " ancient customs " of the 
 realm ; but he must have known, as well as the 
 archbishop did, that it was contrary to all custom 
 to inflict upon the people who could read and write 
 the cruel punishments of the Norman criminal 
 laws. He gained the coveted power, and for a 
 time made free use of it. Whether it was a reform 
 or not, certainly it was no custom of the realm ; 
 and the best of laws enacted by such means can 
 be of no advantage to any people. 
 
 Becket had felt himself drawn, under constraint, Becketseif- 
 
 , , t a 1 i-i condemned. 
 
 into an action he condemned. As he rode with 
 his friends and chaplains from Clarendon to Win- 
 
152 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Chester, he was observed to be sad and weary, and 
 he was as wretched as he looked. He immediately 
 suspended himself from all sacred offices ; he sub- 
 mitted his troubles and his falsehood to the pope, 
 and asked for his absolution. Twice he attempted 
 to cross the sea, and carry his personal confession 
 to the pope at Sens, but the weather or the 
 mariners obliged him to put back. He had only 
 small vessels at his command, and the sailors had 
 their fears of the king. The pope fully understood 
 his trouble, and exhorted him to resume his sacred 
 offices, reminding him of the difference between 
 words spoken freely and words spoken under 
 constraint. 
 
 The king was highly exasperated by his attempts 
 to go abroad. He was afraid both of his spiritual 
 weapons and of his influence with the pope. To 
 guard against these dangers Henry requested the 
 pope to send a legate's commission to the Arch- 
 bishop of York. As papal legate, Archbishop 
 Roger would have been supreme over the English 
 Church in both provinces. The pope's conduct, 
 in answer to the king, gives us an example of 
 artful simplicity under difficulties. 
 Papal treat- Alexander sent the legate's commission desired ; 
 
 ment of an . « * « 1 1 1 • • 
 
 angry king, but he sent it to the king, and under condition 
 that it was not to be delivered to the archbishop 
 to whom it was addressed, without the pope's 
 further knowledge and consent. The commission, 
 
At Clarendon. 
 
 153 
 
 with the condition attached to it, was at the same 
 time made known to Archbishop Thomas, with 
 a request that if the king handed it on to Roger, 
 the pope should have instant information, and he 
 would send another instrument, exempting the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and his church and 
 city of Canterbury from all legatine authority.* 
 He had granted the commission even thus limited, 
 only to guard against aggravation of the royal 
 anger and excitement. 
 
 Henry was afterwards duped, and made a laugh- 
 ing-stock, and more than once by pope's letters. 
 But he saw the futility of this show of compliance, 
 and sent back the letter of legation. 
 
 " The king and kingdom will be the laughing- What the 
 stock of all peoples around, for a nation as destitute were" ls 
 of council as it is of law." So the two earls declared, 
 and they implored the archbishop to prevent it. 
 
 Destitute of council, nevertheless, was the so- 
 called " Council of Clarendon," with others before 
 it and to follow. There may be deliberation and 
 discussion amidst riot and clamour. But here 
 there was no deliberation and no pretence of it. 
 There was no thought of reform. The king sought 
 to extend his despotism, and to augment his 
 revenue, and contended with storms of wrath and 
 atrocious threats of violence. De Luci was his 
 willing secretary. The lords were a mob of 
 * Letter 1. 
 
154 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 bravoes, ready to do his bidding, with a few 
 wiser or cooler heads among them, shocked and 
 horrified, but helpless. 
 
 One man, with a conscience of right and public 
 duty, had also the will and the power to contend 
 for them. Forced into a show of concession for 
 the moment, he never faltered in his purpose that 
 government by threats and violence should not 
 prevail in England if he could hinder it. 
 
 Hating tyranny with the vehemence of a passion, 
 reared in boyhood amidst the woes of an anarch)-, 
 which had been its fruit, he was resolved to hold 
 sacred, with his life, the last shred of English 
 liberty that was left. 
 
 No free intelligent life was possible among such 
 men as crowded upon him and threatened him. 
 There was need of new ideas and new men. One 
 true man was to teach those barons to be men. 
 
( i55 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE NORTHAMPTON PLOT, KNOWN AS " THE 
 COUNCIL OF NORTHAMPTON." 
 
 THE code of " Customs," so called, drawn by 
 De Luci and his assistants, had been promulgated, 
 as laws of England, under the name of " The Con- 
 stitutions of Clarendon." 
 
 To put them in force, it was necessary to silence 
 the archbishop. 
 
 This was an essential preliminary. Without it 
 the king would have to count upon his resistance 
 in every attempt to enforce them, and might be 
 foiled, as he had been before. The archbishop 
 must therefore be crushed, or the king retire baffled 
 from the contest. An elaborate plot was devised 
 and executed for the purpose. 
 
 In preparation for the struggle, a new law or 
 custom was found to be wanted. A writer, who 
 informs us that he served the archbishop during 
 his exile, and therefore has, with reason, been 
 thought (for his narrative confirms it) to have had 
 
i 5 6 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 all his information from him, tells us that this new 
 " Constitution " was decreed and published upon 
 the sole authority of the king.* Intended for a 
 weapon against the archbishop, it became a 
 grievance to the barons. 
 
 " If any one having a suit in a lord's court, shall 
 prosecute it during two days' sessions and fail, it 
 shall be lawful for him, on his swearing that justice 
 is not done, to withdraw from that court, and to 
 have recourse to the court of the superior lord." 
 Such was the new law. 
 
 Some instances of Henry's lawgiving and law- 
 abiding we have had. We have here another. 
 
 A royal edict, to be called a law, is issued, and 
 is immediately put in force, and, we shall clearly 
 see, upon a false, trumped-up claim ; and all for 
 the purpose of bringing the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury before the king as a transgressor of his laws ! 
 Claim of One John, a king's marshal and a member of 
 
 John the 
 
 Marshal. his household, laid claim to a farm in the arch- 
 bishop's village of Pagham, and brought his suit in 
 the archbishop's court. He had no ground of 
 claim whatever ; but after some days he accused 
 the court of denying him justice, and took his 
 oath, it was alleged, not on the Gospels or relics of 
 the saints, but on a book of songs, or something of 
 the kind, which he drew out of his pocket and was 
 not sufficiently careful to conceal. 
 
 * Roger of Pontigny, c. 40. 
 
At Northampton. 157 
 
 He then complained to the king of failure of Appeals to 
 
 the king 
 
 justice, and the king, upon his new " Constitution," ^nst^the 
 forthwith summoned the archbishop to answer 
 before him. 
 
 The archbishop did not attend personally, but His method 
 
 of adminis- 
 
 he appeared by four knights, who excused his f er ' n g 
 
 rr J ° justice. 
 
 absence on the ground of illness, and produced 
 letters from himself and from the Sheriff of Kent, 
 attesting that John the Marshal had no case. 
 They gave evidence also that he had not taken 
 the lawful oath, and had no right of appeal. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances this appearance 
 by deputy would have been allowed. It was now 
 construed into an insult of the king by contempt 
 of the royal summons. The four knights were 
 seized and detained, on the charge of bringing 
 false and null excuses into the king's court, and 
 obtained their release with difficulty, upon finding 
 securities to be at his mercy. 
 
 Another " Great Council " of the nation was 
 forthwith summoned at Northampton,* for hearing 
 the case against the archbishop and calling him to 
 account for his contempt of a royal summons. It October, 
 was the same year as the " Council of Clarendon." 
 
 The customary letter of summons went to the Citation of 
 
 members of the Council, including all the bishops, bishop at 
 
 1 to 1 ' North- 
 
 except the archbishop, who had the first right to it. a™p'o"- 
 
 He received instead a citation as a culprit, sent to 
 
 * The accounts of this assemblage are copious. 
 
158 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 him through the Sheriff of Kent, to attend and 
 answer in the case of John the Marshal. 
 
 They were waiting at Northampton on the day 
 appointed (October 6), and were kept waiting. 
 Henry was leisurely flying his hawks by the rivers, 
 and arrived at night 
 
 The next morning early the archbishop came to 
 the castle and was ushered into the royal closet. 
 The king was hearing Mass. Thomas waited for 
 him, and rose when he entered, looking to be 
 greeted with the kiss — the customary salutation. 
 It was ominous of what followed that the king 
 refused the usual greeting. 
 
 The archbishop began to speak of the case in 
 which he was summoned. The king informed him 
 that the marshal was detained by business in the 
 Exchequer and might be expected the next day ; 
 till then he could retire to his lodgings. 
 
 It may be guessed, with more than probability, 
 that John the Marshal was busy looking into 
 accounts in the Exchequer, presently to be heard 
 of, and that the king intended the ex-chancellor 
 to take note of it. 
 First day, The next daj', in the presence of the bishops 
 
 October 8. _ 
 
 The king and lords of England, and many of Normandy, 
 
 calls upon . 
 
 the Council the archbishop was accused of contempt ot the 
 
 to pass 
 
 sentence, king's majesty in disobeying a royal summons. 
 
 No excuse was allowed. It went for nothing that 
 he had answered, as was due, by four knights ; 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 1 59 
 
 that his personal attendance was prevented by- 
 illness ; that the knights put in the sheriffs letters, 
 stating that the complaint of the king's marshal 
 was groundless. The king had cited the arch- 
 bishop, and the archbishop did not appear ; let the 
 council give sentence against him. 
 
 The council, it was evident, did not like the 
 business, and the king himself named a committee 
 to assess the penalty. There were creatures among 
 them in plenty, whose minds were as much at his 
 service as their bodies, and they were not long in 
 condemning him to forfeit all his moveable property Arbitrary 
 
 and unlawful 
 
 to the king, or pay a fine of £500. One account sentence, 
 has ^50, but the other evidently is correct. 
 
 Still there was some difficulty in finding persons 
 to pronounce the sentence. The archbishop might 
 retort upon them with his sentence of excommuni- 
 cation. The barons desired the bishops to declare 
 the judgment— -an ecclesiastic must be condemned 
 by ecclesiastics. Not so, the bishops replied ; it 
 is a judgment in a secular matter, and must be 
 declared by lords secular. Besides, it is not for 
 bishops to be the judges of their archbishop, who 
 is their lord. 
 
 The king hearing of the dissension, gave his 
 orders, with some warmth, that the Bishop of 
 Winchester should pronounce the judgment ; and 
 he did so. 
 
 " This," Becket said when he heard it, " is a new 
 
i Go 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 mode of administering justice ; I suppose under 
 the new canons of Clarendon." * It was a just 
 comment in such an assembly. 
 
 Nevertheless he had no alternative. The king's 
 court was supreme, and he must submit to its judg- 
 ment. The bishops advised him to take it quietly ; 
 it was only a matter of money, and all of them 
 except one, Gilbert of London, who refused, gave 
 their sureties for the payment of the huge fine, 
 amounting to what now would be .£8000 or £ 10,000. 
 It was an arbitrary sentence, in violation of all law. 
 Every county had its fixed and customary fine for 
 neglect of the king's summons. In this case the 
 summons was not disobeyed, and, if it had been, 
 the lawful fine for that offence in the county of 
 Kent was neither £50 nor .£500 ; it was forty 
 shillings ! 
 
 Nevertheless the sentence was passed without 
 protest. There can be no difficulty in believing that 
 humbler offenders, like De Broi, were branded and 
 whipped to pacify the king. 
 
 The bishops, when they gave their bonds for the 
 payment, expected that they had heard the full 
 penalty to be imposed upon their primate. He 
 had been summoned upon the case of John the 
 Marshal and no other. They had no idea of what 
 was coming. The king had many more hawks to 
 fly. The first " iniquitous judgment had no effect 
 
 * Herb. Bos., iii. 33. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 161 
 
 in mitigating the fury of the tyrant." These words, 
 in substance, were written then, and they are just. 
 
 The case itself of John the Marshal's claim was John's claim 
 
 groundless. 
 
 then gone into, and was found, even by this council, 
 to be groundless. This failure only whetted the 
 royal ardour for another onslaught. Becket, it was 
 next alleged, had received rents to the amount of 
 £300 on account of the two castles of Eye and Berk- Further 
 
 demands ; 
 
 hampstead, of which he had had the custody and 
 had not accounted for the money. He answered 
 that he had had no summons upon this charge, but 
 added, informally, that the moneys thus received 
 had been expended, as was well known, in the 
 repairs both of those castles and of the Tower of 
 London. The king declared that he had given no 
 authority for the one or for the other, and again 
 demanded judgment for a debt of £300. The and call for 
 
 sentence. 
 
 archbishop put in three lay lords as his securities 
 for this payment. And so ended the proceedings 
 of that day. 
 
 The day following, Friday, October 9, the king Second day. 
 
 .... Tr 11, Accumula- 
 
 went on with his sport. He now alleged that he had tion of royal 
 
 claims, for 
 
 lent the archbishop, when chancellor, £^00 for the thearch- 
 
 bishop's 
 
 expedition to Toulouse, and he had been security ruin - 
 for him to a Jew for .£500 more. It was at the 
 same time intimated that he would be called to 
 render an account of all rents and moneys which 
 he had received as chancellor on account of vacant 
 bishoprics, abbacies, baronies, and honours. He 
 
 M 
 
Thomas Beckct. 
 
 admitted that he had received £500 from the king 
 at Toulouse, and expostulated that it was unkingly 
 to demand back what was really a gift and not a 
 loan. He also pleaded his services in the campaign. 
 
 This was enough. He admitted that he had 
 received the money, and he had no evidence that 
 Another it was a gift. He must pay it. He found five 
 
 sentence. 
 
 more sureties in £100 each. 
 Enormous The great question was yet behind — his Chancery 
 
 claim on his 
 
 chancery accounts. He pleaded again that he had not been 
 
 accounts. 1 ° 
 
 summoned to answer in this matter ; but he added 
 that the king from time to time had overlooked his 
 accounts, and had acquitted him. He also pleaded 
 the full release given him when he became arch- 
 bishop, and made this his chief defence. The 
 bishops bore witness to it : it was well known. 
 The king vociferated and swore. He must have 
 the Chancery accounts rendered, and he insisted 
 on having them to-morrow. The archbishop pro- 
 tested that it was contrary to right and custom for 
 a man to be called to answer to-morrow on a 
 charge brought only to-day, and in so great a 
 matter. He asked for time to answer. The king 
 vociferated and swore the more with terrible voice 
 There should be no delay. He must bring in his 
 accounts on the morrow. The turbulent assembly 
 was prolonged all day. 
 Third day The next day the council was short. The demand 
 was insisted on, but he was allowed time for con- 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 163 
 
 ference with the bishops and chief persons ecclesi- 
 astical. We have an interesting account of their 
 discussions.* The bishops, even of that age, with 
 one exception, did not think all resistance perverse 
 or wrong ; but they easily agreed, also with one 
 dissentient, that it was the prudent course to give 
 in, to resign his office, and throw himself upon the 
 royal mercy. Foliot reminded him of the evil 
 times and his obligations to the king, and the ruin 
 he would work, both to the Church and them, if he 
 persisted. He ought to resign all, if it were ten 
 times more. Perhaps, if he humbled himself, the 
 king would restore him all ! 
 
 Henry of Winchester protested against so evil 
 an example in the primate of all England. Hilary 
 of Chichester recommended a show of submission 
 for the moment. He might have known the king 
 better, after his own experience at Colchester. 
 Another bishop thought that Thomas must lose 
 either his office or his life, and that to resign was 
 the lesser evil. Another, that the persecution was 
 personal and not general, and that it was better that 
 one member should suffer in part than that the 
 whole Church should be endangered. 
 
 Another bishop, the son of Robert, Earl of 
 Gloucester, Matilda's brother and captain, affirmed 
 that to advise a bishop to resign his charge of 
 souls because the king threatened, was against his 
 
 * Alan, c. 6, 7 ; Gervase, i. 183. 
 
164 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 conscience, and to advise resistance was to be put 
 out of the synagogue and accounted a criminal. 
 He would, therefore, give no advice one way or 
 the other. At least, if he did not advise, he left no 
 doubt of his opinion. 
 
 Another bishop was absent under a stroke of 
 palsy, and another, who had private information 
 of the king's intentions, kept himself away, and 
 wished that God had given him the same excuse. 
 
 The conference is worth attention. It shows 
 that the times had need of a man who could teach 
 the rulers of Church as well as of State. 
 
 Henry of Winchester gave in last to the pre- 
 vailing current,* but not till he had induced the 
 archbishop to offer 2000 marks for his acquittal, and 
 promised his cordial and substantial aid. 
 
 The offer was made and refused. That was not 
 the king's end in view. No, he said ; it is a question 
 of 44,000 marks (£30,000) — far in the hundreds of 
 thousands, measured by the money of this day ! 
 The demand was an amazement to all who heard 
 it. " There was nothing but the prison for him," 
 they murmured. " Or something worse," was also 
 heard. 
 
 His danger was evident, and he faced it, though 
 now he stood alone, with all the world, lay and 
 clerical, against him. They all looked to imme- 
 diate safety and convenience. His eye was upon 
 
 * Grim, c. 44. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 165 
 
 consequences more remote, and his resolve at all 
 hazards to stand fast for what he saw to be the 
 right. What they said was true ; he would never 
 have peace as archbishop. The king was bent 
 upon his resignation. England would not hold 
 them both. He had better be plain Thomas than 
 nothing. 
 
 " Never," was his answer, " while life remains 
 to me." 
 
 On the Sunday there was no court, but private 
 meetings and conferences continued throughout 
 the day. The Lords of the Council were so much 
 interested and occupied in their discussions among 
 themselves that, we are told, " they had hardly time 
 to eat." There was life in them then, those barons, 
 when they were out of the shadow of the king. 
 
 In what condition the archbishop had left the Probable 
 Chancery accounts thus suddenly called for must, case, 
 to some extent, be open to question. If they 
 were complete and exact, the king must have 
 known it. We might conjecture from the pre- 
 cipitate demand for accounts so large, without 
 previous summons, that the enormous claim upon 
 them was false and fraudulent. 
 
 On the other hand, it appears hardly possible 
 that Becket's private resources, large as they were, 
 could have covered the expenditure of a military 
 expedition like that of Toulouse, or of a peaceful 
 embassy such as that to Paris. Expenses of this 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 kind, although incurred in the public service, were 
 not strictly chargeable on the king's revenues that 
 passed through his hands. If he drew upon them 
 for these expenses — and it is difficult to see how he 
 could have avoided it — it must have been done with 
 the king's tacit consent. It is every way likely, 
 from the character of the two men, that the chan- 
 cellor presumed on his master's sufferance, and that 
 Henry, when he looked at the accounts, did it in a 
 good-natured and cursory manner, and was easily 
 satisfied. Most likely, whatever may be the truth 
 in this respect, the chancellor's aptitude for busi- 
 ness brought more than was expected into the 
 Exchequer. 
 
 But if the king was content at the time, it would 
 appear that the chancellor obtained no formal 
 evidence of it, and could produce no lawful instru- 
 ment of discharge, except the general release when 
 he became archbishop. He dwells much upon this 
 release, and says very little of any other, although 
 we hear from one writer already quoted that he 
 did allege his acquittal after audit of his accounts 
 by the king. 
 
 As regards Henry, there is not much to choose 
 between one view of his conduct and another. 
 Upon any possible account of the facts, it was more 
 than defiant of kingly dignity. After the well- 
 known public acquittal of the chancellor, on the 
 word of a king, it was equally so of common 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 honesty. There are clear indications that the royal 
 tactics were a surprise to everybody even there, 
 except to a few who had private information of 
 them. They went beyond their imagination of 
 things possible. For once, at least, Henry outdid 
 all his contemporaries. 
 
 On the Sunday (October n), so busy to the lords, 
 the archbishop did not leave his lodgings in St. 
 Andrew's Priory. Anxiety and want of sleep 
 brought on a fit of a complaint to which he was 
 subject, and on the Monday he was too ill to go Fourth day. 
 to the court. If he had sent in his resignation, 
 there would have been peace within the castle 
 walls ; but he did not do that, and the enraged 
 monarch swore more terribly than ever. It was 
 all a sham. Let him attend the court ; there shall 
 be no excuse. The two great earls were sent to 
 bring him. He entreated to be spared ; they were 
 witnesses of what he was suffering, but he would 
 swear to attend to-morrow, if he had to be carried 
 on his bed. 
 
 To-morrow, then. The morrow was to end the 
 proceedings shameful to king and barons — to the 
 king whose conduct many a huckster of his own 
 day would have thought degrading to him ; to 
 barons whose morals and manners were still those 
 of the men who came over with the Conqueror. 
 
 The same day (Monday) the sick man had 
 repeated tidings of imminent dangers. There was 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 talk of his perpetual imprisonment, of his losing 
 limb or eyes like some felon peasant ; the king 
 had threatened to have his head ; rovalist bravoes 
 were banded together to take his life. He had 
 even- cause for apprehension. Anything was 
 credible, and events proved that anything was 
 possible. He owed it to his own skilful manage- 
 ment that the catastrophe which came six years 
 later, and came then because he saw it must, did 
 not happen now. He was as ready now as after- 
 wards, to die for liberty if need were ; but he 
 would defend himself, and fight his righteous battle, 
 if he could. He would not flinch, he would not 
 resign, under any terrors ; and he would give time 
 for the " iniquity " he resisted to abate itself, or to 
 show itself incorrigible. That was his own account 
 of his conduct. The day of sickness was a day of 
 thought for him ; and he prepared himself for the 
 morrow. He had spiritual weapons, which also 
 had their terrors. He would not use them, but he 
 would make them seen and feared. It turned out, 
 as often happens with more carnal weapons, that 
 the reserved fire effected more than the discharge 
 could have done. His conduct, that last day of the 
 Council of Northampton, much censured, was as 
 wise as it was successful for his purpose. 
 Fifth day. On the Tuesday morning, the bishops came to 
 
 October 13. 
 
 Dangers him early in great alarm. He might look for any 
 
 threatened. 
 
 outrage : it was the least to be expected that he 
 
At Northampton. 169 
 
 should be accused and tried as a perjurer and a 
 traitor. They were now urgent that he should resign- 
 But no ; he had not taken his office to fly in He wm not 
 
 resign. 
 
 time of danger. The world might rage and the 
 flesh was weak, but, with God's help, he would 
 never desert his flock. Though he were silent, 
 ages to come would tell how they, his bishops, had 
 deserted him. During two days they had sat in 
 judgment upon their archbishop and father in 
 matters of secular import, and they were now 
 ready, it appeared, to sit in a secular tribunal, and 
 be his judges on a criminal charge. He inhibited He inhibits 
 
 J fa & all the 
 
 them, upon their obedience, from doing anything bishops 
 
 1 0^0 unc J er a pp ea [ 
 
 of the kind. Upon that inhibition he now appealed t0 the pope - 
 to the pope ; and he charged them all, if violent 
 hands were laid upon him, to put forth their eccle- 
 siastical censures in his defence. 
 
 The bishops found him impracticable, and went 
 their way ; and he began the day of conflict as he 
 intended it to go on. He went to his service in His early 
 
 P. Mass. 
 
 the chapel, and chose for it, not the office of the 
 day, but the Mass of Stephen, the first martyr, 
 with its introit, " Princes did sit and speak against 
 me." He was deeply agitated and in tears. 
 
 He wore his pall, and would have proceeded to Scenes in 
 the court in full pontifical vestments, and barefoot. 
 He was dissuaded from this, and with stole over 
 his shoulders, on horseback, with two attendant 
 clergy, the last of forty who had come with him, he 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 passed through the crowds of people who filled the 
 street, all well acquainted with the dangers he was 
 facing, all kneeling, many of them weeping and 
 wailing aloud for him, as going to his death.* It 
 needs little imagination of all that the poor people 
 had suffered for a hundred years, under the Norman 
 French and their kings, to understand the feelings 
 of Englishmen for their archbishop, whom they 
 looked upon as one of themselves, who would 
 rather die than be the tyrant's slave, 
 and at the The castle gates were quickly opened for him, 
 
 castle. 
 
 and as quickly shut. There was a rush of nobles 
 and knights and men of every degree from the hall 
 door to look at him as he rode into the court. 
 Whatever their faults, at least they were brave 
 men in battle, and in their hearts they honoured 
 the man who could bravely fight more than they 
 honoured him by their words or acts. 
 He enters, Before he reached the door he dismounted, and 
 
 carrying his r A 1 j 
 
 crosier. took his silver cross out of the hands of Alexander 
 Llewellyn, its bearer. He had resolved that day 
 to carry it himself. There was a murmur of 
 surprise. Among the bystanders at the hall door 
 was Bishop Foliot. " What ! my lord of London," 
 said one, " will you allow him to be his own cross- 
 bearer?" " He was always a fool, and always will 
 be," the bishop replied, according to whose measure 
 no doubt Thomas was a fool. 
 
 * Kog. Pont., c. 44. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 171 
 
 Yet all made way for him, as, uplifted crucifix in 
 hand, he walked through the crowded hall into the 
 ante-room beyond it. The king with his intimates 
 was in a chamber on a higher floor. It was said 
 that he fled from the archbishop and his cross. At 
 all events they never met on that turbulent day. 
 
 In the ante-room he heard many remonstrances : 
 " You are coming armed against the king." " The 
 king's sword is sharper than yours." " You'll 
 aggravate the king more than ever." Foliot was 
 not content to remonstrate. He laid hands upon 
 the staff of the cross, and would have wrested his 
 standard from his grasp. There was a struggle 
 with both hands. But the bishop was the weaker 
 man and failed ; and, at that moment, must have 
 looked the greater fool of the two. 
 
 Cross in hand, all eyes upon him, Thomas took 
 his seat with the bishops. The two chaplains were 
 with him, William Fitz-Stephen and Herbert of 
 Bosham. Only one of them, Herbert there can be 
 no doubt, had ventured by his side, as he walked 
 up the castle hall. Fitz-Stephen was cautious, and 
 soon made his peace with the king by a laudatory 
 poem, not very poetical. In this respect he was 
 a solitary exception among the friends of Becket. 
 Both of them became his biographers, and were 
 often his advisers, for he listened to advice, and 
 often took it ; but they are almost as far as the 
 mob of courtiers from his real mind. 
 
172 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Presently the bishops were summoned to the 
 king. The archbishop was left with his two 
 friends. Herbert reminded him, in a whisper, of 
 the spiritual weapons he could employ if violent 
 hands were laid upon him. The other protested 
 against church censures in revenge of private 
 injuries. A marshal, with a wand, commanded 
 silence. The king would roar ; nobody else might 
 whisper, except in applause. Silenced, Fitz-Stephen 
 pointed to the crucifix. The one adviser was for 
 quick contention ; the other for unresisting en- 
 durance unto death. Thomas knew better than 
 either of them what to do. 
 clamorous The king made loud complaint to his lords of the 
 proceeding- j^^jj^ishop's i nso lence in entering his court as he 
 had done. They answered clamorously that it 
 was an insult to the kingdom and to all of them : 
 he was a perjurer and a traitor, and against the king 
 who had done so much for him. Let him be tried 
 and dealt with as a traitor. 
 Castle riot. The noise became so uproarious, that the people 
 in the hall below were terrified. There were 
 rumours of assassins, and of a sentence of death 
 passed by the king. The archbishop sat quiet 
 when the bishops came back and stood around 
 him, sad and silent. Their looks seemed to con- 
 firm the rumours. " I see," he said, " that some- 
 thing strange concerning me is in discussion up 
 there and that the cause of God's Church is in 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 173 
 
 danger. I am obliged to appeal to the pope, and 
 I charge you all, on your obedience, and at the 
 peril of your souls, that if I am murdered or sent 
 to prison, you spare no one, but execute due 
 justice." 
 
 The bishops found themselves in a perplexity Dilemma of 
 between king, and pope, and archbishop. If the the b,shops ' 
 king called them to sit in judgment, they must 
 incur his displeasure by refusing ; or, obeying him, 
 fall under the sentence of the archbishop, already 
 denounced, and, they feared, be declared excom- 
 municate in the public audience of the court. If 
 he were put to death by the king's order, or by 
 assassins, they would be held responsible by the 
 pope, and might incur still heavier censures. 
 
 They sought audience of the king, and informed 
 him that the archbishop had appealed them all to 
 the pope for taking part against him in secular 
 judgments, and particularly in the illegal sentence 
 for neglect of summons in the case of John the 
 Marshal. They also represented to him the dis- 
 honour he would incur by violence. They entreated 
 him to allow them to deal with the archbishop. 
 They would use all their power and influence for 
 his deprivation. They would appeal him to the 
 pope of perjury, in leading them to give their 
 assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon, and after- 
 wards forbidding obedience to them. They prayed 
 the king's permission to appeal ; and, in the mean- 
 
i/4 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 time, to be excused from taking part in any judg- 
 ment upon him. They would silence him. They 
 would humble him to the king's will. Archbishop 
 Roger and Bishop Foliot supported the others in 
 deprecating open violence ; but they gave the king 
 their separate advice, that he should be taken 
 quietly and sent to prison as soon as the Council 
 was dissolved. 
 
 King's mes- Before the king answered their petition, he sent 
 
 sage to him. m 
 
 a deputation of earls and barons, to demand of the 
 archbishop whether he persisted in his appeal to 
 the pope, in defiance of the Constitutions which it 
 was alleged he had sworn to observe ; and also 
 whether he would give security for rendering his 
 chancery accounts, and would abide the judgment 
 of the king's court upon them. After fixing his 
 His answer, eye upon his crucifix, the archbishop sat down to 
 give his answer. On the question of accounts only 
 one answer was possible. He was pledged to the 
 utmost of his means before they were called in 
 question. He had exhausted the ability of his 
 friends, and could give no more sureties. His own 
 resources had been all expended in the king's 
 service, and he was burdened with heavy debts 
 besides. He protested again that he had been 
 summoned to answer in the case of John the 
 Marshal, and in no other ; and he declared that he 
 would answer no more to a charge against him, 
 brought, not of justice, but of angry contention. 
 
At Northampton. 175 
 
 It was true he had appealed the bishops. They 
 had taken part in a judgment upon him, which 
 violated the customs of ages : and he had inhibited 
 them, and did inhibit them from sitting in judg- 
 ment upon him, pending the appeal. He still 
 appealed, and put himself and his Church of 
 Canterbury under the protection of God and the 
 pope. 
 
 The deputation returned with his answer ; some Commotion, 
 in thoughtful silence, some exclaiming, " We have 
 heard his contempt of the king's commands from 
 his own mouth." In every room where men could 
 gather there were audible signs of sensation ; savage 
 
 i- 1 1 1 t • r t 1 threats. 
 
 among them, his ear caught loud whispers of Odo s 
 prison, and Stigand's dungeon pit, and Earl 
 Geoffrey's charger. * 
 
 The king "boiled with rage." "He shall not 
 escape us. He derogates from our jurisdiction by 
 appealing to another. Let him feel the weight of The king 
 
 rr ° a demands 
 
 ours. Deprive of his own due honours the subject sentence, 
 who will not give due honour to his lord. Go and 
 decide what sentence shall be passed on a man 
 who contumaciously resists his lord." * It was 
 another royal demand for exemplary punishment, 
 throwing the odium of the arbitrary sentence upon 
 others. 
 
 The barons, in excited clamour, becoming louder 
 and louder and more appalling to those outside, 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. Iv. 
 
176 
 
 TJiomas Becket. 
 
 concluded upon their judgment in what way they 
 could, and handed it to the king, who accepted it : 
 The " Let Thomas the archbishop be consigned in chains 
 
 sentence. 
 
 to prison for traitorous contempt of the royal 
 majesty and as a disturber of the public peace." * 
 It was a sentence to chains and dungeon, lawless, 
 to pacify the king. It remained to pronounce the 
 sentence. 
 
 That, however, not one of all of them ever did 
 or dared to do. First, the king desired the bishops 
 to pronounce it, having the barons with them, upon 
 the errand. He insisted upon it by their duty 
 to him and their sworn fidelity. They begged 
 earnestly to be excused. The archbishop had in- 
 hibited them from it, under appeal to the pope. 
 They would stand worse with the pope if they 
 treated the appeal with contempt. It would serve 
 the king better if he gave them permission to 
 appeal. He was persuaded, or saw that it was 
 hopeless to use them better than in the way they 
 The bishops desired. He gave them his permission to appeal, 
 
 obtain leave 
 
 to appeal, and they returned to the ante-room, where Hilary 
 of Chichester announced it to their chief. Some 
 of them then went away ; the rest sat down in 
 their places by him, and waited to see the end. 
 
 No one The lords were as unwilling as the bishops to 
 
 dared to , 
 
 pronounce pronounce the sentence. h,very one shrank from 
 
 the sentence. 
 
 it ; every one was afraid of his reserved fire. There 
 
 * W. Cant, i. 29 ; Grim, c. 47 ; Hov., i. 228 ; Gervase, i. 188. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 ^77 
 
 is something marvellous to us in this universal 
 horror of excommunication ; and yet that scene 
 of carnal passions, subdued under the fear of 
 spiritual terrors, even if imaginary terrors, has in 
 it something of the sublime. It was well that the 
 lawless king and barons were compelled to stand 
 in awe of something. 
 
 At last, after some delay, the crowd of lords 
 came down to the ante-room and stood facing 
 him. He would have risen : his more pugnacious 
 chaplain advised him to receive them sitting. The 
 aged Earl of Leicester walked in front, and seemed 
 likely to be the spokesman, but he asked some 
 others to do the office. When all refused, he was 
 obliged to undertake it himself. 
 
 He had always been friendly to the archbishop, Leicester 
 
 attempts : 
 
 and was believed to be so still. He began by fails - 
 reminding him of the king's friendship and favours 
 to him, and was thought slow in coming to the 
 point. At last he spoke of judgment, and let fall 
 the word "perjury." The archbishop instantly 
 rose. He sprung to his feet, holding in front of 
 him his crosier-standard. 
 
 "Judgment,"* he said. "Nay, my son, but hear 
 me first. Sentence follows trial. There has been 
 no trial. I have answered in none. I was sum- 
 moned in no cause save that of John the Marshal." 
 He repeated his defence, that the king, in confirm- 
 
 * Alan, c. io. 
 
 N 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 ing his election as archbishop, "gave him full and 
 absolute discharge from all secular obligations." 
 
 " That's not what London told the king," the 
 earl was heard to say. 
 
 The archbishop went on, it was not for them 
 to pass judgment upon him, and by the powers 
 committed to him from above, he inhibited the earl 
 by name from presuming to pass judgment upon 
 his father and pastor. 
 
 It was enough. The earl declared that he would 
 no more open his mouth,* and, turning to the Earl 
 of Cornwall, desired him to complete the business 
 on which they had come. Cornwall would not 
 presume ; he had no commands. 
 
 There was an awkward pause, broken at length 
 by a suggestion that they should report his answer 
 to the king, and take his further pleasure. 
 The arch- They went. The archbishop again appealed the 
 Leaves the bishops to the pope, and with the words, " I will be 
 going, too ; it's getting late," lifted up his cross 
 again and rose. 
 
 Riot. There was a cry, "The traitor's going!" He 
 
 passed out, and walked again through the crowded 
 hall, carrying his cross. Shouts and insults came 
 upon him from all sides.t Knots of straw and 
 light missiles were flung at him. And he was not 
 callous to the insults. Reviled, he did not refrain 
 from reviling again. Men of his nature neither 
 * \V. Cant, i. 30. t Rog. Pont., c. 49. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 179 
 
 do nor can, unless they have been converted into 
 saints. He never was, and never pretended to be. 
 He was the same Thomas Becket he had always 
 been. " Mean lad, bastard ; not worth the notice He gives 
 
 railing; fo 
 
 of a man," was his answer to one, a half-brother of railing, 
 the king. To another, Ranulf de Broc, "At least, 
 none of my family was ever hanged for crime." 
 " Liar ! " to another who cried, " Traitor ! " And to 
 another, " Liar! and, if I were a knight, and not a 
 priest, I would prove you liar with my own hand." 
 Stumbling at a bundle of firewood, he kept his feet 
 with some difficulty, and the cries were redoubled. 
 The noise was " like that of a city on fire, or under 
 assault ; " but no man laid hands on him. 
 
 Herbert was his companion through it all. He 
 saw him mounted, and they came to the court gate, 
 and, to their consternation, found it locked. One 
 of his servants, whose name is preserved, had been 
 waiting all day, and had kept his eyes open. He 
 found a bundle of keys upon a nail, with the gate- 
 key among them, while for the moment the porter's 
 vigilance was occupied within hearing, in lashing 
 some culprit with a rod. They got out again into 
 the crowded street. It was observed that among Scene in 
 
 . street ; 
 
 the poor people who thronged it there were many 
 afflicted with the disease called the king's evil — 
 not a pleasant testimony to the condition of the 
 poor in those days of manor-rule. 
 
 There was a shout of joy when they saw the 
 
i So 
 
 Thomas Bechct. 
 
 archbishop coming out from " the wild beasts' 
 den," for so they called it. It was as much as he 
 could do to manage his horse, and carry his cross, 
 and give his blessing to the kneeling multitude, as 
 he rode through them to the monastery. Nearly 
 all his retinue had fled, even those of his household. 
 A few knights and well-born youths were waiting 
 for his leave to depart, and left him with tears, 
 and at the He went first to the chapel, and bowed himself 
 
 priory. 
 
 before the altar. He asked if it were nones : it 
 was nearing sunset ; so he said nones and vespers 
 together, and ordered his supper to be served. Six 
 or eight of all who came with him remained to sup, 
 and then departed ; but the table was served as it 
 had been for all, and he had it filled with poor 
 people from the street. During supper he was 
 cheerful, and ordered a bed to be made for him 
 behind the high altar of the chapel, that he might 
 sleep in peace. Once already he had passed the 
 night in the chapel with some of his clergy. This 
 night he would be alone. He waited while three 
 bishops went for him to the king to ask permission 
 and safe-conduct for his going abroad. He must 
 have known well that he would obtain no such 
 license, and wished, perhaps, to divert attention 
 from his movements. The bishops found the king 
 in high spirits. He would answer to-morrow. 
 After the scene in the castle hall he had issued an 
 order that the archbishop was not to be molested. 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 1S1 
 
 Becket had good reason for not awaiting the The flight, 
 morrow. He called two monks and a trusty ser- 
 vant, and told them he must depart with all speed. 
 They were to provide four good horses, not of his 
 own ; and he would go to the church early, as if 
 to rest. All was managed to perfection. For- 
 tunately, it was a dark, tempestuous night ; the 
 clouds were so dense that no one saw the horses 
 pass, and the rain pelted so loudly that they were 
 not heard. They got out of the north gate before 
 it was closed, and rode to a place called " Graham, 
 twenty-five miles from Northampton," where they 
 rested for some time. This has been understood 
 to be Grantham, forty miles from Northampton. 
 The village of Gretton seems more likely, unless 
 there is an error of distance. But all accounts 
 agree that they arrived at Lincoln * the following 
 morning, apparently about ten o'clock. The rain 
 came down in torrents, and his cloak was twice 
 cut shorter to lighten it. He had chosen men who 
 could ride with him. 
 
 Equal to all emergencies, Becket thus travelled 
 seventy miles in a night, and in a direction 
 opposite to the road for Dover, upon which the 
 king was likely to pursue him, and in fact did. 
 He then turned southward, by another unlikely 
 route. After resting for the day, at Lincoln, 
 with a fuller, a friend of one of his monks, 
 * Herb. Bos., iv. 3 ; Grim, c. 49; Rog. Pont., c. 52. 
 
1 82 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 at night they went by boat on the Witham to 
 Haverholme, then a small cell or hermitage sur- 
 rounded by the waters belonging to the priory of 
 Sempringham, where they rested three days. They 
 went on, travelling by night and resting by day at 
 religious houses — Boston and Chicksand among 
 them, — till they reached Eastry near Sandwich, a 
 manor of the priory of Canterbury. He had taken 
 the name of Brother Christian. 
 
 It was important not to have to put back after 
 leaving land, as he had done before ; and he was 
 delayed at Eastry for a week. On November 2, 
 nearly three weeks after his flight from North- 
 ampton, with two monks, in a small vessel 
 specially provided, he put off, after nightfall, from 
 the beach, and landed before morning on the 
 beach not far from Gravelines. They went some 
 distance on foot ; but he was worn out with trouble 
 and sea-sickness, and they were glad to find him a 
 cart-horse, with a rope of hay for a halter. At 
 St. Omer, singularly enough, he fell in with De 
 Luci, who would have persuaded him to go back 
 with him ; but that was not likely. He had been 
 recognized at an inn. De Luci took no part in the 
 proceedings at Northampton. 
 
 From St. Omer, he sent messengers to the 
 Count of Flanders, to ask for a safe-conduct 
 through his territories ; but, distrusting his answer, 
 he got away by night, as skilfully as he had done 
 
At Northampton. 
 
 from Northampton ; and made all haste till he 
 arrived at Soissons, within the territories of the 
 French king. 
 
 Thus the archbishop, by his prudent and skilful 
 flight, nullified the Northampton plot, baffled the 
 king's expectations of ousting him, escaped the 
 chains and dungeon pit, and left in their deserved 
 contempt the base means he had employed to 
 accomplish his end. 
 
 Was he contending, in all he did and suffered, ah for 
 
 Church 
 
 for nothing greater than Church privileges or privileges? 
 clerical immunities ? Under sentences of enormous 
 fines, accumulated upon him, to his ruin, with an 
 audacity of lawlessness which the most expert of 
 bravoes might have envied ; with shouts of the 
 dungeon, the knife, the hangman ringing in his 
 ears ; compelled to seek safety on a foreign shore ; 
 sacrificing the greatest condition in the world, 
 beneath a king's, with all its honours and advan- 
 tages, for one of destitution to himself and many 
 others ; at last, contending obstinately to the 
 death ; and all because he would not allow himself 
 — the one and only man whom all the world 
 acknowledged to have the right, and all the world 
 believed to be under a sacred duty— to take his part 
 in the great council of the nation, with a judgment 
 and a will of his own ; because he would not be 
 the tool of an unscrupulous king, in his outrageous 
 tyranny. Contending for clerical immunities ! 
 
TJwmas Beckct. 
 
 His immediate contention, it is evident, was for 
 his personal liberty of action. He would have 
 been the one great man of his age, if he had had no 
 higher purpose than, at the cost of all things, to 
 maintain his own individual freedom. He con- 
 tended, and knew that he was contending, for much 
 more. 
 
 The giant wrong of his time was the oppression 
 of the English people by the half-foreign lords ; 
 and the foreign king was the keystone of the evil 
 fabric of society. He recognized it to be his para- 
 mount duty, as archbishop, to stand firm for his 
 country, against the selfish despotism of the king. 
 
 " Better to die," he wrote later in the contest, 
 " than sell the liberties of the Church, our inherit- 
 ance from our fathers, to an impious king." * 
 
 " The liberties of the Church ? " Yes ! But they 
 were the only liberties that were left. These gone 
 and all was gone. While these remained, there 
 still was hope that Englishmen would regain their 
 own. 
 
 He was contending against the world for the last 
 relic of the old English liberty ; and Englishmen 
 of the humblest classes knew it then. He was 
 struggling for the first gleam of the new English 
 liberty ; and Englishmen, to their shame, do not 
 know it now. 
 
 * Letter ccccxliii. 
 
( 185 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 KING AND ARCHBISHOP IN APPEAL TO THE POPE 
 ' — PAPAL DUPLICITIES IN EVIL TIMES. 
 
 It was on the morning of October 14, the ninety- 1164. 
 eighth anniversary of Hastings, when King Henry 
 was surprised by the tidings that the one free Eng- 
 lishman had fled. His anger, for once, was silent. 
 It had been one of the courtier's cries, " The king's 
 sword is sharper than yours." Henry felt, that 
 morning, that if it was sharper it did not reach so 
 far. A sentence of excommunication, or interdict, 
 was a real terror, and lost none of its force by 
 crossing the sea. 
 
 " We've not done with him yet," were the first 
 words he uttered, with a will ready for all that 
 followed. 
 
 Quick in action, as always, he gave orders for all The king' 
 
 111 precautioi 
 
 the coast to be watched to prevent the escape of 
 " his enemy," as he now called him. He confis- 
 cated to himself "the revenues of the archbishop's 
 estates, and appointed Ranulf de Broc, Becket's 
 
TJwmas Bccket. 
 
 adversary at Northampton, his agent in charge. 
 He sent letters to the sheriffs of counties, requiring 
 them to deal in the same manner with the estates 
 of the archbishop's clergy, and also to hold in 
 custody their fathers and mothers, brothers and 
 sisters, nephews and nieces, and to seize their 
 goods till the royal pleasure concerning them 
 should be declared. He despatched orders to all 
 the bishops to sequestrate in ever}* diocese the 
 incomes of all clergy who had taken any part with 
 the archbishop " against the honour of the king 
 and kingdom," and to give them no assistance or 
 advice.* 
 
 Embassy to At the same time, he sent an embassy to the 
 
 King Lewis : 
 
 French king, of which Gilbert of London and the 
 Earl of Arundel were the principal persons. They 
 were to request King Lewis to deliver up, or at 
 least to expel from his territories, the king's per- 
 sonal enemy, " a man infamous for crimes and 
 treasons, Thomas, late Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 condemned as a traitor by the full council of his 
 realm, and a fugitive from justice." f 
 
 The King of England descended so low as to 
 remind King Lewis of the French towns that 
 Becket had taken, and the French territories he 
 had laid waste ; and to lay upon him the blame of 
 the mischief he had done to France himself. \ 
 
 * Letters lxxvii. and lxxviii. t Letters Ixx. and IxxL 
 
 J W. Cant, i. 35. 
 
King, Archbishop, and Pope. 187 
 
 The answer of the French king was honourable 
 to him. He wondered how Thomas had ceased to 
 be archbishop. If he had done injury to France, 
 he had done his duty, and ought to be honoured 
 for it. If he came to France a fugitive he would 
 find an asylum and good entertainment. Lewis 
 would do what he could to influence the pope, but 
 his offices would not be in the direction that 
 Henry desired ; on the contrary, he would solicit 
 the pope's protection for him. 
 
 From the French king the royal envoys went on and to the 
 
 pope. 1 
 
 to Sens to lay their master's complaints before the 
 pope. They were heard in full consistory, and 
 with self-interest, for they were well supplied with 
 money. The cardinals are continually spoken of Roman 
 
 1 1 1 1 corruption 
 
 in records of the time as " keen-scented for lucre, 
 and they had all the more need of money in their 
 exile from Rome. 
 
 A speech of Hilary of Chichester added amuse- 
 ment to other motives. His Latin, bad for a 
 young schoolboy, provoked the jokes and laughter 
 of the cardinals.* After many oportets and opor- 
 tuits, and oportuebats, one of them remarked when 
 he ceased, that he had toiled badly for port, but 
 had made it at last. 
 
 Yet money, although it did much, would not do 
 everything. The pope was cautious. He would 
 comply with the king's request to send two cardi- 
 * Alan, c. 20. 
 
i88 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 nals to hear all complaints. * But he would not 
 arm them with full powers without appeal : that 
 was his own sacred right ; " he would not give his 
 glory to another." f 
 The arch- The king's envoys left Rome four days before 
 
 bishop at 
 
 Rome. the arrival of the archbishop, who was expected. 
 
 He was honourably received, and soon showed 
 himself in possession of all his old diplomatic skill. 
 He presented to the pope a copy of the " Constitu- 
 tions of Clarendon," upon some of which the judg- 
 ment of the papal Court could not be doubtful. 
 He confessed his sin in giving his assent to any of 
 them under the terror of threatened violence. 
 
 At the same time he threw himself unreservedly 
 upon the pope by delivering his ring into his 
 hands and resigning his archbishopric. He thus 
 submitted himself to removal from it ; and the 
 king's friends among the cardinals would gladly 
 have made terms by his translation to another see. 
 There was some discussion, but not much danger 
 that his resignation would be accepted. " We are 
 brothers in banishment," Alexander said, restoring 
 him the ring ; " let us be in fellowship for life." % 
 
 He found a refuge for the archbishop in the Cis- 
 tercian, or Grey Friars' house, at Pontigny, where 
 he was hospitably and generously entertained for 
 two years. 
 
 * Hov., i. 230; Diceto, i. 315. f Alan, c. 24 ; Gervase, i. 194. 
 X Alan, c. 29. 
 
King, Archbishop, and Pope. 189 
 
 Thus disappointed, the king pursued his ends 
 and his revenge by the most diabolical act of self- 
 will that we have yet met with. From his palace 
 of Marlborough, where he was spending his Christ- 
 mas, he issued his order that all the relations of 
 the archbishop, and all his clergy and their rela- 
 tions, whom he had in custody, should be banished 
 the realm, and their property confiscated. 
 
 Under this order, about four hundred and fortv His friends 
 
 and relative^ 
 
 people, his kinsmen in any degree ; his clergy who "f*"^ the 
 were with him, or had given him any assistance, or 
 had been promoted by him, and their kinsmen ; 
 people, lay and clerical, who had stood in any 
 relation to him, or done him any service, even as 
 servants, and all related to them, — some among 
 them who had derived no advantage from him, 
 some who had never seen his face ; all of them 
 people who had committed no offence, and were 
 charged with none, — men and women, widows and 
 orphans, old and young, and infants at the breast, 
 and among them, it is related, even women in 
 labour, were torn from their homes, shipped 
 beyond sea, and cast destitute upon a foreign 
 shore in the depth of winter — all to show what a 
 king of England could do with his "own land," and 
 to throw them as burdens upon the man who had 
 sacrificed everything rather than surrender to his 
 grasping despotism the last vestige of English 
 freedom, and be his slave. 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 It was an execution of rights of conquest over 
 the land and people of England, which he claimed 
 to inherit from his great-grandfather. 
 
 Before the exiles were sent off, they were com- 
 pelled to swear that they would make their way 
 to Pontigny, and present themselves to the arch- 
 bishop. A few disregarded the oath, and sought 
 a livelihood where they could. After some deaths, 
 the greater number of them arrived in destitution 
 at the gates of the monaster} 7 . The archbishop 
 met with friends among them who had been 
 wealthy men. The French king and some of the 
 nobles found them shelter in various places during 
 the six vears of their banishment from England. 
 The kings F° r some months the king was in danger of 
 Ho™? 063 ' excommunication or interdict. But he had great 
 influence in the Roman Court. The archbishop, 
 on the contrary, had abundant messages of com- 
 mendation, but not much hope of solid assistance. 
 They told him that all the world at Rome was 
 thanking God that " a man had arisen who would 
 speak wisdom to kings." " They praised him all 
 the more, because they were so weak themselves." 
 
 It was known before long that the king had 
 obtained a respite. The pope sent his injunctions 
 to Archbishop Thomas, because " the days were 
 evil," to deal prudently and cautiously, and to 
 bear with the king till the Easter following, which 
 was that of 1166. His powers till then were 
 
Popular Feeling. 
 
 191 
 
 suspended ; in the papal language, his mouth was 
 closed. Alexander hoped that the times would 
 mend ; and that, after Easter, both he and Thomas 
 would be able to proceed more safely. 
 
 This, however, was not enough for Henry, unless He seek? 
 
 to be rid of 
 
 he could rid himself of the archbishop. With this the arch- 
 
 A bishop. 
 
 view he sent envoys to an imperial diet at Wurz- 
 burg ; * w ho, it was said, swore obedience in his Diet at 
 
 Wurzbttrg, 
 
 name to the anti-pope. A letter of his to the n6 5 . 
 emperor declares his strong desire to have a just 
 reason for withdrawing himself "from Pope Alex- 
 ander and his perfidious cardinals, who presume 
 to support the traitor Thomas, late archbishop,f 
 etc. ; " and informs the emperor that he is about to 
 send an important embassy to Rome, to require 
 Alexander, who had lately returned thither, to 
 deliver him from the archbishop, and enable him 
 to proceed to the election of another in his place. 
 
 What was really done at Wurzburg was a 
 question in dispute at the time. It is plain 
 enough, however, that he was prepared to abjure 
 Alexander, and to swear to any pope who would 
 rid him of Archbishop Thomas ; and that he 
 wished both the pope and the emperor to know 
 this. 
 
 This scheme of religious warfare was rudely English feel- 
 ing against 
 
 checked by a popular outbreak in London. Re^i- thcami- 
 
 ' 1 L 0 pope. 
 
 * W. Cant., i. 44; Letters xcvii. and xcviii. 
 t Leiicr ccxiii. 
 
19 2 Thomas Becket. 
 
 1165 or nald, Archbishop of Cologne, came to England 
 1166. r & > & 
 
 soon after the diet of Wurzburg, to negotiate 
 some royal marriage. The people called him a 
 schismatic, and pulled down the altars where he 
 and his priests had celebrated Mass.* There was 
 a public feeling about pope and anti-pope which 
 the king did not venture to despise. Even the 
 Earl of Leicester refused to hold communion with 
 Reginald of Cologne. 
 Church As the Easter of 1 166 drew nigh, the pope, little 
 
 sentences 
 
 impending, satisfied with the conduct of Henry, and himself 
 in less fear of the emperor, not only restored to 
 Thomas his full powers, but augmented them by 
 appointing him papal legate in all England,! 
 except the archdiocese of York. He even sent 
 him special injunction no longer to hold his hand, 
 but to issue his sentences. 
 
 The archbishop immediately sent his letters to 
 all the English bishops, requiring them upon pain 
 of the pope's anathema to make full restitution, 
 within two months, of all they had taken under 
 the king's commands from himself or any of his 
 clergy. 
 
 As to the king himself he had no command, but 
 was left with full powers. He gave notice of 
 action by sending him the three usual letters,! 
 preparatory to sentence against an important 
 
 * Diceto, i. 318; Matt. Paris, Hist. Maj., ii. 233. 
 t Letter clxxii. J Letters clii.-cliv. 
 
Excommunications. 
 
 193 
 
 person — the first, a letter of advice ; the second, 
 of commonition, or caution ; the third, of commi- 
 nation, or threatening. Two of the letters were 
 delivered by a Cistercian abbot ; the third by a 
 barefoot friar. They are as respectful and mild 
 in tone as exhortations to repentance can well be ; 
 but the mildest of them was not likely to be 
 pleasant to the receiver of it, and he sent back 
 " hard and bitter words." 
 
 The archbishop, no doubt from regard to fllS Declared at 
 
 Vczclny 
 
 hosts, avoided issuing his sentences from Pontigny. June 12, 
 
 1 166. 
 
 He went to Vezelay ; and there, in the gloomy 
 conventual church still standing, during a local 
 festival on Whitsunday, with candles lighted and 
 extinguished and the usual ceremonies for striking 
 terror, before a country congregation gathered to 
 the festival, he pronounced sentences of excom- 
 munication against John of Oxford and Richard 
 of Ilchester, "the two swearers at Wurzburg," as 
 they were called by the archbishop and his friends; 
 upon Richard de Luci and Jocelin de Bailleul, 
 the authors of " the Constitutions of Clarendon ; " 
 and upon Ranulf de Broc and others by name, 
 who held possession of the Church estates of 
 Canterbury. He also condemned the so-called 
 " Customs," and excommunicated all who obeyed 
 and all who enforced them. 
 
 He did not pronounce sentence upon the king. 
 Henry was reported to be seriously ill, and for 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 Tlwmas Beckrt. 
 
 that or other reason he confined himself to public 
 admonition. 
 
 This active measure has been condemned : it is 
 difficult to see why. It was in fact a war in which 
 both parties had their weapons of the time. The 
 king used every weapon at his command ; the 
 weaker combatant, if he contended at all, must 
 have used such weapons as he had. 
 Their effect. The excommunications were immediately the 
 talk of people of all classes,* especially of the 
 clergy, throughout France and England. 
 
 The conduct of some of the persons interested 
 affords us several curious views of the people of 
 the time.f 
 
 The Empress Matilda, Henry's mother, then 
 resident at Rouen, affected, when she heard of the 
 sentences, to make light of them. " Were not they 
 all excommunicated long ago ? " she said. It was 
 noticed, however, that she avoided returning the 
 salutation of one of them, 
 church She appears to have censured her son's conduct ; 
 
 liberty v. 
 
 royal des- and she gave assistance to the co-exiles. A trust- 
 
 potism. 
 
 worthy correspondent, resident at Rouen, Nichofas 
 of Mont St. Jacques, informs the archbishop, of 
 what he had heard from herself, that her son had 
 given her no information of his proceedings, 
 because he knew that her sympathies were for 
 " ecclesiastical liberty, rather than royal despot- 
 
 * Letter dxxxii. t Appendix, note A. 
 
Excommunications. 
 
 195 
 
 ism." * The writer sees no alternative in things 
 as they are ; and the expression is remarkable, if 
 it was his own. It is much more so, if it was hers ; 
 and we have no reason to doubt it. That the 
 ancient rights of the clerical people which Becket 
 defended were odious to the king, not because 
 they were obstacles to better laws, but because they 
 put restraint upon his own arbitrary tyranny, — such 
 an expression of opinion, from a woman so capable, 
 and so otherwise predisposed, would go far, if it 
 stood alone, without confirmation of all the known 
 facts, to justify the whole conduct of Archbishop 
 Becket. 
 
 The writer goes on to say, that he explained to 
 her the Constitutions of Clarendon, and some of 
 them she approved of, but the most of them she 
 condemned. She strongly blamed her son for 
 having them written down and forced upon the 
 bishops. " And the woman," he says, " is of tyrants' 
 blood." 
 
 Matilda died at Rouen, the following year. 1167. 
 King Henry, although he was not included inThekin- 
 
 i 111 • 1 1 ■ 1 respond* I 
 
 the sentences, responded to them with his usual the sen- 
 tences. 
 
 promptness. He sent orders to England to watch 
 the ports, and prevent the entrance of pope's or 
 archbishop's letters. Laymen bringing them in 
 were to be put to death ; ecclesiastics, either 
 bringing them or obeying them, to suffer the knife. 
 
 * Letter lxxvi. 
 
196 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 He drives At the same time, he sent notice to the general 
 
 Becket from . P - — . - _ . . . 
 
 Pontigny. congregation 01 the Cistercian order, assembled in 
 session, and to the Abbot of Clairvaux, their 
 permanent president,* that if their house of 
 Pontigny persisted in harbouring his enemy, he 
 would expel from their monasteries all the Cister- 
 cians in England, and send them over into France. 
 The archbishop, as soon as he heard of it, with- 
 drew, amid the tears of the brothers, from the 
 house which had given him hospitality. The King 
 of France found him another refuge, in a small 
 religious house near Sens, not under the influence 
 of the King of England. 
 
 His insane Henry 's personal conduct about the same time 
 
 frenzies. 
 
 discovered a frenzy bordering on insanity, and 
 what would be proof of insanity in any man but 
 a tyrant who had never submitted to control. 
 We have an account of a strange scene at Caen, 
 which he was said to have enacted not long after- 
 wards. He was discussing some matter with 
 Richard Humez,f a servant or envoy from the 
 King of Scots, who was in close alliance with him, 
 and, about this time, taking part with him in a 
 petty war in Brittany. Something that Humez 
 said excited him into a fit of fury, even worse than 
 ordinary. He used gross language and called him 
 traitor ; then, in his violence, he tossed his cap 
 
 * Alan, c. 19 ; Grim, c. 64 ; Letter clxxxviii. 
 t Letter ccliii. 
 
The King. 
 
 197 
 
 from his head, tore off his belt, flung further his 
 overcoat and other garments, pulled the silk coverlet 
 from his bed, and sat down, as on a dunghill, 
 chewing wisps of straw. 
 
 This story is told in a letter to Becket, from a 
 friend whose name is not given. Singularly enough, 
 it has obtained credit with modern writers, although 
 it hardly rests on historical evidence ; for the 
 anonymous writer had his information from a 
 servant of Nicholas, and it ought to be passed over 
 as idle gossip, if it were not too much in accord- 
 ance with other things. 
 
 There is good evidence of what follows, and it 
 is almost as foolish, and much more atrocious. 
 
 During the same year, some time before Martin- 
 mas, a pope's letter was put into his hands by a 
 boy.* He took it, and immediately thrust his 
 fingers into the boy's eyes, till blood flowed, and 
 would have torn them out, if he had not been 
 hindered. The eyes were saved ; but only upon 
 order to pour hot water into the boy's mouth, till 
 he told who had given him the letter. He confessed 
 that he had it from the chapl ain Herbert. It was 
 a pope's letter of warning, sent through the arch- 
 bishop. The bearer, a pope's messenger, after this 
 cruel treatment, was thrown in irons into a dungeon, 
 and was kept there, although the empress begged 
 his release. Herbert, happening to be in the 
 
 * Letter ccliv. 
 
198 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 king's territories, was diligently sought for, but 
 escaped. 
 
 The day after this outrage, the king, it was 
 observed, forbade his attendants to salute Richard 
 of Ilchester, who was seen approaching him. He 
 would not allow them to salute an excommunicate 
 man. Probably it was a fit of banter : for he 
 pretended to make light of the archbishop's 
 sentences. Strong in his support, the excom- 
 municates did not shun society, and were not 
 avoided as was usual. 
 His efforts While King Henry was thus devising fresh 
 
 to gain the , , . , , . , 
 
 pope. impediments to appeals, and torturing a pope s 
 messenger with his own hands, he was, at the 
 same time, sparing no efforts to gain the pope's 
 support and assistance for himself. His letters 
 and messengers followed one another to Rome 
 in quick succession. Of one mission, John Cumin 
 and Ralph of Tamworth, are the chiefs ; John of 
 Oxford and Reginald, Archdeacon of Salisbury, 
 of another. 
 
 John of John of Oxford is the best known of these 
 names. He made himself very busy at Rome, 
 and caused some consternation upon his return, 
 both in France and England. 
 
 The king's It was in the instructions of one or more of these 
 legations, to obtain a commission of two cardinals, 
 named by the king himself, with full powers to 
 decide all questions in dispute, without appeal. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 199 
 
 The pope was to delegate his full authority to 
 two judges selected by the king for their known 
 bias in his favour, who were to come and hold a 
 Court ; and, after hearing all matters in dispute, 
 were " to judge and canonically decide " that 
 Thomas was Archbishop no longer. 
 
 That was the administration of justice contended 
 for by the king, who, we are taught to believe, 
 "initiated the reign of law " in England. 
 
 To gain the pope's high authority for this inso- 
 lent proceeding, the king's envoys, in addition to 
 other inducements, were to give the word of the 
 king for a modification of " the Constitutions." It 
 was reported that they offered to sacrifice them 
 all. Events following show that this is unlikely ; 
 or that, if they did, it was only a ruse of war. 
 
 Their inducements, whatever they were, found The pope in 
 
 fear of the 
 
 strong support in the circumstances of the times, emperor. 
 Pope Alexander was living in fear of the emperor 
 and his anti-pope. The emperor was about to 
 make a descent upon Italy with a great army. 
 Alexander discovers his apprehension in a letter to 
 Becket* He earnestly requires of him to consider 
 the dangerous state of the times ; and not only to 
 strive for peace and concord, but also, if all things 
 do not go as he wishes, to dissemble his feelings 
 for the present, and trust to time, with God's help, 
 for bringing affairs back to their old state. 
 
 * Letter eclxxii. 
 
200 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 It was under this apprehension of the Papal 
 Court, that the king's envoys obtained a success 
 The first which surprised the partisans on both sides. A 
 mission-" 1 pope's letter,* dated within six months of the day 
 of Vezelay, notifies to the king, that he will send 
 such a commission as he desires, although it is very 
 inconvenient to him, for he can ill spare any of his 
 cardinals at such a time, and, least of all, those 
 whom the king has asked for. They are to come 
 to the king's presence with full powers of hearing, 
 judging, and canonically determining all the sundry 
 ecclesiastical questions between the king and " our 
 venerable brother Thomas, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury," and also the question on appeal between 
 him and the bishops. 
 
 " Meanwhile," such is the management of the 
 pope and his curia, " and till these questions are 
 determined," the pope has strictly inhibited the 
 Archbishop " from all measures that would cause 
 annoyance, trouble, or disquiet to the king or any 
 of his territories : " and the cardinals commis- 
 sioners have powers to absolve the king's friends 
 and counsellors from the sentences which the 
 archbishop has already passed upon them. 
 
 The pope could not go so far as to send the two 
 cardinals the king asked for. But he sent one ol 
 them, William of Pavia, a cardinal notoriously 
 devoted to him. For the other he appointed the 
 
 * Letter cclviii. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 201 
 
 Cardinal Otho, who had been a friendly correspon- 
 dent of the archbishop. So far he showed a dis- 
 position to act impartially. 
 
 The letter to the archbishop, announcing the Ambiguously 
 
 announced. 
 
 commission, affords a curious instance of papal 
 adaptation. He is told nothing of any powers of 
 the legates to hear and determine questions in 
 contention. He is informed that the pope, in 
 answer to the king's letters and messages, pur- 
 poses once more to admonish him, and will 
 anxiously exhort him to mitigate his anger, and 
 be reconciled to the primate. The pope has con- 
 fidence that Thomas will be restored to the king's 
 grace and affection. Then follows, in words no 
 less courteous, the inhibition of severe measures, 
 which has been made known to the king, but with 
 a saving clause for Thomas's private ear. If the 
 king refuses to acquiesce in such peaceful measures 
 as the pope will sanction, then the archbishop's 
 full powers will be reserved to him, and the pope's 
 authority will support his own. 
 
 This letter from pope to archbishop is marked, 
 in effect, as private and confidential : " Volumtts 
 autem ut hoc habeas penes te secretion." * This 
 policy of duplicity prolonged the quarrel, and was 
 the chief cause of prolonging it. To the legates, 
 the instructions were full and plain. 
 
 Archbishop Becket was not to be imposed upon 
 
 * Letter ccexxiv. 
 
202 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Becket's dis- by messages of this kind from the pope. He had 
 
 trust of it. ; 
 
 his work to do in England, and, like the king him- 
 self, would gladly have had the pope's assistance 
 in it ; but he was not to be diverted from it by 
 fears of emperor or anti-pope. Moreover, he had 
 no confidence in commissions, and he especially 
 distrusted William of Pavia, and was not singular 
 in his distrust. John of Salisbury writes of the 
 two cardinals, that " he of Pavia has hitherto kept 
 his eyes on the king's money,* not on the fear of 
 God or the honour of the Church. The other is a 
 man of good repute, still a Roman and a cardinal." 
 
 The archbishop keenly felt that the conduct of 
 the pope brought his own official authority into 
 contempt. Only a few months before he had 
 been authorized and even commanded to excom- 
 municate certain friends and ministers of the king ; 
 and it was left to his own discretion whether to 
 issue his sentence against the king himself. He is 
 now suddenly informed that the pope, in deference 
 to the king's letters and messages, has appointed 
 commissioners with full powers to absolve his 
 excommunicates, who have shown no sign of 
 repentance or submission. At the same time, his 
 powers are again suspended, for no apparent reason, 
 but that the king has been using all his influence 
 at Rome ; and he knows well the kind of influence 
 that prevails there. 
 
 * Letter cclxxviii. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 203 
 
 The archbishop had already much cause for Triumphant 
 
 return of 
 
 distrust when he heard that the king's envoy, John of 
 
 0 ' Oxford, 
 
 John of Oxford, had returned from Rome, and II6 ?- 
 was boasting everywhere that the king had gained 
 all he desired. He was now exempted from 
 excommunication, except by the pope himself. 
 William of Pavia, whom he had asked for, was to 
 be one of the two legates who would determine 
 all questions without appeal. Till then, all the 
 bishops were absolved from obedience to any 
 command or summons of the archbishop. 
 
 At Southampton,* John fell in with the Bishop 
 of Hereford, stealthily waiting the wind, to obey 
 an archbishop's summons, and forbade him in the 
 names of both king and pope. The bishop knew 
 that the king's ministers would have detained 
 him ; but he was for obeying the pope rather 
 than the king. He was surprised to learn that 
 pope and king were in unison. John showed the 
 pope's letter, of which he was the bearer to him 
 and the Bishop of London, who met them ; 
 whereupon Foliot exclaimed, with undisguised joy, 
 " Then, friend Thomas, you'll be archbishop no 
 longer." The Bishop of Hereford was less elastic. 
 He died, it was said, of his anxiety between pope 
 and king. 
 
 Still stronger reason had the archbishop to 
 decline the jurisdiction of the cardinals, if, as an- 
 * Letter cclxxxv. 
 
204 
 
 T/iomas Becket. 
 
 nounced to the king and bishops, they were to 
 hold their court within the king's territories. What 
 that meant he had learnt too well at Northampton 
 to incur the dangers of it again. 
 
 To himself and his friends, the case of Becket 
 now appeared desperate. It seemed the crisis of 
 his life. His enemies were jubilant. The prelates 
 and clergy of England, as if sure of his deposition, 
 were failing in obedience to him. Bishops and 
 nobles of France were, some of them, throwing 
 back his co-exiles upon his hands. Before the 
 triumphant attitude of his enemies, he could believe 
 nothing else but that the pope had forsaken him, 
 and gone over to the king. 
 Archbishop He was still himself. As he had spoken before 
 
 7'. pope 
 
 and king. English lords for right and liberty against the 
 king, so would he speak before all the world for 
 right and liberty against both pope and king. 
 
 His agent at Rome* is instructed to insinuate 
 into the ears of the pope that, " if these things are 
 true, then our lord the pope has suffocated and 
 strangled, not only me, but himself also and the 
 clergy, or rather the Churches of both kingdoms, 
 both the French and the English. ... If the 
 Roman Church thus fails those that contend for 
 her, there will be none to restrain the enormities 
 of tyrants, who are now directing all their efforts 
 against the clerical people, and will not desist till 
 
 * Letter cclxxxv. 
 
Archbishop and Pope. 205 
 
 they have reduced them to the same slavery into 
 which they have brought all others." He is to assure 
 the pope that on no account will the archbishop 
 enter the king's territories for litigation, nor sub- 
 mit to the judgment of enemies, and especially of 
 him of Pa via.* 
 
 By letter direct,t he exhorts the pope "to vindi- 
 cate his name against the reports of the king's 
 envoy, and to show that his tales from Rome are 
 false and slanderous ; that John did not find the 
 Vicar of Christ the weak and pliant tool that 
 malignant tongues are whispering ! but a just 
 judge, no accepter of persons, sparing none in 
 judgment, impartial equally to king and private 
 man." 
 
 In another letter, he entreats the pope to revoke 
 the powers of a legate sent of the king's urgency, 
 and not of his own motion. 
 
 To the cardinals he is still more direct. In 
 a letter % inscribed " To all the cardinals," he 
 reproaches them with " their love of lucre, their 
 dissimulations, their unrighteous deeds, their folly 
 in expecting to gain from tyrants, through lega- 
 tions and courts of inquiry, the freedom they never 
 yield but to compulsion." He calls on them § " to 
 do judgment and justice to the wronged ; . . . not 
 by false pretences and cunning devices can the 
 
 * Appendix, note B. t Letter eclxxxvi. 
 
 + Letter eclxxxvii. § Letter eclxxxviii. 
 
206 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 Church be governed, but by truth and righteous- 
 ness." 
 
 " The illustrious city, which had almost subdued 
 the world," so he writes to a friendly cardinal, " is 
 taken captive, and overthrown in the eagerness of 
 men-pleasing. It could never perish by the sword ; 
 but it has sunk, infested by Western poison. 
 Shame and grief, for through her fall the liberty 
 of the Church in every land is lost and sold for 
 worldly gains. The crooked windings of riches 
 are her ruin ; the mighty men commit fornication 
 with her, to lord it over her for their ambitious ends." 
 
 The pope had desired and entreated him * to 
 have no distrust of the legate William ; he had 
 straitly charged the legate, and had received his 
 promise, to use all his powers for peace with the 
 king. Yet, after this urgent counsel and command, 
 the archbishop answers the legate's first letter in 
 terms not within the bounds of common courtesy, 
 impugning both his intentions and his motives. 
 Two letters remain,t and one of them probably 
 was sent ; but it is hardly certain, and there is not 
 much to choose between them. Both were con- 
 demned by his best friends, one of whom, admit- 
 ting the justice of his distrust, doubts the wisdom 
 of expressing it so plainly. 
 
 But then his friends would not have struck his 
 blows at tyranny. That was his own work ; and 
 * Letter eclxxii. t Letters cccxii. and cccxiii. 
 
Archbishop and Pope. 
 
 207 
 
 that it was the work he had at heart comes out 
 distinctly at this crisis, both of work and feeling, in 
 the tone of his letters, and particularly in their 
 superscriptions. His letter to the pope, rejecting 
 the Cardinal of Pavia as his judge, is indited with 
 " health and ever constancy of mind against the 
 savage will of princes." He calls him "to draw 
 the sword of St. Peter, that the overweening pre- 
 sumption of tyrants may be quelled." Perhaps 
 Alexander, in the heat of his troubles with the 
 emperor, would rather have heard less of the 
 tyranny of princes from Thomas. 
 
 To the Cardinal William himself — they might 
 be words of banter — he wished " health and forti- 
 tude against the insolence of princes." To Otho, 
 the other legate, he expressed his thanks " that he 
 had never deserted him for the love of kings or 
 the favour of princes." Thus his ruling motive 
 distinctly asserts itself above all reverence of pope 
 or cardinals, and all adulation of "the illustrious 
 city." 
 
 These "terrible letters," of which even his friends 
 complained, must have surprised many who received 
 them. The policy which provoked them must 
 have rested partly upon an expectation that 
 Thomas at last would be wearied out, and would 
 accept the legates' meditation, or even submit to 
 their authority, to regain peace and his old great- 
 ness. He had held out longer than any one could 
 
208 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 have expected. He was not a man of ascetic self- 
 denial. His pomp and luxury had astonished the 
 world. And there was much of the old man 
 about him still, although it had dawned upon 
 him before this that he would have to die for his 
 work. He told his presentiment to the Abbot of 
 Pontigny, when he bade him farewell. The abbot 
 laughed, and said he ate and drank too much for 
 a martyr. " Your wine-cup is not the martyr's 
 cup," was his opinion from what he knew of his 
 guest, who admitted that he did not abjure all 
 self-indulgence. " But God is merciful," he added ; 
 " and has revealed to me the end." It needed no 
 miracle of revelation to foresee it. 
 
 And yet, withal, while life lasted, he did not 
 renounce all enjoyment of it. We have here one 
 of several incidents which put the stories of his 
 self-mortifications almost on a level with the tales 
 of miracles. 
 
 His obstinate resistance of both pope and king 
 was, therefore, a surprise to most men, and is still 
 unintelligible to many. It was not upon the beaten 
 track of common life. 
 
 It soon proved by its success to be right at this 
 stage of the conflict, as it did also, at greater cost, 
 in the final result. 
 Dilatory The two legates came and spent some months 
 ) P ega < tes° the in Normandy. They appear to have had confer- 
 ences with the king ; which, if they had no other 
 
Archbishop and Pope. 209 
 
 result, saved the pope from the necessity of de- 
 cisive action till he saw how matters would go 
 with the emperor. The delay was equally con- 
 venient to the king, if he could have prolonged it 
 indefinitely. It guarded him from Church censures, 
 and left him in possession of the revenues of 
 Canterbury and of all the exiles. 
 
 In the event, affairs turned in favour of the pope's t iii the flight 
 freedom, and of the archbishop's persistence. The emperor, 
 emperor had great success at first. On August 1, 1167. 
 he was crowned at Rome by his anti-pope, who 
 was enthroned. Then suddenly a pestilence broke 
 out, which spared neither high nor low. Princes 
 of the empire and bishops fell among thousands 
 of common soldiers, and within a month Frederic 
 was in full flight over the Apennines. Alexander 
 and his party overlooked the ordinary cause of 
 the calamity, which might have been expected, and 
 saw another " Sennacherib and his host." 
 
 This turn of things in Italy had its effects in 
 Normandy. Within a year of the arrival of the The pope 
 
 ... , . regains con- 
 
 legates, we find the pope adopting the exact line fidence. 
 of conduct which Thomas had urged upon him. 
 Alexander complains to his legates * of the false- 
 hoods disseminated over France by the king's 
 envoy, John of Oxford. He sends letters of 
 explanation concerning themselves and their 
 powers, which throw new light upon them to the 
 
 * Letter cccvii. 
 
 P 
 
2IO 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 mind of King Lewis. Lewis, who had shared in 
 the dismay of Thomas, under the exultation of 
 John of Oxford, becomes suddenly loud in his 
 praises of the pope's prudence and holiness and 
 justice, and that he has turned his anger against 
 the disseminators of lies. The hearts of Thomas 
 and his fellow-exiles are revived. The pope is 
 now, " most holy judge, most loving father, most 
 faithful guardian of the Church of God ! " * 
 The "elm- At length, after their long delay, the legates 
 
 tree con 
 
 ferer.ce" summoned the archbishop to a conference with 
 
 between A 
 
 the^egat^ themselves, at a place outside of Henry's do- 
 minions. He met them on November 18, three 
 years after his flight from Northampton, at a great 
 elm-tree upon the borders of Fiance and Nor- 
 mandy, between Gisors and Trie.t Many of the 
 principal co-exiles went with him, and the French 
 king paid their expenses. 
 
 The legates employed, with all the skill they 
 could, their powers of persuasion — the only powers 
 at their command. The dangerous times, the 
 king's temper, his power also, and his old friendship 
 to Thomas were reasons for his being humble and 
 conciliatory, and paying the king the tribute of 
 submission and devotion due to him. The customs 
 w ere read and discussed, and he was asked whether 
 
 * Letter cccxxxi. 
 
 t Letter cccxxxi. ; Gervase, i. 204. Fitz-Stephen, c. 91, has 
 Les Planches. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 211 
 
 it would not be wise to accept them and be restored. 
 William of Pavia advised unreserved submission 
 upon all questions, rather than cause so much 
 trouble to the Church. What answer he had may 
 very well be imagined. 
 
 Failing to persuade him, they desired to learn 
 his own views and intentions, and even to be 
 advised by him how best to mollify the royal 
 harshness. Thomas knew the king better than 
 they did. He had been somewhat harsh with 
 them, since he found them falling short of the 
 promises of his envoy John ! 
 
 The result was, that he held to his position. 
 Suffering and poverty should not compel him to 
 stoop lower in submission to the king than the 
 archbishops his predecessors had done. On the 
 question of his proposed translation to another see, 
 he wished the pope to know that he would be 
 murdered before he would be parted from his 
 Church of Canterbury. 
 
 Nine days after this conference the legates Argentan. 
 arrived at Argentan,* where the king expected 
 them to enforce measures for putting an end to 
 his troubles. He went out two leagues to meet November 
 them, and accompanied them to their lodgings. 2<5 ' 1,&7 ' 
 Early the next morning they were admitted to his Monday, 
 chamber, where a council of bishops and abbots 27 ' h 
 awaited them. Inferior people filled the rooms 
 
 * Letters cccxxxix. and cccxlii. 
 
212 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 without, and stood outside the castle, speculating 
 and wondering what was going on within. 
 The scene What they heard we may conjecture. It must 
 have been a surprise to them, when, within two 
 hours, the legates came out suddenly, hastening 
 away, with the king on their heels, exclaiming in 
 public and in their hearing, " I wish I may never 
 set eyes on cardinal again ! " They were not 
 allowed even to wait for their horses, but were 
 hurried off to their hotel upon the first that came 
 to hand, some that happened to be standing in 
 front of the chapel. 
 
 We have an account of the contention in the 
 chamber, which we can well believe, for it agrees 
 with what was to be expected. The king had 
 been assured by a papal letter, that the legates 
 would come with full powers to hear and decide 
 upon all questions between him and the archbishop. 
 They arrived, and he called upon them to hold 
 their court and put their powers in execution. 
 They answered him with entreaties first to be recon- 
 ciled to the archbishop. But "they had not been 
 sent to tell him that ; " he appealed separately to 
 the nobles, the bishops, the abbots, his familiar 
 friends, the cardinals themselves. Let them say 
 what was meant by the pope's letter. He promised 
 him judgment ; let the cardinals hear and decide 
 with justice ; it was the right of the meanest man ; 
 he would abide by their decision. They were 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 213 
 
 obliged to answer him that they had no powers 
 for sitting in judgment ; they could not require 
 the archbishop to submit to them. In the first 
 instance, they could only mediate and compose 
 differences. 
 
 The king had better cause to be angry than he 
 often had. " His burning rage was something 
 beyond description," * and did not spare the pope. 
 The pope had betrayed him ; he would renounce 
 him. Thus much of the conference we know on 
 good authority. Becket, speaking of what he 
 heard of it, says that the king's language was more 
 fit to be told by the messenger, than committed to 
 writing, which is very credible. 
 
 The king sat with the council till four or five 
 o'clock of the afternoon. Then the bishops and 
 abbots visited the cardinals, all with trouble in their 
 faces. Conferences and messages were continued 
 during the following day ; and, the next day, the 
 result of them was declared by the Bishop of 
 London, in a great assembly of clergy and laity 
 with the legates. He complained that they had The bishop's 
 
 • 1 . . . appeal. 
 
 not executed their commission, as it was announced 
 by the pope, although the king was willing to abide 
 their judgment, whatever it might be. The bishops 
 therefore renewed their appeal for themselves and 
 for all England. The king, he said, " revoked his 
 Constitution against appeals. In fact, he had only 
 
 * " Ultra quam dici possit," cccxliv. 
 
214 
 
 TJiomas Becket. 
 
 enacted it to save expense to the poorer clergy, 
 who had not been thankful for it " ! * 
 
 The bishops appointed the Martinmas of the 
 next year for their day of appeal, and put them- 
 selves under the pope's protection, while the legates 
 once more suspended the powers of the archbishop. 
 The effect was to prolong the sufferings of all the 
 exiles for at least another year. 
 The tearful For this service the king not only endured the 
 
 parting. 
 
 sight of cardinals again, but even shed tears when 
 they took their leave of him on the Tuesday 
 following, asking their services with the pope to 
 rid him of the archbishop.f The Cardinal William 
 also showed tearful eyes, but Otho with difficulty 
 refrained from laughing outright. 
 The king In the expected purpose of the mission Henry 
 
 duped by 
 
 the pope, had been completely duped : and it is not easy 
 to say but that he deserved it. It came of his 
 attempt to gain the pope's authority, without 
 appeal, for judges \ nominated by himself. Crafty 
 as he was, the Papal Court far outstript him in the 
 game of duplicity. He was a mere child in its 
 hands, and it dealt with him throughout as a 
 spoilt child. With his eyes opened by the confer- 
 ence of Argentan, he sent envoys to Rome, Clarem- 
 bald of St. Augustine's, Reginald, Archdeacon of 
 Salisbury, and two others, with angry complaints 
 of the pope's vacillation ; and with " harsh and 
 
 * Appendix, note C. t Letter cccxxxix. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 215 
 
 afflicting demands, and terrible threats if his 
 demands were not complied with." In such terms 
 the pope speaks of his mission in a letter to 
 Becket ; and the Papal Court, laughing at him all 
 the while, with keen satire, proceeds deliberately 
 to throw more dust in his eyes, and to dupe him 
 over again worse than before. 
 
 After due deliberation, a letter * was despatched And duped 
 
 again, 1168 
 
 to the King of England, with the pope's answer to 
 the charge of vacillation. " Have we changed ? " 
 he asks. " We cannot call to mind that there has 
 been any change of purpose." Then follows a 
 distinct assurance that "he has inhibited the arch- 
 bishop from issuing any sentence of excommunica- 
 tion or interdict against himself or his territories, 
 or presuming in any way to molest him, till he 
 takes him back to his favour." Henry is author- 
 ized to show this letter wherever he will. The 
 Papal Court, always well informed, is acquainted 
 with his flagrant vanity, and deigns to play upon 
 it. This letter is without date, but we may supply 
 May, Ii68.f 
 
 The letter to the archbishop, dated May 19, nes. 
 is expressed, as before, in terms of very different 
 import from that to the king. In the certain hope 
 of his peace and restoration, he is inhibited from 
 sentence upon king or kingdom ; not " till the 
 king takes him into favour," but till he has further 
 * Letter cccxcv. t Appendix, note D. 
 
2l6 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 notice from the pope, by which, if he refuse to take 
 him back to favour, his full powers will be restored 
 to him ; and, in any case, at the beginning of the 
 next Lent they will revive and will be without 
 appeal. 
 
 The king lost no time in publishing what he 
 thought his triumph. The pope's bull was shown 
 everywhere. The bishops were told that they 
 could now set the primate at defiance. He made 
 open boast, it was reported, that he had the pope 
 and cardinals in his purse ; now, at last, he would 
 be as great a king as his grandfather,* who was 
 " king in his own land, legate apostolic, patriarch, 
 emperor, whatever he would. . . Before he received 
 the letter, he had invited the archbishop and the 
 Count of Flanders to a conference; after it, he was 
 elated into furious contempt of God and men, and 
 above all others of the Romans." 
 
 The pope's letter to the king was published in 
 France under circumstances which might well 
 inflame resentment against the Roman Court. 
 Henry was at war with some of his subject nobles 
 of Aquitaine and Brittany, who were assisted by 
 King Lewis. They made loud complaints of his 
 tyranny ; and we may believe them to be true, 
 whether they had given him causes of provocation 
 or not. There can be no doubt that many of them 
 were in a temper to take advantage of a papal 
 
 * Letter ccccxi. 
 
King and Pope. 217 
 
 interdict if it were issued. Conferences by mes- 
 sengers between the two kings took place on July 
 1, at La Ferte Bernard,* where Henry was 
 stationed ; and here the accusations of his feuda- 
 tories were brought to a climax by Count Eudes, 
 who complained loudly to King Lewis of Henry's 
 foul and treacherous outrage upon his daughter. 
 It was here that the recent papal letter to Henry 
 was made known to King Lewis, and was thus 
 published to the world. Copies of it were sent 
 to the principal clergy of England, France, and 
 Germany. 
 
 In places not subject to Henry, in France 
 especially, the letter gave as much offence as it 
 gave him pleasure. Earnest remonstrances were 
 addressed to the pope and various cardinals by 
 French bishops, by the King of France,f and even 
 by his queen. They complain that the French 
 Church is scandalized : the whole nation grieves 
 that the pope should have suspended a prelate 
 who has suffered so much and so long in the cause 
 of justice. The head of the Church hears from one 
 correspondent after another that the scandal caused 
 by John of Oxford last year was great, but it was 
 nothing to this.f 
 
 The queen writes,§ " This letter, if genuine, does 
 
 * Letter ccccxxxiv. 
 X Letter ccccxxxvii. 
 § Letter ccccxl. 
 
 + Letter ccccxxxv. 
 See Appendix, note E. 
 
218 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 The French it not confer on King Henry the license of sinning 
 
 queen's re- 
 monstrance with impunity ? " 
 
 The remonstrance of Becket himself is more 
 
 than usually quiet and dignified. 
 
 One French ecclesiastic informs the pope* that 
 
 he has delivered to the King of France a papal 
 
 message not to be disturbed if he heard that King 
 
 Henry's messengers had obtained from Rome some 
 
 serious powers ; and that King Lewis called him a 
 
 liar for his pains, and spoke — not with reverence, 
 
 of the Roman Church. 
 
 Papaidoubie But they are all mistaken. The notorious letter 
 
 dealing. 
 
 had really no such meaning as they have put upon 
 it. Alexander and his cardinals knew perfectly 
 well that Henry and everybody else would under- 
 stand it as they did ; but they had taken care 
 that, in itself, " when very attentively read," it had 
 no such meaning, or, at least, that they could 
 say so. 
 
 While the letter is producing the effect intended 
 with the king, a friendly cardinal is writing to 
 Thomas t to be patient if anything seems for a 
 time to be ruled against him. In fact, everything 
 is going in his favour, even when seeming other- 
 wise. The pope's letter does not show his real 
 meaning upon the surface, but it will justify all the 
 more the sentence which must be passed upon him 
 if he is not brought to reason by it. 
 
 * Letter ccccxxxviii. t Letter ccccxlv. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 219 
 
 Pope's letters to the same effect are sent to 
 King Lewis and to Thomas. He has heard * 
 " how much they are disturbed and troubled on 
 account of the letter which has caused so much 
 insolent boasting to King Henry. But if the tenor 
 of that letter is carefully read from beginning to 
 end, it will be found to contain nothing that affords 
 material for insolent boasting. The pope has acted 
 as a skilful physician does with a patient he hopes 
 to cure." To Thomas himself, "The Roman Church 
 always proceeds cautiously and deliberately with 
 an erring son ; but its love for himself has never 
 cooled ; nay, rather it increases from day to day. 
 On the day appointed his full powers will be 
 restored to him without appeal." 
 
 A reader of the voluminous correspondence may itsdeiibe- 
 
 c j • 1 • rate con " 
 
 find it necessary at this point to turn back to the mvance. 
 letter \ which has caused so much exultation to 
 one party and consternation to the other. He 
 will find that, when very attentively read, it has 
 not necessarily the significance which every one, 
 including most likely the reader himself, has put 
 upon it. The inhibition during the king's displea- 
 sure is expressed certainly in plain terms, and in 
 the clearest of Latin language. It looks as if this 
 were its one and single purpose. But we discover, 
 on further attention, that it is issued in the almost 
 sure hope and confidence that the Disposer of 
 * Letter ccccxxxvi. t Letter cccxcv. 
 
220 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 hearts will calm the king's anger, and deign to 
 dwell in him and make him peaceful. All else is 
 conditional. Everything depends upon the fulfil- 
 ment of this " sure hope and confidence." If they 
 are disappointed, it is to be inferred, as soon as 
 the inference becomes convenient, that the exemp- 
 tion from censures will cease and determine. 
 
 That this is the concealed intention of the Papal 
 Court becomes still more evident when we observe 
 that the whole letter, conveying at first sight per- 
 petual immunity, is written in answer to the king's 
 angry complaints of the pope's vacillation in the 
 former case, when he acted precisely as he does 
 now. 
 
 " Have we changed ? " he had asked in reply to 
 the former complaint. " Well, the blessed Paul 
 sometimes changed his purpose, although we 
 cannot call to mind that there has been any 
 change of purpose in this case." The pope, it 
 goes on, had positive information, although not 
 from the king himself, that a reconciliation would 
 be effected under the mediation of the legates ; 
 and, therefore, while for the king's honour he 
 allowed the letter announcing the legates with full 
 powers to be expressed in the terms which his own 
 envoys dictated, yet, in his confidence of a recon- 
 ciliation, he charged the legates, before they left 
 Rome, and in the presence of some of the cardi- 
 nals, that they must on no account preside over 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 221 
 
 any judicial procedure between the parties till after 
 such full reconciliation. And, therefore, what he 
 had so done for the king's honour ought not to be 
 imputed to vacillation, " especially as we are men, 
 and may in many things be deceived and imposed 
 upon." 
 
 Words could not more significantly give caution, 
 that, whether the authors of them have changed or 
 not, what they have done already is what they 
 may be expected to do again. 
 
 With such a warning before his eyes, the king 
 allowed himself to be imposed upon once more, 
 and under exactly the same pretext. It deepens 
 his abasement that his own intrigues at Rome are 
 made the instruments for deceiving him. The 1168. 
 pope's letter of which he has boasted was accom- Abouti a 
 panied by one * from a friendly cardinal, assuring 
 him that he has done all he can to obtain his 
 petitions, but the times do not admit of it. He 
 has, therefore, with much instance applied himself 
 in another direction for his advantage, and has 
 at last obtained a letter by which the rash pre- 
 sumption and indiscreet audacity of the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury must be quelled and trampled down. 
 He advises the king to be content with this for 
 the present. He may be assured that the arch- 
 bishop, finding himself helpless and unable to 
 return to Canterbury, will resign that see, and will 
 
 * Letter cccxcvi. 
 
222 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 seek translation to another church where he can 
 live. 
 
 It might appear that we had reached the limits 
 of human invention ; in fact, we are as yet far 
 from the depth of Roman ingenuity. At the very 
 time when the pope and cardinals are devising the 
 means of persuading the King of England that he 
 will never again, without his own consent, be liable 
 to the sentences of his metropolitan, the same 
 pope with cardinals, the same or others of the 
 sacred college, is employed in composing the 
 three usual letters preliminary to Church censures, 
 with a view to sentences by the metropolitan 
 against the king, which without the king's consent 
 he was never to issue more. 
 
 A pope's bull of May 25, within a week of the 
 bull suspending the powers of the archbishop, gives 
 commission to two monks, Simon, Prior of Mont 
 Dieu, and the brother Bernard, a monk of Gram- 
 mont, to be the nuncios and bearers of the second 
 and third of the three letters. It is a mission more 
 suitable for monks than cardinals, and they are to 
 execute it unless William and Otho, who have not 
 yet returned, have success in their mission. 
 
 If they fail, the monks are, within two months, 
 to deliver the letter of admonition, exhorting the 
 king to put away offence, and to receive the arch- 
 bishop to his grace and favour. If he persists in 
 his obstinacy, then they are to deliver the final 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 223 
 
 letter ; and, reminding him that the sleeping Lord 
 is at length awakened, and the sword of St. Peter 
 not rusted beyond drawing, to assure him that the 
 archbishop's powers will not be suspended beyond 
 the Lent following. 
 
 This commission to the monks follows so closely 
 upon the letter, so opposite in its import, to the 
 king, that it becomes a question why that men- 
 dacious letter was sent at all, if it was to be 
 immediately null and void. The pope and his 
 court must have had some serious purpose in it. 
 What was their purpose? The well-informed 
 correspondent, John of Salisbury, is able to throw 
 light upon the question.* 
 
 The two cardinals, William and Otho, having, 
 as papal legates, fearlessly entered the king's 
 territories, and put themselves in his power, found, 
 it appears, some difficulty in getting out of it. 
 After the burlesque-sorrowful farewell of Decem- 
 ber 5, they were met by obstacles to their 
 departure, of what kind we are not told. But 
 William is still with Henry and his army at La 
 Ferte Bernard on the first of July ; evidently 
 against his will, because along with Henry's angry 
 complaints to the pope, there came, we learn from 
 this correspondent, pitiful entreaties from the 
 cardinal that the king should be gently dealt with, 
 or else, to the eternal ignominy of the Roman 
 * Letter ccccxlvii. 
 
224 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 Court, the pope's legates might be thrown in chains, 
 to perish miserably in a dungeon. 
 
 A deep scheme became necessary for their 
 liberation and safe return to Rome. 
 
 We have here an explanation both of the letter 
 of immunity, and of those of caution and commina- 
 tion. They were all on their way together, and 
 may have been despatched on the same day. But 
 the letters of severity were to be kept quiet till 
 that of immunity had served its purpose. 
 
 We have also, perhaps, what some writers have 
 wanted, an explanation of the remarkable change 
 which ensued in the relations of the archbishop 
 with the Cardinal of Pavia, We find them from 
 this time in correspondence as close friends. 
 
 Cunning and duplicity have been well-worn 
 instruments of rulers in the government of men ; 
 and no rulers have used them more expertly than 
 they who for ages have proclaimed themselves to 
 the world as the Vicars of God on earth, and have 
 deceived mankind as they deceived Henry of 
 Anjou. 
 
 " Have we changed ? " the pope had innocently 
 asked in reply to the king's complaint of his 
 vacillation. " We cannot call to mind that there 
 has been any change of purpose." 
 
 A letter to one of two parties in contention 
 announces a mission of legates with full powers, 
 and says nothing of any conditions. The legates 
 
King mid Pope. 
 
 225 
 
 arrive, and have no powers. To the party in 
 question that is a change. Not so to the pope 
 and his court, because the legates were charged 
 with powers strictly conditional ; and the condition 
 without which they were not to act, although 
 concealed from the one party, was made known 
 to the other as the essential business of the legation. 
 
 The injured party makes just complaint, and 
 is assured that the evil he dreads shall not fall 
 without his own permission. Presently the dreaded 
 evil is impending, through the action of the very 
 power which promised immunity from it. That, 
 to the party aggrieved, is another change. Not 
 so to the pope and his court, because they were 
 preparing the dreaded evil at the very time when 
 they promised immunity, and contrived that their 
 parchment which bore the promise should, on 
 careful attention, be capable of a meaning the 
 very opposite of what appeared on the face of 
 it ; although they intended, and were well assured, 
 that it would be understood precisely as it was ! 
 
 " Have we changed ? " The question calls for 
 attention. The essence of it is as old as the 
 papacy. " Have we changed ? " No ; we never 
 change. We are so far above the common ways 
 of men, that we can truly say one thing to one 
 party in a dispute, and, at the same time, another 
 thing just the opposite to the other party ; and 
 we can truly say to either party one thing at one 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 time, and another thing just the opposite at 
 another time. But WE are always the same. 
 Those things which to common minds are lies, are 
 to us the babbling ripples upon the surface of our 
 universal sway. Our one purpose, never changing, 
 is the stability of our empire ; the eternity of our 
 dominion over the minds of men. 
 
 Dominion of a world-power, calling itself the 
 Church, pretending " the authority of the blessed 
 Peter," and " the example of the blessed Paul " ! 
 
( 227 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE KING'S VAGARIES TO AVOID SENTENCE. 
 
 The first of the three letters, preliminary to the 
 sentences of " the Church," a quiet exhortation, 
 was delivered to Henry by the Bishop of Bellay 
 and the Prior of the Chartreuse. It was near 1168. 
 Christmas before the monks could act upon their 
 commission. About that time they delivered the 
 second letter. In reply to it, they obtained a 
 promise of peace and restoration to the arch- 
 bishop, with the full honour and liberty of his 
 Church, and to be in all things second in the 
 kingdom, on condition of his making his humble 
 and public submission to the king. 
 
 It was arranged accordingly that the archbishop conferenc 
 should attend with them at a conference for peace miraii 
 between the two kings, which was about to be held. 
 
 This conference, a great assembly of clergy, 
 nobles, and people, took place at Montmirail,* on 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 92 ; W. Cant, i. 67 ; Herb. Bos., iv. 26 ; 
 Letters cccli. and lxi. 
 
228 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 1169. the sixth and seventh of January. Henry re- 
 newed his homage to King Lewis for Normandy 
 — what he had solemnly sworn in public never 
 to do ; his two sons did homage, Henry for Anjou 
 and Maine, Richard for Poitou. 
 
 The commissioners, who had been increased to 
 three by the addition of Engelbert, Prior of Val 
 St. Pierre, spared no efforts to persuade the arch- 
 bishop to conciliate the king by profound humility 
 of submission, and especially to give him the 
 promise to observe his customs, without the re- 
 servation, " saving my order," which the king 
 would not endure. The King of France and the 
 bishops and nobles were all urgent with the same 
 advice, and cautioned him that any saving clause 
 would only aggravate the royal anger. 
 Submission Nobody knew what he would do. Ushered in, 
 
 of the arch- 
 bishop; with his attendants, to the presence of the two 
 
 kings, he bent his knees to Henry, who instantly 
 raised him up. " Have pity on me, my lord," 
 were his words ; " I throw myself upon God and 
 you, to God's honour and yours." 
 
 The words appear humble enough in them- 
 selves, if they do not appeal too equally to God 
 and the king. Yet he must have foreseen what 
 might ensue, and must have acted under a con- 
 viction that it was not his duty, and could have 
 no good result, to bow to the king in an unwonted 
 form of submission, under prohibition of the name 
 
King and Popt 
 
 229 
 
 of God. At least, he was as competent to judge 
 of what was right and necessary under the circum- 
 stances as any of his critics then or now. 
 
 Henry instantly boiled with rage. " Proud, rejected 
 
 with anger. 
 
 ungrateful upstart ! He had designs on his 
 throne ; he had long cherished them, even in his 
 pompous doings as chancellor. Then, turning to 
 Lewis, " I desire nothing of him but that he ob- 
 serve the customs which his five predecessors ob- 
 served, and so promise before all here present. 
 Let him act to me," he added, " as the most worthy 
 saint of his predecessors acted to the least worthy 
 of mine, and I am content ! " 
 
 It was well spoken, and took with the assembly. 
 There was a cry, " The king humbles himself 
 enough ! " Even Lewis was persuaded. " Do you 
 want, archbishop," he said, "to be more than a 
 saint ? " He answered that he had made promise 
 to the king, " saving his own order," and he would 
 keep it faithfully. There was a cry, " Let the 
 saving clause be dropped." None of his prede- His defencc 
 cessors, he said, had ever made promise to the conduct, 
 king without the clause, or any promise to observe 
 customs, and no king had ever required them to 
 do either. As archbishop, it was his duty to make 
 reservation of God's honour. It had become still 
 more impossible for him to leave out the clause, 
 since the Church had condemned some of the 
 customs. Nevertheless, he had never served the 
 
230 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 king with more devotion than he was ready to 
 do now. 
 
 The commissioners appear to have been satisfied 
 with his answer. At all events, they had no power 
 to require more. The kings were moving, when 
 they came and entreated Henry to obey the pope's 
 command, and take the archbishop to his favour. 
 He answered them frankly, that whether he ever 
 restored his church to him or not, he would never 
 take him back to his favour, because it would re- 
 store him his powers, which the pope had suspended 
 till he received him again to his favour. 
 
 It was evening, and the two kings rode away 
 together, one of them with braggings and cursings 
 and abuse. " That day he had had his revenge 
 on the traitor." He thought he had gained King 
 Lewis. 
 
 Hispopu- The archbishop's party were sad and quiet till 
 
 larity. , . 
 
 they came to Lhartres, on their return to Sens. 
 Here the people had already heard the news. Their 
 feelings were those of the English people. They 
 received with acclamations the man who " would 
 not deny God to please kings." * 
 Temporary But there was some fear that the protection of 
 of S Ki^ ure King Lewis might be lost, and it became a serious 
 
 Lewis. . , . 
 
 question whither next to direct his steps. It is 
 related f that he was discussing his prospects with 
 some friends, and declared his resolve " not to have 
 
 * Herb. Bos., iv. 27. t Alan, c. 34 ; W. Cant, i. 67. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 231 
 
 recourse to the Roman robbers, who live on the 
 plunder of the miserable. I have heard," he said, 
 " of a free people on the river Arar, in Burgundy. 
 I will go to them with one companion ; perhaps 
 they will have pity on me." The story goes on 
 that at this point there was a knocking at the 
 door, and he was summoned to meet King Lewis, 
 who had arrived at Sens. "He is come to expel 
 us," said one. " You are not a prophet," he 
 answered ; and so it turned out. 
 
 In fact, Henry had broken the terms settled at 
 Montmirail, under the mediation of Lewis, with 
 the people of Brittany and Poitou, and had carried 
 violence and rapine where he had promised peace. 
 Lewis, hearing of his breach of faith, hastened to 
 Sens. " We were all blind but yourself," he said, 
 " when we advised you as we did." During the 
 two remaining years of his exile, Becket found his 
 friendship warmer than ever. 
 
 The monks-commissioners did not attempt at King 
 Montmirail to deliver the letter of commination. "a™ 
 The king was in fear of it, and showed his fear 
 both in other ways and by a marked difference 
 in the tone of his demands. He made promises — 
 variable, certainly, and indefinite, and, it turned 
 out, mere evasions, as they were seen to be from 
 the first by those who knew him. But he succeeded 
 in postponing sentence. 
 
 Still holding to his demand for an unqualified 
 
232 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 and ex- promise to observe his " Customs," he now, time 
 
 pedients. 
 
 after time, qualified it himself with a promise that 
 if any of the Customs were bad, they should be 
 amended. We have stories (most of them, not 
 all, from Becket and his friends) of his skill in 
 adapting his promise to varying circumstances. 
 To the three monks he declared that anything 
 harsh and burdensome in his customs should be 
 amended by a council of monks, which he intended 
 to summon for the purpose. He got hold of 
 brother Bernard apart, and assured him that he 
 was going with all speed to Grammont, and would 
 submit entirely to the guidance of the head of his 
 monastery. Meanwhile, he would summon the 
 English bishops who advised him, and when they 
 arrived, by God's blessing, peace would be renewed. 
 Envoys despatched to Rome took with them, as 
 usual, violent and impossible demands, but it 
 becomes evident that they professed submission 
 and made promises. 
 The final The monks waited till February 7, when there 
 
 warning. _ _ 
 
 1169- was another conference of the kings at St. Leger,* 
 near St. Germain-en-Laye. The archbishop did 
 not attend it, but the monks were there with their 
 formidable letter. Henry made solemn oath that 
 he would not take it, and refused it several times, 
 but took it. He was advised that the refusal 
 would be futile, and might be worse. He stormed 
 
 * Letters cccclxiv. and cccclxvi. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 233 
 
 at their audacity in bringing him such a letter, but 
 he continued to make promises. He would submit 
 " the Constitutions " to the pope's correction ; he 
 would summon the English bishops, and take their 
 advice, but he would not fix a day for the conference. 
 
 Of the second and third letters, one only IS Its tenor, 
 known,* which looks like the third. It is very 
 different in tone from the first. It has none of 
 the adulation of the royal virtues and greatness 
 usual in former letters ; it deplores the failure of 
 all attempts to calm the king's excitement, and to 
 persuade him to make peace and restitution. The 
 pope still loves him as his dear son in the Lord, 
 and grieves for the danger that hangs over him ; 
 but he must cry aloud, and warn the wicked. 
 " The king's obstinacy can no longer be borne 
 with ; the archbishop will have power to avenge 
 the injury to himself and his church." " What 
 more the king must hear will be told him by the 
 prior Simon and the brother Bernard, men who 
 fear God more than man. May he be moved by 
 their admonitions to avoid the things otherwise 
 impending, which, without doubt, he will have 
 cause to fear." 
 
 The papal nuncios and others agree in their 
 reports to the pope that the king trifled with them 
 a long time at St. Leger, with various and opposite 
 and incoherent promises and proposals. " He 
 
 * Letter ccccxxiii. 
 
234 
 
 Thomas Bcckct. 
 
 changed like Proteus." They therefore asked him 
 to give them his final answer in letters patent, that 
 they might have something definite to report at 
 Rome. He refused positively to do that, and 
 appeared desirous of avoiding any definite answer 
 till the return of his messengers. 
 
 its effect. At last, after much pressing, he gave them 
 verbally what appeared to be his answer. He had 
 not expelled the Lord of Canterbury from his 
 kingdom ; and he might return in peace if he 
 would promise to act towards him as his pre- 
 decessors had done to former kings. But his 
 promise must be absolute and unqualified, or he 
 should never enter England asrain. 
 
 They entreated him at least to allow the 
 innocent exiles to return home. On no account 
 would he consent to this. 
 
 Proposed There is a change, however, or an apparent 
 
 new con- _ r - . « i • i 1 
 
 dinons; change, in the form of submission which he now 
 requires. It omits all mention of the Customs ; 
 and the question was submitted to the archbishop, 
 whether he might not adopt it without any saving 
 clause, and avoid the offence which had been fatal 
 to all attempts at reconciliation, 
 rejected by The new form, however, was still an innovation, 
 bishop. and his answer was as reasonable as before. It 
 was impossible for him to bind his conscience by 
 the acts of his predecessors, some of whom, it was 
 well known, had suffered exile as he was doing 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 235 
 
 himself. On this principal point he was firm ; and 
 he stated his determination to the pope. He was 
 not at liberty to bind himself under new obliga- 
 tions unknown to any of his predecessors. 
 
 It must have been evident to him that all such 
 questions were but idle by-play, and that if he 
 had gone through the form which the king required, 
 and returned to his church, the great point of 
 contention — the right of the archbishop to protest 
 against the royal tyranny and to resist it — -would 
 have been exactly where it was before his exile. 
 
 The king's envoys made their journey with all Conpiifetory 
 the boastings and the arrogance usual with Henry's Rome - 
 messengers to the pope; but at Rome it is evident 
 they were studious to disarm and to conciliate. 
 They were able to say that the king, although 
 deeply offended, would, of his affection to the 
 pope, give full restoration to the archbishop ; they 
 created expectations, more definite and positive 
 than were to be realized, that the Customs should 
 receive alterations which would be satisfactory to 
 the pope. 
 
 Letters went from various quarters to counteract 
 the efforts or intrigues of the royal messengers. 
 The monks-commissioners, the archbishop, the 
 Archbishop of Sens, are urgent upon the pope to 
 act with vigour. " He sees that gentle means 
 have failed." * 
 
 * Appendix, note F. 
 
Tliomas Beckct. 
 
 This advice from so many persons, besides 
 Archbishop Thomas, was not taken. The king's 
 messengers, Archdeacon Reginald and another, 
 returned from Rome, boasting as usual that they 
 had gained even-thing they expected. 
 Their ac- It is plain, however, that better influences had 
 
 ceptance. 
 
 been brought to bear upon the pope and curia 
 than some we have heard of before. They had 
 assurances of a change in the king's disposition. 
 It was to their honour that they were anxious, if 
 possible, to avoid extreme measures, and there 
 seemed to be better hope of it.* More than once 
 the pope expresses to Henry his joyful thanks for 
 the new spirit he is beginning to show, and prays 
 that the good work begun in him may be per- 
 formed to the end. At all events, he will leave no 
 means untried for the recover)' of his wayward son. 
 A letter f bearing date only three weeks after the 
 The third conference of St. Leger, announces the appoint- 
 
 commission, 
 
 February 28, ment of two new nuncios, Gratian and Vivian, 
 
 1 109. * 
 
 both famous lawyers ; Gratian, a subdeacon and 
 pope's notary, a nephew of Pope Eugenius ; neither 
 of them of high rank or official position, but both 
 of them known to Alexander for their prudence 
 and honesty. 
 
 The pope must have sent his lawyers with a 
 purpose. It is the most likely one that they were 
 to discuss and settle with the king's lawyers the 
 
 * Letter ccccxcii. t Letter cccclxxvi. 
 
Excommunications in St. Paul's. 237 
 
 alterations required and promised, or expected, in 
 the Constitutions of Clarendon. John of Salisbury 
 speaks of it as known for certain that the king had 
 bound himself, both by word and letter, to carry 
 out the commands of the pope. 
 
 For some time after the delivery of the letter 
 of commination King Henry showed intense 
 anxiety and excitement. From the beginning of 
 Lent (March 5) he was at the mercy of the arch- 
 bishop for himself and his kingdom. In his states 
 beyond sea, the effects of an interdict by the pope 
 would be still more serious than in England. The 
 disaffection among his French subjects was verging 
 upon rebellion ; they would be supported by 
 enemies from without, and the arms of his soldiers 
 would be paralyzed. Nor was it possible to guard 
 his frontier against the entrance of the dreaded 
 sentence. 
 
 Even in England the precautions taken were 
 ineffectual. The coasts had long been guarded, 
 and the guard was made stricter. No stranger 
 was allowed to enter the country. Every English 
 subject upon landing was carefully searched for 
 papers ; but all precautions failed against Arch- 
 bishop Becket. On Palm Sunday, at Clairvaux, Excomn 
 he excommunicated the Bishops of London and Bishop 11 
 Salisbury, Hugh Bigot Earl of Norfolk, Ranulf 0101,1 
 de Broc, and another Broc, Nigel de Sackville, and 
 four other persons who had disobeyed his com- 
 
238 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 mands or disregarded his summons, who held pos- 
 session from the king of estates of his see, or were 
 guilty of other grave offence against the authority 
 of the primate. 
 
 Notice was thus given for the utmost precaution 
 against the entry of the sentences. Nevertheless, 
 within seven weeks, on Ascension Day, the excom- 
 munication of Bishop Gilbert was publicly pro- 
 claimed in St. Paul's Cathedral* With a friend of 
 the archbishop's, a Master William, looking on, a 
 messenger, Berengarius by name, approached the 
 altar after the reading of the Gospel, and held out 
 something in his hand which the priest took for an 
 offering. Then, clasping the hand of the priest 
 which held the letters of excommunication, he 
 charged him in the names of the pope and the 
 archbishop to deliver one of them to the bishop 
 and the other to the dean, and not to celebrate the 
 Mass till the letters were read aloud. Turning to 
 the people, the messenger said with a powerful 
 voice, "Know ye that Gilbert, Bishop of London, is 
 excommunicated by Thomas, Archbishop of Can- 
 terbury, and legate of the apostolic see." Some of 
 the people were for seizing him, but before they 
 recovered from their surprise Master William 
 managed to get him out of the church, and he 
 escaped. The king's officials sought for him, but 
 he was not taken. The priest refused to celebrate 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 84; Hov. i. 269; Letters cccclxxix. and dviii. 
 
Excommunications in St. Paul's. 239 
 
 the Mass, but the archdeacon came in and finished 
 the service. 
 
 On the day when this was happening in London 
 Thomas was issuing his sentences against Geoffrey, 
 Archdeacon of Canterbury (his "Archidiabolus," as 
 he often called him), Richard of Ilchester, Richard 
 de Luci, and three others. Ten or eleven more were 
 added to the lis"t soon after, several of them holders of 
 the churches or manors of the church of Canterbury. 
 
 The sentence was made known to the Bishop of 
 London at Stepney, where he was residing. He 
 called a synod of the London clergy to meet on 
 the Sunday following, when the priest handed the 
 letters to him and to the dean. They were read. 
 The bishop made an angry speech, and not a wise 
 one, if it is truly reported ; and the clergy, with 
 a few exceptions, joined in appeal to the pope 
 against the sentence upon the bishop. 
 
 Several offences of Foliot's were assumed by the 
 archbishop to be notorious. Their general effect 
 was to bring his own superior authority into con- 
 tempt. It was one that he had asserted a pre- 
 tension of the see of London to the primacy. It 
 is stated, but is hardly credible, that he alleged 
 the supremacy of London in the heathen days of 
 the old Roman supremacy. This must h^ve been 
 said for him to furnish ground for the joke, that Foiiot 
 if he could not be archbishop he would be arch- flamen " 
 fiamen of Jupiter ! 
 
240 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 The archbishop had been prompt in his mea- 
 sures. He issued his censures when the two 
 lawyers were on their way from Rome, bringing 
 with them a letter which would again have stayed 
 his hand. The pope regretted the excommunica- 
 tions, but would not revoke them.* He contented 
 himself with strongly advising him to wait two 
 or three months longer before he issued his sen- 
 tence against the king. He was not inhibited by 
 authority, but was cautioned that the responsi- 
 bility would be upon himself. He took the advice 
 and refrained. 
 
 strange When the two lawyers arrived on the borders 
 
 scenes at 
 
 Domfront, D f Normandy Henry was in the remote parts of 
 Gascony. On his return he came to meet them 
 at Domfront. Arriving late at night from hunting, 
 he went first to their hotel, and paid them all 
 respect and honour. While standing, talking to 
 them, his son Henry arrived at the door with a 
 troop of youths, all sounding their hunting-horns, 
 and bringing in a stag for the nuncios. 
 
 August 24; The next day there was a conference, f some- 
 times quiet, sometimes noisy and angry. The 
 bishops and others, with the king, were kept upon 
 their feet for eight hours, while he demanded the 
 absolution of his excommunicated friends, and 
 launched his invectives against the archbishop. 
 He insisted that this should be the first thing, 
 
 * Letter dxxxi. t Letters dlx. and dlxiii. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 241 
 
 and that they should be absolved without the 
 usual forms of submission. It was near sunset 
 when he mounted his horse, swearing, with his 
 usual oath, that he would take another course. 
 " Do not threaten, my lord," Gratian said ; " we fear 
 no threats ; we belong to a court which is wont to 
 give its commands to emperors and kings." 
 
 This speech, arrogant to modern ears, was not 
 so regarded then. It asserted a recognized fact, 
 and does not appear to have given fresh offence 
 even to King Henry, who stood in fear of that 
 court, even when he affected to defy it. After 
 calling in the barons and monks to be his 
 witnesses that he offered the archbishop peace 
 and restoration he was somewhat pacified, and 
 appointed that day week for another meeting. 
 They met accordingly, and again the next day, and at b. 
 in the king's park of Bur. He insisted on the Septemb< 
 absolution of his friends ; the legates refused ; he 
 ran to his horse and mounted, swearing that never, 
 while life lasted, would he give the archbishop 
 peace or restitution, not to please the pope or any- 
 body else. The prelates deprecated and entreated 
 the legates, and at last prevailed with them to 
 yield in the matter of the excommunicates. The 
 king dismounted, and there was another colloquy. 
 For their concession to him he would grant his 
 peace to the archbishop and his people. But the 
 legates, or one of them, must cross into Eng- 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 land to absolve the excommunicates there. They 
 refused, and he stormed again. " Do your will," 
 he said. " I don't care one egg for you or your 
 excommunications ! " and mounted again and was 
 going. On the remonstrance of the bishops, 
 who told him that he was wrong, he put his 
 foot on earth again, and desired all the bishops 
 present to write to the pope and let him know 
 that he had offered peace, and was ready to do 
 whatever the pope wished, but the nuncios stood 
 in the way. 
 
 The bishops reminded him of the letters held by 
 the nuncios. " I know, I know," he said ; " they 
 will lay my territories under interdict. But if I can 
 take a strong castle every day, do you suppose I 
 cannot seize a priest who lays interdict on my 
 lands?" 
 
 The king j t was on \y a bravado to cover his retreat. In 
 
 submits to J 
 
 the pope; ^ £ even t- ; he declared his submission to the pope's 
 request for peace ; if it was only a show of sub- 
 mission, that, to this king, was almost as hard as 
 the reality. He was bound, he said, to do much 
 upon the entreaty of his lord and father, the pope. 
 " I give my peace to him and his who are in exile 
 with him." 
 
 A form of peace was accordingly drawn and 
 agreed to. The next day they met again to com- 
 plete the settlement. Three excommunicates, 
 Archdeacon Geoffrey and other two, who were 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 243 
 
 present, were absolved upon the condition that the 
 sentences were to revive if the peace were not 
 concluded. All difficulties seemed to be sur- 
 mounted, when another dispute arose upon a 
 point which was deemed important, although to 
 modern eyes it may appear trivial. The form, 
 when examined, was found to contain the words, 
 "Saving the dignity of my kingdom." Gratian 
 objected to the reservation ; the king insisted upon 
 it. Gratian would have accepted it with a " saving 
 of the liberties of the Church." Henry would not 
 consent to this. 
 
 The contention lasted from noon till nine at 
 night, with mutual accusations of a breach of faith. 
 The nuncios accused the king of adding the words and finds 
 on the second day to a form which he had retract" 
 accepted without them on the first day. He 
 accused them of accepting the words on the first 
 and objecting to them on the second; and there 
 is so much confirmation of the king's account, that 
 the mistake appears to be with the nuncios. The 
 saving clause was important if it was rightly under- 
 stood, under the word " dignities," to preclude dis- 
 cussion of the " Customs " or " Constitutions," the 
 very purpose, to all appearance, for which the 
 lawyers had been sent. 
 
 The king and his advisers seized the opportunity Hisjusi 
 
 c j 1 1 remon- 
 
 01 addressing to the pope a remonstrance more stance, 
 creditable to them than anything else in the long 
 
244 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 controversy.* He had often, it said, appealed to 
 the pope for justice. Cardinal legates had at 
 length been sent, with full powers, as a letter still 
 in the king's possession clearly testifies. The 
 legates arrived ; the king expected justice, when, 
 to his injury, their powers were withdrawn, and the 
 archbishop, who had acted so maliciously, refused 
 to answer before them. 
 
 In reply to remonstrances, the pope sent another 
 letter, which also the king still has, exempting 
 himself and his territories from the jurisdiction of 
 the archbishop till he was restored to the royal 
 favour. Again, for some unknown cause, the pope 
 revoked the exemption, and while Vivian and 
 Gratian were on their way, the archbishop, who 
 had not been restored to favour, launched his ex- 
 communications against the king's friends and ser- 
 vants, who are his daily counsellors. On the 
 arrival of the nuncios, who were received with all 
 honour, the king dealt first concerning the absolu- 
 tion of the persons whose excommunication was an 
 injury both to the pope and them, as much as to 
 the king himself ; while, at the same time, in his 
 reverence and love to the pope, at the sacrifice of 
 his own honour, he had assented to all that was 
 desired of him, and had given his consent that the 
 archbishop, whom he had not expelled from his 
 kingdom, should return in peace, and he and his 
 
 * Letter dlxiv. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 245 
 
 have all they possessed before their exile. The 
 next day the nuncios withdrew their consent, which 
 they had given, to the form of peace, objecting to 
 the words, " Saving the dignity of my kingdom," 
 to which they had no right to make objection. 
 The king entreats the pope to remember the 
 honour he has paid him, and the service he has 
 done him ; to absolve the excommunicates, and to 
 hinder the false traitor from shedding any more of 
 his venom, lest the king, despairing of his good- 
 will, should be compelled to look elsewhere for his 
 own honour and safety. 
 
 There is no idea in all this of renouncing the 
 papal authority. The king asserts his power to 
 choose between one pope and another, and to 
 reconsider the choice he has already made. Be- 
 tween king and pope, the papal duplicities give 
 the king the advantage. Between king and arch- 
 bishop they count for nothing. As far as he was 
 able, Becket dealt with the papal mendacity as it 
 deserved. 
 
 If there was to be no alteration of the " Con- 
 stitutions," the failure of the third commission 
 cannot have displeased him. No peace could be 
 of value to him or his work that sent him back to 
 Canterbury under precisely the same relations to 
 the king, as when he left Northampton. Conces- 
 sion of some kind was necessary to debar future 
 claim of unlimited autocracy. Such were his feelings. 
 
246 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 "God forbid that I should transgress against Him 
 for the sake of a momentaneous peace, and for 
 goods perishable and perishing." So he wrote after 
 the scenes at Domfront.* 
 
 One more step had been made. The king at 
 length withdrew his claims upon the chancery 
 accounts. But, at the same time, he refused to 
 make restitution to any of the exiles for lost 
 moveables and revenues, which had accumulated to 
 an amount almost equivalent to that enormous 
 claim, and were most likely regarded by him as 
 a set-off. What he alleged was, that it had not 
 been the custom of his ancestors to make restitu- 
 tion to restored exiles.f Becket answered that 
 the custom was otherwise, and was well known to 
 be ; and in a letter to the king % insisted upon 
 restitution, not so much, he called God to witness, 
 for the recover}- of their own, as because it was 
 right, and for example' sake. Restitution, when 
 it was possible, was the indispensable condition for 
 forgiveness of wrong-doing. 
 
 Such were the prospects of peace when Gratian 
 returned to Rome, after notices from himself and 
 Vivian to Archdeacon Geoffrey and the two others 
 that their conditional absolution was revoked be- 
 cause peace had not been made, and that they must 
 considerthemselves under the archbishop's sentences 
 of excommunication. Vivian remained in France. 
 
 * Letter dlxxxv. t Letter dlxxxvi. % Letter dciii. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 247 
 
 The archbishop immediately addressed his letters The arch- 
 bishop's 
 
 to the pope and to some of the cardinals, urging advice to 
 
 r r > & the pope. 
 
 the necessity of censures upon the king and his 
 territories. " Believe me," he writes, " I know the 
 man ; such is his nature that nothing but severe 
 punishment will amend him." He , represents 
 forcibly his cruelty to himself and his fellow-exiles 
 and the clergy of England. The king laughs * 
 when the clergy are maimed and blinded, and 
 forced to trial by combat, and the ordeal of fire 
 and water. Accounts arrive almost daily of people 
 imprisoned and flogged and put to death, for no 
 fault but sending help to himself and to exiles, 
 who have borne their sufferings till half of them 
 are dead. And all the . while, the king is taking 
 the plunder of their estates and the revenues of 
 vacant sees. Besides Canterbury, — Lincoln, Bath, 
 Hereford, Ely, Bangor, are in his hands,f and how 
 many abbacies is unknown. He has divided 
 among his soldiers the estates of the see of St. 
 Asaph. He invokes the pope's power against 
 Henry's continental states. They are so vulner- 
 able that execution of an interdict will not be 
 necessary, the threat of it will suffice.}: Towards 
 England he had free use of his own powers, and Notices of 
 
 interdict. 
 
 he sent his notices of interdict to the bishops of 
 his province, and to the abbots and clergy of his 
 diocese. Unless the king gave him peace and 
 
 * Letter eclxxxvii. t Letter dxxxviii. % Letter dcx. 
 
248 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 restitution, public services were to cease in all the 
 churches from February 2 following.* The abso- 
 lutions were revoked, further sentences were threat- 
 ened, and he gave public notice that he intended 
 no longer to spare the king. 
 The king's King Henry, who was in Normandy, showed at 
 
 fears. 
 
 once both anger and alarm. He sent urgently for 
 Vivian, with new promises and fresh expedients 
 for delay. The archbishop writes that Vivian 
 declared before many witnesses that the king had 
 bound himself by oath to follow his advice and 
 the pope's commands, in the settlement of terms 
 of peace.f It is stated repeatedly in letters of the 
 pope that he had promises of the archbishop's 
 restoration, with full compensation to him and his 
 fellow-exiles. 
 
 In England the measures of precaution were 
 ferocious ; they provoked the bishops into resist- 
 ance, and threw the whole nation into commotion. 
 Such was the effect of a code of " Constitutions " 
 sent from beyond sea to be put in force by De 
 Luci and others. Two or three of these will suffice 
 here.J 
 
 I. The first decrees that " any one bringing in 
 letters of the pope or archbishop to lay an inter- 
 dict upon England shall be taken and dealt with 
 
 * Letters dlxxiv. and dlxxvii. t Letter dcvi. 
 
 % A document, dxcix., among the letters ; Sheppard, vol. vii. 
 p. 147. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 249 
 
 as a traitor." A right enactment of English law, 
 under any circumstances ; yet only a weapon of 
 war in the hands of a king who, when he issues it, 
 is invoking the pope's assistance himself. 
 
 Another document details the various punish- 
 ments by mutilation to be inflicted upon persons 
 so dealt with, as traitors. 
 
 VI. All persons, bishops, clerics, abbots, or lay- 
 men, observing any sentence of interdict, are to be 
 expelled from the kingdom, with all their kin, 
 taking nothing with them ; all they possess is for- 
 feited to the king. 
 
 VII. The goods and possessions of persons 
 taking the part (faventium) of the pope or arch- 
 bishop, and of all persons related to them, are to 
 be seized and confiscated to the king. 
 
 IX. Peter's pence are no longer to be paid to 
 ' the apostolic," but they are to be diligently col- 
 lected, and kept in the king's treasury to be 
 expended as he may order. , 
 
 Another schedule of edicts which followed, 
 among other severe enactments, prohibits all cleri- 
 cal persons and all Welshmen from entering the 
 kingdom without the king's passport, expels all 
 Welshmen from English schools, and reaches all 
 the people of the realm by a decree : — 
 
 All the sheriffs of all England shall cause all The people 
 
 compelled to 
 
 knights, free tenants, and all persons over fifteen forswear the 
 
 pope ; 
 
 years of age within the jurisdiction of their courts, 
 
250 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 to take their oaths * in the county courts, and in 
 all cities and towns, at peril of their lives and 
 limbs, that they will observe these edicts ; and the 
 sheriffs' officers are to be sent through all the 
 manors of England to take the oaths to the like 
 effect of the people who have not been sworn in 
 the courts. 
 
 With the clerical dignitaries another method 
 was adopted.f Geoffrey Ridel, the archdeacon, 
 was sent over, with some other royal officials, to 
 summon all the bishops and abbots in the king's 
 name to meet in London, where they were to be 
 required to bind themselves by oath to these 
 " Constitutions," and to others adapted for them- 
 selves. They were to swear that they would obey 
 the king, and receive no pope's letters or com- 
 mands without his knowledge, and would pay no 
 obedience to any interdict that might be issued, 
 and would carry out no sentence of excommuni- 
 cation against any of the king's faithful subjects, 
 which pro- It was the result of these arbitrary proceedings 
 
 vokes resist- 
 
 EiTiand to s ^ ow that despotism was verging upon the 
 limits of revolt.$ The Archbishop of York and 
 the assembled bishops refused obedience to the 
 " assize." Not a bishop or abbot would promise 
 obedience to it, except the abbot-" elect" of St. 
 Augustine's. The aged Bishop of Winchester 
 made public protest that he was bound under 
 * W. Cant, i. 46. * Letter dcx. \ Ibid. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 251 
 
 solemn duty to the apostolic see and the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, and intended to observe 
 his duty as long as he lived, and to teach his 
 clergy the same. The Bishop of Exeter answered 
 to the same effect, and retired to live with his 
 monks. The Bishop of Norwich, in disregard of 
 a royal command, and in the presence of the royal 
 officers, gave effect to a mandate of his primate 
 to excommunicate Earl Hugh of Norfolk for the 
 alleged unlawful seizure of lands belonging to 
 the canons of Pentney. He then descended from 
 the pulpit, laid his pastoral cross upon the altar, 
 saying that he would have his eye upon those 
 who put their hands upon the lands or moveables 
 of his church, and went into the cloister among 
 his monks. He of Chester took shelter from the 
 royal officers in the corner of his diocese which 
 lay in Wales — a safer place, most likely, than the 
 cloister. 
 
 There were symptoms of independence among 
 the lay people also of the land. One noble lady, 
 the daughter of Baldwin of Rivers, would neither 
 swear herself nor permit any of her men to be 
 sworn. The king's justices upon their circuits for 
 the administration of the royal will, made it one 
 of their inquiries as to persons guilty of the new 
 crime of sending money to the archbishop or 
 his banished friends. The Bishop of Winchester,* 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 104. 
 
252 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 it was known, had often done it and was not 
 molested. We have heard something of the con- 
 sequences to humbler offenders. Yet we learn 
 from quite another source, that the justices fell in 
 with a man — we are not told where — who made 
 answer to them, " You tell us that the archbishop 
 is the king's enemy. We don't know it, and we 
 don't believe it. But if he is, we are commanded 
 if our own enemy hunger, to feed him ; if he thirst 
 to give him drink. " * 
 
 It is after such transactions that Becket writes 
 to Rome, " In England the pope triumphs, and 
 iniquity knows not whither to turn itself." f He 
 makes his cause the pope's own. 
 
 The nuncio Vivian could not disregard the 
 king's request for another conference. A few 
 weeks after the discussions or wrangles at Dom- 
 front, he surprised the archbishop by a letter 
 inviting him, in the pope's name, to a conference 
 of the two kings to be held near Paris on Novem- 
 ber 1 8. He sent with it an assurance that the 
 King of England would now submit to the 
 pleasure of the nuncio, and there would be peace 
 at last. 
 
 The archbishop, by a severe letter in reply, 
 showed his utter distrust of any good result from 
 conferences. Besides, the expenses of the journeys 
 were onerous to him and his fellow-exiles. But he 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 104. t Letter dcx. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 253 
 
 was strongly pressed by King Lewis as well as 
 Vivian, and promised to attend. 
 
 At the same time Henry made an effort to 
 regain the friendship of Lewis. He made a 
 pilgrimage to Paris, ostensibly to worship at the 
 shrine of the martyrdom of St. Denis, and, as he 
 expected, was cordially met by the French king, 
 who gave him a splendid reception. He showed 
 his devotion to the French saint by laying upon 
 the altar an offering of a splendid pall and four- 
 score gold pieces. 
 
 In the conference which ensued,* there were Conference 
 
 at Mont- 
 discussions of questions between the kings, and dartre, 
 
 1 0 ' November 
 
 after them Vivian opened the question which had l8, II69 - 
 brought him there. Once more, and after all, he 
 was answered with evasions. It was to no purpose 
 that he reminded Henry of his promises and of 
 his own efforts in response to them ; he returned 
 at last to the archbishop and his friends with 
 nothing to report but that the man was the 
 greatest liar he had ever met with or heard off 
 
 Becket himself waited for the king at Mont- 
 martre, and presented his petition for favour and 
 restoration, with promise of all service due from 
 an archbishop to a king. 
 
 The king replied that he fully forgave all 
 
 * W. Cant, i. 68 ; Herb. Bos., iv. 28, 29 ; Fitz-Stephen, c. 93 ; 
 Letters clcvi. and devii. 
 f Letter devi. 
 
254 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 offences and quarrels. He had not expelled the 
 archbishop, who might return when he would, but 
 must confine himself to his own duties, and not 
 interfere in the king's matters. He must defer to 
 the king in all customs of the realm. 
 
 No promise was required, and the saving clause 
 was thus evaded ; but the admonition contains an 
 intelligible caution. 
 
 Discussions ensued concerning restitution, and 
 had not been brought to a settlement when, once 
 more and upon a new point, the conference was 
 broken off without result. 
 
 It was the custom of the age, we have seen, that 
 the king, whenever he met the archbishop, saluted 
 him with a kiss. When the royal anger was high 
 at Northampton, the salutation was not given. 
 That it would be given when they were reconciled 
 was expected as a matter of course. It was all 
 the more necessary at such a time as a public 
 token of concord. Thomas, we are informed, had 
 submitted to the pope whether the reconciliation 
 should be declared and guaranteed by some special 
 ceremony, and had been answered that the usual 
 kiss of peace would be a sufficient guarantee. If 
 no other were offered, none should be required. 
 
 To the surprise of everybody, Henry made it 
 known that it would not be given. He could 
 never again, under any circumstances, give the 
 kiss to Archbishop Thomas. He had no anger, 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 255 
 
 he declared, and no ill-will ; but he had publicly 
 sworn in an angry moment never to give him the 
 kiss again even if he were reconciled to him, and 
 he must keep his oath. He had taken oaths in 
 public which he did not keep, but that was nothing. 
 
 The King of France, when he heard this, said 
 at once that there could be no peace without the 
 usual sign of it. He would not on such terms 
 enter upon King Henry's land, not for his own 
 weight in gold. 
 
 It must have been difficult to avoid a suspicion 
 that Henry's conduct concealed some evil design, 
 and events showed that such a surmise was correct. 
 The pope afterwards offered to absolve him from 
 the oath he alleged, but the offer was not accepted, 
 nor likely to be. 
 
 It was late when the conference ended. The 
 two kings set off together for a ride of thirty-five 
 miles from Paris to Mantes ; one of them, after his 
 wont, diverting the dulness of the way with his 
 volleys of cursing and abuse. 
 
 Yet Henry continued to show his fear of sentence. 
 It was not long before he sent another messenger 
 to Vivian, with money and fresh requests to him 
 to make peace. The money was only twenty 
 marks, and was offered him probably for his 
 expenses. But he and Gratian had had instruc- 
 tions to take no money from the king, not even 
 for their expenses, unless peace were made. He 
 
256 
 
 Thomas Bccket. 
 
 sent back the money with remonstrances, and 
 exhorted the king to assent to the archbishop's 
 petition before his lands fell under interdict, and 
 his friends and servants and not a few of them 
 were excommunicate. If he did not listen now 
 he would repent too late, and could not say that 
 he was not forewarned. 
 
 Again he had recourse to Rome ; and, as before, 
 when he was forbidding appeals, and was compelling 
 the people of England to forswear the pope, he 
 was sending one embassy after another to gain 
 the pope's assistance himself. Two if not three of 
 his embassies were at Rome together in the early 
 part of 1 1 70. 
 
 We know little of their instructions, but they 
 carried assurances that the king was willing to 
 grant his peace to the archbishop. The papal 
 court, under some perplexity, it may be inferred, 
 between his promises and evasions, and the various 
 The founh reports which reached it, once more had recourse 
 
 commission, . . 
 
 January 19, to a commission. Two prelates, the Archbishop of 
 
 1 1 70. 
 
 Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers, were appointed, 
 with full and summary powers either to settle the 
 terms of agreement on the basis of the king's 
 promises, or, if he refused to keep them, at once 
 to lay all his French provinces under interdict* 
 As the Archbishop of Rouen was a subject of 
 Henry, and might be unwilling to act, the Bishop 
 
 * Appendix, note G. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 257 
 
 of Nevers was required in that case to act alone. 
 He was in effect the sole arbiter ; the archbishop 
 was joined with him, as a subject of Henry, to 
 modify the severity of the new measure. 
 
 It was one of their instructions to insist on the 
 kiss of peace, unless the archbishop was satisfied 
 that he incurred no danger by its omission, and 
 accepted a proposal of Henry's to take it by proxy 
 from his son. 
 
 Henry had lately invited the archbishop to a 
 conference at Pontoise, with assurances of a satis- 
 factory settlement. Upon the arrival of some of 
 his envoys from Rome, he suddenly changed his 
 mind, and Thomas with his friends had the trouble 
 and expense of the journey to learn that he had 
 gone in haste to Normandy, with the intention 
 of crossing to England, leaving word behind that 
 if they wanted to see him they must follow him 
 to Gisors. He had also made known his intention 
 to have his son immediately crowned by the Arch- 
 bishop of York. 
 
 He arrived in England after a stormy passage, 
 in which ships went down within sight. The two 
 commissioners, when they heard of his departure, 
 waited for further instructions from Rome. They 
 were charged * to follow him, and execute their 
 commission. If he refused to fulfil his promises, V igor ( 
 " or artfully and ingeniously prevented their aCCeSS sures. 
 * Letter dexxviii. 
 
 S 
 
258 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 to him," they were at once to promulgate their 
 sentence upon his continental states. 
 
 Along with these commands, there came to them 
 the papal letters enjoining all the bishops of 
 Henry's French states to observe the interdict in 
 all their parishes. 
 
 Letters went also to the Archbishop of York 
 and the English bishops announcing the com- 
 mission, and commanding them to observe in all 
 their parishes any sentence that should be published 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury. His sentence 
 for February 2 had been suspended, no doubt 
 during the action of the new commission. He 
 now issued his mandate to the bishops, that all 
 Divine services, except the baptism of infants and 
 the penance of the dying, should cease after fifteen 
 days. 
 
 These peremptory measures had at last signal 
 effect. The two commissioners sent word to Henry 
 that they must follow him to England, to execute 
 the pope's commands. He sent back to them his 
 entreaties not to incur the perils of the sea ; he 
 had suffered from them himself. If they remained 
 in Normandy he would very soon be there to meet 
 them.* He had already promised obedience to 
 The king's the pope's commands ; he now gave them his 
 
 full submis-' ,,_ T . r1 . 
 
 siontothe formal undertaking, with De Luci for his witness, 
 
 pope. 
 
 that he would in nothing decline the form of peace 
 
 * \Y. Cant, i. 73 ; Letter dclxxxv. 
 
King and Pope. 
 
 259 
 
 to be proposed by themselves.* He thus gave in 
 his submission by a formal document, attested by 
 his chief minister, and allowed it to be published 
 to the world. 
 
 At last he was obliged to keep his word. 
 Immediately after his son's coronation he recrossed 
 the sea to meet the commissioners. In view 
 of the dreaded sentences of the power calling itself 
 the Church, which had its seat at Rome, he was 
 compelled to yield, or to make a show of yielding 
 to the pope. 
 
 * Letter dclxix. 
 
26o 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE KING SUBMITS TO THE POPE — THE 
 FALSE PEACE. 
 
 Absolution It was among the powers of the new commission 
 FoUot" >p to give absolution to the Bishops of London and 
 
 February 12, 
 
 «7°- Salisbury, and others who were under the arch- 
 bishop's sentences. 
 
 Gilbert of London, on his way to Rome to pro- 
 secute his appeal, was detained by the king after 
 the conference of Montmartre, when he was in- 
 formed by a pope's letter that the commissioners 
 had authority to absolve him. Accordingly the 
 Archbishop of Rouen annulled the sentences, and 
 sent letters to the English clergy to announce it. 
 The Bishop of London was declared to all England 
 to be restored to his see, without injury to his 
 dignity, honour, or character.* 
 
 By the pope, no doubt, the measure was intended 
 to be a final effort for peace, before proceeding to 
 extremities. How the archbishop might take it 
 was overlooked. 
 
 * Letter dclix. 
 
Archbishop mid Pope. 261 
 
 His action upon it was remarkable, and deserves The arch 
 attention. He had been blamed for his " terrible " reception 
 
 of it. 
 
 letters, which " drove the king mad." The sternest 
 of them were mild in comparison with those he 
 now addressed to the pope and cardinals — the most 
 severe, perhaps, that ever were addressed to them 
 by one in their obedience. 
 
 He writes to Cardinal Albert : * No sooner has 
 he received letters of consolation than tidings come 
 that Satan is let loose. The Bishop of London 
 has been the mover of the quarrel and the contriver 
 of all the mischief. But it is always so in the curia ; 
 Christ is put to death, Barabbas is released. It 
 has been the work of the curia that for six years 
 the English Church has endured calamity ; and his 
 innocent exiles, poor men in Christ, who have 
 nothing on their side but God's justice, have been 
 condemned to suffer, while church-robbers, homi- 
 cides, perjurers, are absolved in their impenitence 
 — sinners whom Peter himself could not absolve. 
 The very bribes divided by the king's messengers 
 among cardinals and members of the curia are the 
 spoils of the exiles and of the Church. Well, 
 although the cardinals should arm for his destruc- 
 tion not the King of England only, but all the 
 world, if they can, yet neither in life nor death will 
 he fail in fidelity to the Church. God will provide 
 the remedy. For himself, he will trouble the 
 
 * Letter dclxii. 
 
262 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Roman Court no more. Let those resort to it 
 who know how to succeed in its iniquities, and 
 come back from it loudly boasting, while justice is 
 led in triumph and innocence is made captive.* 
 
 To the pope himself his language is even more 
 " terrible." " The king's envoys have succeeded in 
 their request that yet again he shall be summoned 
 by the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of 
 Nevers — as if he had not been sufficiently sum- 
 moned ; as if his wickedness did not call aloud for 
 judgment. The heavens and the earth cry out 
 against him, and none are deaf but the cardinals 
 about the pope. But even the deaf will hear the 
 sentence, ' Depart, ye cursed, into the everlasting 
 fire.' " f 
 
 His mot ives It is hardly credible that any archbishop in the 
 Roman obedience could have addressed the pope 
 and cardinals in such language as this, only because 
 he found them less careful of ecclesiastical interests, 
 papal or clerical, or of his own office as archbishop, 
 than he was himself. No doubt Thomas appealed 
 to such motives to gain their powerful support, and 
 to hinder them from throwing it on the side of the 
 king. But these fierce denunciations must have 
 had some deeper cause. 
 
 His conduct becomes intelligible when we see 
 that, in contending for the ancient rights of the 
 archbishop, he contended for them as means to an 
 
 * Appendix, note H. t Letter dclxvi. 
 
Archbishop and Pope. 
 
 263 
 
 end, and that his main purpose was not eccle- 
 siastical, but patriotic. His position as head of 
 the Church gave him his seat and his free rights as 
 first member of the king's council. In the council 
 he had taken his stand for English liberties. The 
 papal action tended to bring his office into con- 
 tempt, to undermine his independence, and to be 
 fatal to every end he had in view in his deadly 
 struggle. 
 
 His motives and action were quite understood 
 by the king himself, and were as fiercely resisted, 
 as an impediment to royal usurpations like that 
 attempted at Woodstock. 
 
 That Archbishop Becket should, for any cause, 
 have addressed the pope and his cardinals in such 
 language will be a surprise to most readers. It is 
 more surprising that within six months they were 
 convinced that, even from their own point of view, 
 he was right. 
 
 Upon the king's return to England " the inquest 
 of sheriffs," * a searching inquiry into all moneys 
 received by them during his absence, was ordered 
 in a great council, and occupied some time. 
 
 It was more than three months after his arrival 
 when a summons issued unexpectedly to the 
 bishops, nobles, knights, and " aldermen," calling 
 them to a council at Westminster.t They came, 
 we are told, in great fear, wondering what was 
 
 * Appendix, note K. t Benedict I., p. 4 ; Hoveden, ii. 10. 
 
264 
 
 TJiomas Bccket. 
 
 intended.* The inquest, just ended, appears to 
 have excited an apprehension of royal exactions 
 under pretexts arising out of it. To their surprise, 
 they found themselves assembled to a coronation. 
 
 This measure was, perhaps, one of precaution, 
 to secure the succession, if a pope's interdict should 
 have fatal consequences to the king. The emperor 
 had lately felt the peril of papal censure, and 
 forty-four years afterwards the effects of a national 
 interdict were to be signalized by Henry's son, King 
 John. 
 
 coronation The younger Henry was crowned on June 14. 
 Younger, The Archbishop of York officiated in chief, and the 
 
 June 14, 
 
 Bishops of London and Salisbury, lately absolved, 
 together with the Bishop of Rochester, took part 
 with him. 
 
 The coronation of a king, contributing as it did 
 in those days to his security of possession, was the 
 most important office of the Church, and was the 
 ancient privilege of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 Some time before this the Archbishop of York 
 had obtained a pope's bull, giving him authority to 
 officiate at a coronation ; but it was cancelled. By 
 a bull of February 26 of this year, he and all other 
 bishops are strictly inhibited from taking part in 
 that service during the exile of Archbishop Thomas. 
 This letter reached the king, but, it was said, was 
 never received by the bishops. The copies of it 
 
 * Gervase, i. 219. 
 
Submission of the King. 265 
 
 may have been stopped at the ports. One corre- 
 spondent of the archbishop says they were lost 
 with the messenger who carried them.* 
 
 The king crossed the sea soon after the corona- 
 tion, with a view to another conference with King 
 Lewis, to be held in the following month. The 
 archbishop was persuaded by his friend, the Arch- 
 bishop of Sens, to attend once more. 
 
 They went together, in company with the com- strange con- 
 
 ference at 
 
 missioners. It was, as usual, a great assembly of Kretevai, 
 
 June 20, 
 
 clergy and nobles of both kings, with large forces "7<v 
 of their retainers, and met near a castle called 
 Freteval, on the borders of their territories not 
 far from Tours, at a place which it is noted bore 
 the ill-omened name of " the Traitor's Field." t 
 The affairs of the kings had occupied two days, 
 when the commissioners called upon Henry to 
 meet the archbishop, and to carry out the promises 
 he had given. 
 
 His conduct here is no longer what it was at 
 Argcntan and Domfront. He showed himself in 
 the best of tempers, and answered that he was ready 
 to do all the pope required of him, except to give 
 Thomas the kiss of peace ; that he could not do ; 
 he had refused it at Montmartre, even to the 
 entreaties of the French king. 
 
 But he solemnly protested, many times calling 
 God to witness, that his refusal concealed no evil 
 
 * Letter dclxxiii. + Gervase, i. 220. 
 
266 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 design ; and he persuaded them to use their influ- 
 ence with Thomas not to insist upon it, promising 
 them that after he was restored to his church and 
 possessions he would then give him the kiss which 
 he would have deserved, and many thanks with it. 
 
 Accordingly, they entreated the archbishop not 
 to lose the king's manifest affection and all it 
 would bring with it, by insisting upon this 
 formality. 
 
 He was persuaded, and they reported his answer 
 to the king. 
 
 The archbishop sent a long account of the pro- 
 ceedings to the pope.* He expresses his joy that 
 at Freteval, to the surprise of all, they found the 
 king so changed that not a question was raised 
 upon which he was otherwise than peacefully 
 Kmg disposed. He rode out from the company about 
 
 Henry's 
 
 ••repent- him with head uncovered, and saluted the arch- 
 
 ance. 
 
 July 22. bishop, who was hastening to be the first with his 
 salutation. He drew him apart, and conversed 
 with him as familiarly as if there had never been 
 difference between them. " Many cheeks were wet 
 with tears, and all present gave glory to God and 
 the blessed Magdalene, on whose sacred day the 
 king, recovered from his former ways, had given 
 peace to the Church and gladness to all his lands." 
 
 Their conversation was prolonged during a great 
 part of the day, till the attendants were weary of 
 
 * Letter dclxxxiv. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 267 
 
 looking on and hearing nothing. Henry was so 
 meek as to listen patiently to an exhortation to 
 amend his life, and to a historical dissertation in 
 correction of his own opinions. 
 
 The archbishop made special complaint of the 
 wrong done to his church by the late coronation. 
 Henry recalled to mind that of the first Norman king 
 by an archbishop of York, under papal authority, 
 and had, for reply, the dissertation on history and 
 upon papal letters. He promised that his son's 
 wife, the daughter of King Lewis, should be crowned 
 by him, and that he should put the crown a second 
 time upon his son's head. Becket himself states 
 that Henry promised full relief to the church of 
 Canterbury, and due punishment to all who had 
 deceived them both. 
 
 Some of his friends inform us (what they could 
 only have heard from himself) that the king con- 
 sented in terms to the issue of the papal censures 
 upon the bishops who had taken part in the late 
 coronation.* It is hardly credible that he intended 
 to surrender his friends to the mercy of the arch- 
 bishop ; but the Count of Blois, who happened to 
 be within hearing, declared afterwards, in a letter 
 to the pope, and offered to confirm it by any oath, 
 that he heard him give his consent to Church 
 censures upon them at the pleasure of the pope 
 and the archbishop.f It is not the only evidence 
 * Herb. Bos., v. 1. t Letter deexxxvi. ; also in Benedict, i. 15. 
 
268 
 
 Thomas Beckct. 
 
 that he came to this conference under a resolve to 
 yield whatever was demanded of him, and to keep 
 his word — as far as he might find it necessary — if 
 at all. 
 
 There can be no doubt that he gave his word 
 and consent to some action of the archbishop con- 
 cerning the officiating prelates. It was at this 
 point that Thomas, in the sight of all, dismounted 
 and threw himself at the king's feet. The king 
 instantly dismounted, and held the stirrup for him 
 to remount.* " Why more words ? " he said, " lord 
 archbishop, let us be friends again, as we were, and 
 do one another all the good we can, and think no 
 more of our quarrel. But do me honour in the 
 sight of the people." f 
 
 He then passed over to them and said, " If I 
 find the archbishop disposed to do me all good 
 service, and don't return good for good, I shall be 
 the vilest of men, and shall show that the worst 
 things said of me are true. My wish is to be the 
 first in showing kindness and good service." % 
 
 Comparing the king in this interview with the 
 king before and after it, it is difficult to believe that 
 he was not playing false throughout ; it is not easy 
 to believe that he was false when he thus spoke to 
 the archbishop and the bystanders. 
 
 More than one explanation of his conduct is 
 possible ; it appears the most probable that he 
 * Letter dclxxxv. f Letter dclxxxiv. % Ibid. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 269 
 
 was not only willing, but desirous to have peace 
 and reconciliation, and would gladly have returned 
 to his old relations of cordial and familiar friend- 
 ship ; but always on the one condition, his old 
 friend must be his servant, as he had been before, 
 and as everybody else was. He must forego his 
 claim, as archbishop, to have an independent voice 
 in the council of the nation ; he must know when 
 to desist from opposition to the royal will, however 
 absolute and however wrongful it might be. 
 
 The king receives him to favour upon this tacit 
 condition. When he finds that Archbishop Thomas 
 has submitted to it he will be willing, as he was 
 with Hilary, to kiss him not once, but a hundred 
 times. 
 
 The conference was breaking up, when Arnulf, 
 Bishop of Lisieux, stood forward, and said in the 
 hearing of all, " Since the king has taken the arch- 
 bishop's friends into favour, so the archbishop 
 should receive back to favour all who have stood 
 with the king." 
 
 It was a plausible request, but it was treating 
 the censures of the Church, by pope or archbishop, 
 as but impulses of a private quarrel. Thomas gave 
 the only answer that was possible to him. There 
 were differences of cases ; some of the excom- 
 municates were under sentences of the pope, and 
 he had no authority in them. Others were under 
 his own sentences, or those of their own bishops, 
 
2 JO 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 and for various causes. They must therefore be 
 dealt with severally. But he would so order him- 
 self that if any remained unreconciled the fault 
 should not be with him. 
 
 Hereupon Archdeacon Geoffrey, himself still 
 under sentence, interposed with insolent words, 
 and the king, foreseeing another brawl, desired the 
 archbishop to pay no heed to such people, but to 
 be pacified and give them his blessing and go 
 quietly to his lodgings. 
 
 The archbishop concludes his long letter to the 
 pope with urgent advice that the excommunicates, 
 especially those who, relying upon the support of 
 powerful men, have persisted in celebrating Divine 
 services where prohibited, be dealt with according to 
 the rules and rites of the Church. He knows well, 
 he says, that the way he advises is that of labour 
 to himself, but, with God's help, he will overcome 
 it. It is the narrow way that leads to life. 
 The a« of The king's formal act of peace * remits to the 
 
 peace. 
 
 archbishop and all the exiles all his anger and 
 offence against them, and restores to them their 
 churches and estates. He is to recover, also, all 
 churches and prebends which have fallen vacant 
 since he left the land. It ends with the words, 
 " Saving the honour of my kingdom." It was 
 his answer to a petition, "saving the honour of 
 God and of our own order." 
 
 * Letter dclxxxvi. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 271 
 
 For the moment, it was a complete surrender, 
 under fear of interdict. 
 
 There is no stipulation for restitution of forfeited 
 goods and revenues. The pope had not made this 
 a first condition of peace. Nor is there any promise 
 to repeal any of the " customs." On the other 
 hand, no promise is required for their observance. 
 
 The king was thus forced, by fear of Church 
 
 sentences, into a compliance with words and forms 
 
 which he had long and obstinately rejected. But 
 
 that was all, and the archbishop soon found that it 
 
 gave him no security for the future. 
 
 He had hope at first. His letter to the pope Disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 begins with glad expressions of success. He had 
 always said that Henry would yield to severity, 
 and his words seemed to have proved true. After 
 all, he was mistaken, and soon had cause to see 
 it. He had not yet learnt, what only such a man 
 can teach us, how far a desire of friendship and 
 an eagerness for revenge may co-exist in a mind 
 of inordinate selfishness and indomitable self- 
 will. 
 
 It was not many weeks before Freteval that the Warnings 
 
 * of It. 
 
 king's friend, Richard of Ilchester, related his 
 master's sworn purpose, never to give the arch- 
 bishop peace, neither to please the pope nor to 
 please God, ; he would die first.* It was only on 
 the day before the conference that he said to King 
 
 * Letter dclxxiii. 
 
272 
 
 Thomas Beckef. 
 
 Lewis, " Your scoundrel * archbishop will have his 
 peace to-morrow ; and a good peace it will be for 
 him." Later in the year, after the archbishop's 
 return, he wrote to the pope, " In obedience to 
 your command, throwing myself without reserve 
 at your feet, I have received back to peace with 
 me, and have provided with safe conduct for his 
 return, the man who is my most malignant enemy, 
 whose utmost endeavours are devoted to the de- 
 struction of myself and family ; who has always 
 been lying in wait to devise evil against me ; with 
 whom to live is death to me, and to have him 
 living in my kingdom is embarrassment." f 
 
 This, it is true, was written after he saw that 
 Thomas was unsubdued. 
 
 He obtained the king's consent to his remain- 
 ing' in France for a short time, to take leave of 
 friends, and make his preparations. He wished 
 also to send his officers to England, to resume 
 possession of the Church estates ; and he ex- 
 pected, in the treatment they met with, to have 
 some test of the king's sincerity. 
 
 The first expectations of the archbishop were 
 shared by the pope and most of his cardinals. 
 Their respect and consideration for him visibly 
 increase after the day of Freteval. He had been 
 right, after all ; Henry had yielded to severity. 
 The pope almost apologizes for his " apparent 
 * " Latro," Fitz-Stephen, c. 105. t Letter dccxxix. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 273 
 
 remissness. He had wished to overcome evil with 
 good, but his peaceful efforts have failed." 
 
 Early in September, the pope discovered his The pope's 
 
 new policy. 
 
 new line of policy by sending the archbishop his 
 censures of the prelates who had taken part in the 
 late coronation, and upon all who had bound 
 themselves by oaths to the " iniquitous customs " 
 {iniquas consuetudines), and had not lifted up their 
 voices against them.* 
 
 By these letters, the Bishops of London and 
 Salisbury are recalled under excommunication. 
 Geoffrey, the archdeacon, and others are left to the 
 archbishop. Letters of severity follow one another 
 in quick succession. All the English bishops are 
 charged to excommunicate all ^clergy who have 
 celebrated divine service within the domains of 
 persons excommunicate. The Archbishops of Sens 
 and Rouen are charged to admonish Henry to 
 make full restitution and to revoke his " execrable 
 customs ; " and if he refuse, then after thirty days 
 to lay all his continental provinces under interdict. 
 
 Even Becket was alarmed by the new-born Becket 
 
 advises for- 
 
 fervour of the pope and his court. Suffering, as he bearance. 
 already does, under broken promises and fears of 
 worse, he anxiously entreats f the pope to make 
 no mention in his letters of the king's excesses, or 
 the enforced oath, or the perverse constitutions ; 
 and to avoid whatever may interrupt the recent 
 
 * Letters dcxcix., dec, and deci. t Letter deexvi. 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 Tliomas Becket. 
 
 peace. He advises him to issue no imperative 
 sentences upon the bishops, but to leave them to 
 his own judgment, with power to spare them if 
 the sentences cannot be issued without danger of 
 renewed strife. He will issue them or not, as the 
 necessity of the case may seem to require. 
 
 He holds to what he has insisted on throughout, 
 that, in accordance with the papal commands 
 already declared, the king be summoned to make 
 restoration of estates and restitution of losses, under 
 pain of ecclesiastical severity. But he would avoid, 
 for the present, all revival of question concerning 
 " the constitutions." 
 
 Renewed The archbishop informs the pope, in the same 
 letter, concerning the king's conduct since the peace 
 of Freteval. He keeps possession of certain Church 
 estates which he had promised to surrender, and 
 now promises that, if the archbishop show his old 
 devotion to him after his return, he shall not have 
 cause to complain. But " nothing can be got from 
 him except words." 
 
 The king announced the peace in England, and 
 sent orders to his son * for surrender of the estates 
 of the see and of all the exiles. But the holders of 
 the estates are evidently sure that he does not mean 
 what he says, or will very soon change his mind. 
 
 The peace Thomas hears from his messengers that intruded 
 
 broken in 
 
 England, persons, and even excommunicates, persist in hold- 
 
 * Letter dcxc. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 ing his churches, and have driven away his own 
 nominees. Three months after the peace of Fre- 
 teval none of the estates have been restored, and 
 the holders of them have taken the Michaelmas 
 rents.* They were taken, afterwards, till Martinmas, 
 so that the returning exiles could get no income 
 before Christmas, if they got it then. Ranulf de 
 Broc, the sequestrator of the Canterbury estates, 
 they inform him, is carrying off everything he can 
 from them, and piling up the plunder in Saltwood 
 Castle, f Thomas and his people, when they return 
 to their own, will find nothing but empty, ruined 
 houses and broken-down barns. 
 
 At the same time, threats and warnings of danger Threats of 
 
 violence. 
 
 reach him from all quarters. Broc has been heard 
 to say openly that Becket shall not gain much by 
 his peace. Before he has eaten a loaf of bread in 
 England he will have his 1 i f e . $ 
 
 Upon these threats the archbishop writes to 
 the king : § "If the hatred of himself is to be the 
 ruin of the church of Canterbury, he will sacrifice 
 himself to save his church. He will suffer a 
 thousand deaths, and endure any torments, rather 
 than his church shall be ruined for his sake." It is 
 no empty bravado. He has many cautions of his 
 danger. His messengers to his estates send him 
 word, in October, to be in no haste to return. 
 " There is not a man in England," they say, " who 
 
 * Letter deexv. t Letter deexviii. X MM. § Ibid. 
 
2j6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 believes in the reconciliation. Everybody avoids 
 us, even they whom we trusted the most, and who 
 had the best reasons for coming to consult us." * 
 Rumours were reported by his friends, and the 
 event showed that they were not all idle gossip. 
 One Richard de Haliwell had confessed to a priest 
 that he had put the royal seal to a letter written 
 by Nigel de Sackville, containing an order for the 
 murder of the archbishop.f Reginald de Warenne f 
 had disclosed, in a chapter of the canons of South- 
 wark, that they would hear soon of a deed of 
 unparalleled atrocity, in which he was to take part 
 against his will ; but he was not his own master. 
 L.«t inter- Two or three interviews between the king and 
 
 views with , _ „ 
 
 the king. the archbishop, after the day of Freteval, were 
 marked by incidents which could bear only the 
 same interpretation. They met at Tours, where 
 the archbishop was urgent with the king to restore 
 the estates, as he had promised, and was answered 
 that he must first return to his church, and the 
 king would see how he conducted himself. They 
 went to Mass, and, to avoid the kissing of " the 
 pax," the king ordered the Mass for the faithful 
 departed, which omits it.J 
 
 October, They had another interview at Chaumont, be- 
 tween Blois and Amboise,§ and conversed together 
 for a long time, again, to all appearance, on their 
 
 * Letter dccxvii. t Fitz-Stephen, c. 114. 
 
 % Fitz-Stephen, c. 112. § Herb. Bos., v. 3; Letter dccxix. 
 
Submission of the King. 
 
 277 
 
 old terms of familiar friendship. The archbishop 
 told his friends that, in the freedom of mirthful 
 talk, Henry suddenly asked him, " How is it that 
 you will not do my pleasure ? I would put every- 
 thing into your hands." * The question expresses 
 his feelings and his steadfast purpose. They were 
 the same at Freteval ; they were the same at 
 Northampton ; they have never changed. Peace 
 and greatness, everything you can desire, if you 
 will be my servant, as every man in my dominions 
 is my servant. Furious or mirthful, his purpose is 
 the same, and he intends to have it, by peaceful 
 means if he can, but to have it. But Thomas 
 Becket also has his purpose, and it is quite as 
 steadfast. " How is it that you will not do my 
 pleasure ? I would put everything into your 
 hands." We do not know what was his answer ; 
 most likely silence. But he told his thoughts. 
 They were upon the words, " All these things will 
 I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me." 
 
 * Herb. Bos., v. 4. 
 
2 7 8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE RETURN TO ENGLAND. 
 
 THE king had done his utmost to rid himself of 
 the archbishop, and had failed. Thomas would 
 hold his office with his life — that was now certain ; 
 and if he could not be bent to the royal will, it was 
 better to have him in England than elsewhere. 
 The king's pleasure that he should return was 
 conveyed to him. The pope, believing the recon- 
 ciliation to be sincere, or hoping to make it so, 
 advised him to the same effect. He saw himself 
 that his exile could serve no further purpose, and 
 that, come what might, he ought now to return to 
 his church, and either maintain his independence 
 or perish. 
 
 Parting from He took his leave of many tried friends in France. 
 
 King Lewis. J 
 
 The friendship of King Lewis was that of personal 
 affection and admiration, as well as of devotion to 
 the Church, not one of mere policy. " We are 
 going to England," Thomas said to him, " to throw 
 for our heads." * "So I see," was the answer ; 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 109. 
 
The Return to C(i7iterbnry. 
 
 279 
 
 " and if you will be advised by me, you will not 
 trust yourself to your king's power while he refuses 
 you the kiss of peace. Stay where you are. As 
 long as I live, the wines, the bread, the abundance 
 of France is yours." " God's will be done," was the 
 answer ; and they took leave of one another with 
 many tears. 
 
 King Henry had promised to meet the arch- Arrival at 
 
 Rouen ; 
 
 bishop at Rouen, and to give him money to pay his 
 debts in France, and either to go with him to 
 England, or to send the Archbishop of Rouen to 
 accompany him, to meet his son the young king. 
 Thomas arrived there, with a company of a hundred 
 horsemen, and received an apology for the king's 
 absence. He had been obliged to go into Auvergne, 
 to protect his subjects of that province against the 
 designs of the King of France.* 
 
 Relying on the royal promise, Becket had 
 appointed to meet his creditors at Rouen. He 
 found no money for himself or them, and had to 
 borrow money for his expenses. 
 
 The Archbishop of Rouen had received no com- 
 mand to accompany him ; but the Dean of Salisbury 
 (John of Oxford !) was there, with the king's orders 
 to him to return to his church, and to go under the 
 dean's escort and protection. John discharged his 
 duty with fidelity — to the king, his master, it was 
 said at the time ; but we find no reason for doubt- 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 113 ; Letters dccxxii. and dccxxiv. 
 
280 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 ing that his conduct to the archbishop in his 
 charge was honourable to him. 
 and at They arrived at Wissant, and there the arch- 
 
 Wissant. f . 
 
 bishop paused. The weather was calm, the sky 
 clear, the English shores in sight, and his friends, 
 the exiles of six years, were impatient* " Why 
 do we not embark ? " they were asking. " Are we 
 going to be like Moses, who saw the promised land 
 and did not enter it ? " " Do not be in haste," was 
 his answer ; " you will not have been forty days in 
 England before you will wish yourselves anywhere 
 else in the world." 
 
 He had tidings, upon his arrival at Wissant, that 
 the opposite coast about Dover was guarded by 
 armed men, and that their leaders, Ranulf de 
 Broc, Gervase the Sheriff of Kent, and Reginald de 
 Warenne, of whom we have just heard in South- 
 wark, were talking in public of having his head if 
 he landed there.f He was also told that the Arch- 
 bishop of York and the Bishops of London and 
 Salisbury were with them, and were encouraging 
 them. Perhaps they were only on their way to 
 King Henry, under fear of censures as soon as the 
 archbishop put his foot in England. The mildest 
 view of their conduct confirms what we have heard 
 of the king's surrender of them at Freteval. 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 115 ; Rog. Pont., c. 67. 
 
 t Fitz-Stephen, c. 110; Rog. Pont., c, 67 ; Herb. Bos., v. 5; 
 Letter deexxiii. 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 28 1 
 
 At Wissant, therefore, while his friends were im- 
 patient to embark, the archbishop had good reason 
 to pause and to consider. He had the pope's Delay there, 
 letters with him concerning the bishops who had 
 met at Dover. When he entreated the pope not 
 to make peremptory issue of the sentences, but to 
 put them into his hands, and allow him to be 
 guided by circumstances ; when he expressed his 
 earnest desire that any chance of peace should not 
 be lost by unseasonable severity, he little expected 
 that upon his arrival at the coast he would hear 
 that the bishops were on the opposite coast, in 
 company, if not confederacy, with the Brocs ! 
 
 What, under these circumstances, he should do, He decide* 
 
 to send the 
 
 w as certainly a question of anxious thought with pope's sen- 
 
 0 tences before 
 
 him before he sailed ; and what he did is not a him - 
 thing to be censured or criticised with levity. He 
 determined to send over before him the pope's 
 letters suspending the archbishop and excom- 
 municating the two bishops. This time the service 
 was executed by a boy. The three bishops were 
 all presented with what appeared to be begging 
 petitions, and were surprised to find in them the 
 dreaded sentences. 
 
 No act of Becket's has fallen more severely 
 under censure, from his own time down to ours. 
 The Archbishop of Rouen * and other prelates 
 condemned it then ; but all who have condemned 
 
 * Letter dccxxxii. 
 
282 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 it have condemned it as an act of war in a time of 
 fresh peace. 
 
 His motives. He knew what they did not — that the peace was 
 illusory, and that enemies upon the coast in sight 
 were waiting to take his life. Critics of his conduct, 
 who think they can judge better than he did of 
 what was necessary and prudent in such a crisis, 
 are bound, however, to judge of it as an act of war 
 in war. 
 
 It is also to be taken into account that after all 
 the sufferings of six years, the contest had turned 
 against him. The king was as much resolved as 
 ever to degrade the archbishop into a servant. The 
 Constitutions were unaltered, although the interdict 
 had saved him from promise of observing them. 
 The bishops who had set him at defiance and, as 
 far as they could, had brought his office into con- 
 tempt, were waiting where they expected him to 
 land, and their very presence flouted him with the 
 failure of all his efforts. 
 
 He might well reflect that, if failure were not to 
 be the end of all, he must strike at those bishops, 
 though he should die for it. He said to Herbert, 
 before he sailed, that he was going to his death.* 
 
 He knew well that Henry would be exasperated 
 by his service of the sentences ! he knew that the 
 bold act would be dangerous to himself; but his 
 cause had been more to him throughout than any 
 
 * Herbert himself, v. 5. 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 283 
 
 thought of self. It was vital to his cause that 
 England and the world should know that he had 
 not succumbed, but would maintain his indepen- 
 dence after his return, as he had maintained it to 
 the last day at Northampton. 
 
 That his prompt severity became the occasion 
 of fresh troubles to him ; that, if treachery was 
 intended, he opened the door for it ; that while he 
 increased his danger he furnished pleas for tra- 
 ducers, — these things are plain enough, and he 
 could see them as well as we can. But they are 
 personal considerations, and therefore, now as 
 always, of secondary import to him. 
 
 That they were of minor import — that they were ^°' at a e 
 not his ruling motives — it is no evidence that he marty: 
 was ambitious to be a martyr. Is it imagined, 
 when he is thus judged, that he foresaw the popular 
 pilgrim-worship of the centuries following, and was 
 fascinated by it? If he could have foreseen it all, 
 it is a just inference from all we know of him — all 
 the posthumous honours of St. Thomas of Canter- 
 bury would no more have diverted him to the right 
 or left than all he suffered from the frantic self-will 
 of the despot-king. 
 
 No ! He was one of those, few perhaps, who set 
 little value upon the opinions of men concerning 
 them, either in life or after death. His whole life, 
 every manifestation of his earnest, transparent 
 mind — so transparent that writers of English 
 
284 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 history cannot see through it — shows plainly that 
 his was not the mind that desires martyrdom. He 
 would rather have carried the world along with 
 him by his will and wisdom than have died for it. 
 Yet he could die, too, if die he must ; for there were 
 things he valued more than life. 
 
 He was at Wissant when his boy-messenger was 
 delivering the papal sentences into the hands of 
 the bishops at Dover. He heard of the commotion 
 that ensued, and directed his course, not as he had 
 The landing intended to Dover, but to his own town of Sand- 
 
 at Sandwich. 
 
 wich. Broc and his companions hastened to meet 
 him there. There, on December I, the people 
 saw his ship coming to land,* with his cross erect 
 upon the prow, and himself beneath it. The poor 
 people — this is particularly noted — gathered quickly 
 in a crowd to receive him, pressing into the water, 
 Acciama- wailing for joy, with cries of blessing upon "the 
 
 tions of the 
 
 people; father of orphans, the judge of widows," and knelt 
 for his blessing upon themselves. 
 
 Broc and his company would have laid hands 
 on him, but John of Oxford sternly cautioned 
 them against conduct which would bring disgrace 
 upon the king ; and the concourse of people, 
 some of them armed, had its effect in hindering 
 the violence which, to all appearance, was in- 
 tended. 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 116; Herb. Bos., v. 6; Letters dccxxiii. 
 and dccxxiv. 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 
 
 285 
 
 The next day, he went on to Canterbury,* through and at 
 
 Canterbury 
 
 crowded roads, and villages pouring out their pro- 
 cessions of priests and people, singing, weeping, 
 acclaiming, " Blessed is he that cometh in the 
 name of the Lord." The thirteen miles were barely 
 accomplished within the December daylight. At 
 Canterbury he was met by the monks and clergy 
 and " all the people." The cathedral was splendidly 
 decorated ; a great public feast was prepared ; the 
 loud sounds of organs and voices filled the church 
 as he entered it, and still louder resounded in the 
 air without from the city trumpets and the shouts 
 of the people. He was received, it was said, as an 
 angel of God.f 
 
 In the church, it is related, his fine countenance and in the 
 
 cathedral. 
 
 glowed with emotion. Some who looked on him 
 said that they understood the glory of the face of 
 Moses. He prostrated himself in prayer, gave 
 the kiss of peace to every brother of his monastery, 
 and preached from the text, " Here we have no 
 continuing city, but we seek one to come." It 
 was a sermon that deeply affected the crowded 
 audience. 
 
 The monks, as might be expected, had been 
 divided among themselves during his exile. Some 
 said, " I am a king's man," some held with their 
 abbot and archbishop. His friends had complained 
 
 * W. Cant, ii. 9; Fitz-Stephen, c. 117 ; Herb. Bos., v. 7. 
 f Benedict, i. p. 9. 
 
286 
 
 T/iomas Bccket. 
 
 that they did not assist him, as they might have 
 done. He sought peace at least with the brethren 
 of his house. 
 
 King's S oon after his arrival at Canterbury he received 
 
 officers re- 
 quire him to a visit from some officials, insisting, in the king's 
 
 absolve the ' & ' *» 
 
 bishops. name, that he should absolve the bishops. The 
 sentences upon them, they said, were injurious to 
 the king and subversive of the customs of the 
 kingdom. He replied that it was in no man's 
 power to rescind the sentences of the pope. Their 
 clamours and their threats of some strange violence 
 if he did not comply with their demand at last 
 induced him to say that he would exceed his 
 powers, and, at his own peril, presuming on the 
 pope's indulgence, would absolve them on their 
 taking the usual oaths of submission. The bishops, 
 on hearing this, refused to take the oath without 
 the king's consent, and set out to join him in 
 Normandy. 
 
 He is While he rested for a week at Canterbury he 
 
 meno'/rank. found himself avoided by men of wealth and rank. 
 
 None came to congratulate him or bid him " God 
 speed." It is not unlikely that his isolation may 
 have influenced his movements. He would go out 
 to the highways and see the people there. He 
 expected, no doubt, that the demonstrations of 
 public feeling would put some restraint upon 
 violence, as they had done at Sandwich. 
 
 After a week's rest he moved to London, intend- 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 287 
 
 ing to visit the young king, and taking three fine Progress to 
 
 London. 
 
 horses for a present to him. Was it not, that he 
 desired, with the help and friendship of his old 
 pupil, to turn the sham peace into a reality ? 
 
 At Rochester he was received as he had been at At 
 
 Rochester. 
 
 Canterbury.* Approaching London, he was met 
 by an " infinite multitude of priests and people." 
 Three thousand poor scholars and clergy of the 
 London churches went out three miles from the 
 city, and received him with the Te Deum, plain- 
 tively chanted to many " pious tears." At St. 
 Mary's, Southwark, the canons regulars met him 
 before the door of the church, with the song Bcne- 
 <1 ictus, and again with the " pious tears " of priests 
 and people. A vast multitude of every age and 
 class joined in the chant. In the midst of it, it is 
 related, a mad woman well known, called Matilda, 
 was heard exclaiming repeatedly, " Archbishop, 
 beware of the knife ! " He passed the night in the 
 palace of the bishop of Winchester, in Southwark. 
 
 These triumphal receptions gave offence, as was 
 likely, to the two kings. The elder king had 
 already on several occasions accused Becket of 
 aspiring to his crown. The charge was idle, but 
 the popular movement was felt as if it shook the 
 throne. It is plain enough that the hatred of 
 races, not yet worn away, came out strongly in 
 this contention. The lords were the king's slaves 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 120. 
 
288 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 partly from fear of the English ; the shouts of the 
 populace have a strong tang of hatred to their 
 Norman masters. 
 
 Thomas had sent his messenger, the Prior of 
 Dover,* to Winchester, to ask leave to present 
 himself to the young king. He desired to show 
 him that the late excommunications were the 
 pope's, and to explain the causes of them. His 
 messenger returned to him in Southwark with the 
 answer that he was forbidden the court,! an d must 
 Repulse by return to Canterbury and remain there, and make 
 
 the young 
 
 king- no more progresses with armed bands through the 
 king's cities and highways. He had five armed 
 knights in attendance. 
 
 He answered that he thought he was at peace 
 with the king, and expected nothing hostile. 
 However, it was near Christmas, and he would 
 return to his church. He first paid a short visit to 
 his manor of Harrow, whence the Abbot of St. 
 Albans, who came to him and showed him much 
 kindness, carried a second petition to Woodstock, 
 and endeavoured to persuade Henry to see him. 
 He brought back a second order that he must 
 return to Canterbury. At the same time he had 
 a private warning from the Earl of Cornwall % to 
 take care of himself, because his life was in danger. 
 His repulse by the young king gave fresh zest to 
 
 * W. Cant, ii. II. t Fitz-Stephen, c. 121 ; Letter dccxxiv. 
 t W. Cant, ii. 18. 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 289 
 
 the hatred of interested enemies. He heard daily Public 
 
 insults. 
 
 of wilful insults and injuries. Already one of the 
 Brocs had boarded and taken a vessel with a 
 cargo of wine, a present to him from King Lewis, 
 killed some of the sailors, and thrown the others 
 into Pevensey Castle. The abbot obtained from 
 the young king an order for full restitution. The 
 Brocs still persisted in every means of annoyance. 
 They infested the roads at night and provoked 
 quarrels with his servants. They hunted in his 
 woods, and poached his venison with his own dogs. 
 On Christmas Eve one of them stopped his pack- 
 horses on the road, and barbarously lopped the 
 tails of a horse and a mule. 
 
 On Christmas Day he was at his cathedral, and Christmas 
 
 Day. 
 
 preached a seasonable sermon from Luke ii. 14 
 (Vulgate version, "On earth peace, to men of good 
 will "). He spoke of his approaching departure 
 from them. Sobs and tears came from all the 
 audience. Then, changing his tone, he spoke, as 
 he would do, of some who hated peace, and pro- 
 nounced sentences of excommunication upon two 
 of the intruders into his churches and two of the 
 Brocs. 
 
 Meanwhile the censured bishops had crossed The conn 
 
 account 
 
 over to Normandy, and carried their complaints |[ e ^^P s 
 to the king at his castle of Bur, near Bayeux. conduct - 
 Their letters, sent on before them, drove him into 
 exclamations of anger or well-feigned grief. With 
 
 U 
 
290 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 many knights standing about, all ignorant, as yet, 
 of the cause of his vexation, he burst into loud 
 exclamations : " Cowards and imbeciles that he 
 had about him ; curse them ! Not one of them 
 cared for all his troubles. He had fed them and 
 reared them, and they had no fealty to their lord, or 
 they would never have suffered him to be insulted, 
 as he had been so long." They entreated to know 
 the cause of his distress. " One man," he said, " a 
 low-born, upstart priest, who had came to his court 
 on a lame pack-horse, who had eaten his bread and 
 grown fat on his favours— one man casts dishonour 
 on the king and all his family, and lifts up his 
 heel against the kingdom ; and they look on idly, 
 and take no revenge." 
 
 These were not words to fall unheeded on the 
 ears of the men about him. They were fiery 
 sparks falling on a sun-dried prairie. The knights 
 who heard them fell into hot words among them- 
 selves. The king was still more excited by the 
 arrival of the three bishops. He heard their com- 
 plaints again. " He will never have a day's peace," 
 said one of them, " as long as Thomas lives." Very 
 like a suggestion of murder from the men of peace ! 
 plots. The barons and knights of the royal household 
 
 were discussing among themselves the king's 
 distress, and held a conference on Christmas Eve, 
 when a company of them bound themselves, 
 according to some accounts with the king's know- 
 
The Return to Canterbury. 291 
 
 ledge, in oaths of vengeance against Becket and 
 fidelity to the king and to one another, and hastened 
 immediately to the sea-coast. Some of them 
 crossed, without delay, to the English ports, some 
 remained in the coast towns of Flanders. All were 
 determined to seize Becket if he came nigh them. 
 
 Of those who crossed the Channel, four names, e» 
 with that of a fifth, whom they found with the 
 Brocs, have borne the infamy of what followed. 
 Fitzurse, Morville, Tracy, and Briton crossed the 
 sea. They were the most forward, possibly the 
 most unscrupulous, of the king's men, but they were 
 only four of many who were ready for any deed of 
 violence against his "enemy." They were all men 
 of family and estate, as well as of influence about 
 the king. 
 
 These four concerted together, and arrived by dif- 
 ferent routes at Saltwood Castle. It was a castle of 
 the see of Canterbury, still occupied by Ranulf de 
 Broc, who was expecting them. He, or some of 
 the barons of the household who had arrived before 
 the four confederates, had already called out the 
 military forces of East Kent, in the name of the king. 
 Forces were on foot, whoever marshalled them, on 
 the west of Canterbury. The castles of Bletching- 
 ley, Hastings, Dover, and others were occupied by 
 soldiers on the alert.* 
 
 Consequently, on the morning of December 29, 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, c. 132. 
 
292 
 
 TJiomas Bccket. 
 
 The city of and for three or four days following, the city of 
 
 Canterbury 
 
 watched by Canterbury was surrounded at a distance by 
 
 soldiers. 
 
 soldiers, ready either to seize the archbishop if he 
 again sought safety in flight, or to suppress any 
 outbreak of the populace, or lay siege to the city 
 and cathedral if they were called upon — all for 
 the destruction of one man, a priest. 
 
( 293 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE MURDER. 
 
 Within the ring of soldiers, on the morning of 1170 . 
 that December 29, the four executioners of the 
 conspiracy, with the two Brocs for their guides, and 
 some others of the same stamp, all in armour, are 
 on their way from Saltwood to Canterbury with a 
 force of men, some of them armed, some carrying 
 swords or clubs. 
 
 They arrived at Canterbury in the afternoon and 
 took their measures. The greater number of their 
 men were sent out to watch the city and to 
 summon people on the king's service. It was near xheexecu 
 four o'clock when the leaders of them, with about 'hearch- 
 twelve men, arrived at the gates of the archbishop's palace.' 
 palace. They entered quietly, seized the porter, 
 and took possession of his lodge. Here the four, 
 with one servant, left their weapons and put cloaks 
 over their mail ; they then entered the hall. The scenes 
 domestics were at dinner ; they recognized the men wuh '"' 
 as of the king's household, and asked them to sit 
 
294 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 down and eat. They declined ; they had a message 
 to the archbishop from the king. Word was sent 
 him to the inner room, where he was sitting, after 
 dinner, with some monks and clergy. Among 
 them were John of Salisbury, Fitz-Stephen his 
 chaplain, and the English monk, Edward Grim. 
 The four went on, entered without speaking and 
 without saluting him, and sat down not far from 
 him on the floor, on the little heaps of hay or 
 straw. After a little while, Thomas, who had heard 
 of their landing and must have known that they 
 came on no friendly errand, looked from one to 
 another of them and saluted Tracy. He was 
 answered with muttered curses and a more articu- 
 late " God save you," in tone as malignant as his 
 curses. 
 
 After a time Fitzurse said, " We have a message 
 to you from the king. Will you hear it in private 
 or before all these ? " 
 
 " As you please." 
 
 " Then in private." 
 
 The others were requested to withdraw. 
 
 "The king requires you," said Fitzurse, "to 
 absolve the bishops, and to go with us to his son 
 the king, whom you have sought to discrown, and 
 abide the judgment of his court upon your 
 conduct." 
 
 " The pope," he replied, " not I, excommunicated 
 the bishops." 
 
The Murder. 
 
 295 
 
 " But under your influence." 
 
 Granted : and he owed gratitude, therefore, to 
 the Church at Rome. But he had offered to ab- 
 solve the bishops, on their submission, usual in 
 such cases, and they had refused. He offered it 
 still. 
 
 He answered in the same quiet way to their 
 charge of designs against the king. 
 
 For a short time he was alone with them ; but 
 the doorkeeper had not shut the door, and the 
 words of the knights, getting loud and angry, 
 induced him to recall the attendants. 
 
 The wrangle was prolonged. 
 
 " You have broken the peace," said one, " and 
 there will be no peace for you and yours. You 
 must quit the king's dominions. You have shame- 
 fully cast out of the Church the king's servants." 
 
 "Whoever violates the constitutions of the Roman 
 see, or the rights of the Church, I will not spare." 
 
 " Threats, threats ! You speak to the danger of 
 your life." 
 
 " Are you come to murder me ? I am ready. I 
 shall not desert my Church again. If I may do my 
 duty in peace, well ; if not, God's will be done. 
 I care not for your threats ; and I wonder that 
 you dare to threaten an archbishop in his own 
 house. Besides, you know what is between me 
 and you." 
 
 Three of the four had been sworn to him as his 
 
2g6 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 men since the time when he was chancellor, and 
 it excited them still more to be reminded of it. 
 
 They sprung to their feet, and crowded up to 
 him : " We are no man's men against the king ; 
 we renounce allegiance to you, in the king's name." 
 
 " We dare threaten an archbishop," Fitzurse 
 said ; " and we dare do more. Let us go." 
 
 A large company had by this time gathered to 
 them as the voices got louder. Fitzurse cried, as 
 they went out, " We require you, on the part of the 
 king, to leave this man." 
 
 Seeing the futility of such an order, he gave 
 the opposite one : " We require you to guard this 
 man, that he do not escape." 
 
 The archbishop had risen. " You'll find me 
 here," he said ; " I am easy to guard, I am not 
 going." He spoke with anger, and followed them 
 to the door. 
 
 ■.'To arms!" They went back through the hall, as they had 
 come, crying, " To arms ! to arms ! " 
 
 In the porch Fitzurse found the axe of a car- 
 penter who was repairing some stairs, and carried 
 it off. 
 
 By this time their whole company was gathered 
 to a house outside the palace gates, and some 
 citizens with them, whether from curiosity or 
 under constraint. The gates were quickly opened 
 and shut again, and they all rushed into the court, 
 shouting, " King's men ! king's men ! " while the 
 
The Murder. 
 
 297 
 
 leaders were taking off their cloaks and adjust- 
 ing their armour under a spreading sycamore 
 tree. 
 
 The archbishop had resumed his seat, and was 
 talking with his company. Some of them felt no 
 alarm ; they said it was Christmas time, and the 
 men were drunk. Others were not so sure, and 
 feared they might carry out their threats. 
 
 Presently they heard loud noises from the street, Screams of 
 
 the popu- 
 
 the screams of men and women at the sight of Re- 
 armed men rushing through the palace gates. 
 Then there was a rush of servants through the 
 hall and down the steps to the church. Soon 
 there was a crash of wood, struck and broken by 
 axes. The leaders and others with them had 
 come back to the hall door, but the servants had 
 closed and barred it. Broc, who knew the house, 
 led them through the orchard to a window in the 
 ante-room, between the hall and the room where 
 the archbishop was. The house was under repair, 
 after his exile, and they were here stopped by 
 a wooden partition, which they were breaking 
 through. Having effected an entrance, they un- 
 barred the hall door to admit their men, wounding 
 some of the monks who were near. 
 
 The monks and clergy with Thomas now en-Tothe 
 treated him to go into the church. He refused. 
 " Monks are timid," he said. They reminded him 
 that vespers were beginning, and that he was to 
 
298 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 attend. When he hesitated, they urged him, and 
 almost forced him, pressing him on with their 
 hands. He then ordered his cross to be borne 
 before him. Llewellyn had been sent abroad on 
 some errand, and Henry of Auxerre was the cross- 
 bearer. They entered the monks' cloister, and 
 would have closed the house door, but he forbade 
 them. Once as they went he turned and looked 
 back, but showed no fear or excitement. At the 
 church door he was met by some of the monks, 
 hastening out from vespers in fright at the noises 
 in the street and palace. 
 
 It was already dark when he entered the church. 
 The lamps shed their dim light through the gloom. 
 Having entered, the monks closed and bolted the 
 door, and he ordered it to be opened. " God for- 
 bid that we turn the house of prayer into a castle ! 
 Let all enter who will." 
 " King^ He was ascending the chancel steps, when he 
 
 men" in the m iiitt j 
 
 church. heard a voice : I o me, king s men ! He turned, 
 and saw Fitzurse entering the transept, clad in 
 armour, with drawn sword. The three others, 
 similarly accoutred, were following, and others in 
 armour were behind them. The clergy, except 
 three who stood with him, fled and hid themselves, 
 in the crypt, the roof, under the altars. John of 
 Salisbury was one of them. Thomas could have 
 done the same, and might have put himself out of 
 their reach for the night. He neither fled nor 
 
The Murder. 
 
 299 
 
 quailed. The three who remained were Fitz- 
 Stephen, Grim, and a monk named Robert. 
 
 Then there was a voice : " Where is Thomas 
 Becket, the traitor ? " No answer. Then, " Where's 
 the archbishop ? " To this he answered, " Here 
 — -no traitor, but God's priest ; and I wonder that 
 you come into His church in this garb. What do 
 you want?" 
 
 He descended the steps, and, advancing to meet n e turns 
 
 .ind meet: 
 
 the men in arms, came to what was then a central them - 
 pillar of the transept. 
 
 " Absolve the king's men," they said. 
 
 " They have not given satisfaction, and I will not." 
 
 " Then your life ; you can live no longer." 
 
 " In God's name, I am ready ; but I charge you 
 that you touch none of my people, clerical or lay." 
 
 One of them struck him with flat sword between 
 the shoulders, saying, " Fly, fly, or you are a dead 
 man." 
 
 " Nowhere else," he replied ; " here do your will 
 and your orders." 
 
 " You are our prisoner," said one ; " come out 
 with us ; " and Tracy laid hands on him, as if to 
 drag him out of the church. 
 
 He seized him by his mailed coat, and shook him 
 off so forcibly, that Tracy with difficulty kept his 
 feet. Other hands were laid on him, to carry or 
 drag him out : there was a scuffle, and he was held 
 by his three attendants. 
 
Thomas Becket. 
 
 He addressed Fitzurse : " Rainald, armed against 
 me ! Is this the return ? " Fitzurse took hold of 
 him ; and Thomas, the same in death as in all his 
 life, gave utterance, in his provocation, to the 
 opprobrious taunt, — " Pander, touch me not." 
 
 The word gave the final edge to the audacity 
 which quailed before murdering him in the church. 
 The death Evidently they wanted to eet him out. Fitzurse 
 
 scene. J J ° 
 
 lifted his sword, and aimed at his head, shouting 
 " Strike ! strike ! " Tracy followed with the first 
 blow that told. It was caught by Grim, whose arm, 
 raised to save the archbishop's head, was almost 
 cut through. He fled to the nearest altar.* A 
 second blow from Fitzurse followed, and he still 
 stood upright. A third from Tracy, and he fell 
 forward on his arms and knees, with hands clasped, 
 and, with quiet voice, committed himself to Jesus 
 and the saints. 
 
 Not a groan or sound of pain escaped from his 
 lips. Briton gave him a fourth blow as he fell, 
 with such violence that his sword was broken upon 
 the pavement, and was left there. Morville did 
 not strike ; he stood by as if on guard. One of 
 the others challenged him, — " Do what you are 
 bound to do ; we are all sworn to it." 
 
 All the blows were on the head, and the crown 
 was severed, and hung by the skin. The body lay 
 prostrate, with outstretched arms, and the blood 
 
 * Grim himself, c. 82. 
 
The Murder. 
 
 301 
 
 flowed, white with the brains. The murderers had 
 turned away, when the fifth miscreant came up, 
 one Hugh Mauclerc, a worthy chaplain of Ranulph 
 de Broc, and putting his foot upon the dead man's 
 neck, scooped out the brains from the skull with his 
 sword, and scattered them upon the flags. Then, 
 " Let us go," he said ; " the traitor's dead." They 
 left the church sword in hand, shouting, " King's " Kind's 
 
 men ! " 
 
 men ! king's men ! " 
 
 For a short time the body lay alone. When it 
 was known that the ruffians were gone, the people, 
 most of them poor people, came in crowds weeping 
 and moaning, and bent down to kiss his hands 
 and his feet. At last the monks closed the doors, 
 placed him on a bier, with the empty skull joined 
 by a cap, and laid him before the high altar, 
 wondering at his life-like face ; for he seemed 
 asleep, not dead — his complexion unchanged in 
 colour, not turned pale, his eyes and mouth closed, 
 his countenance with its well-known frank and 
 cheerful look, his fingers and his limbs still lax. 
 So he lay all night, with his monks about him ; 
 but there was no service in the desecrated building 
 that night, or for a year to come. 
 
 The murderers and their gang turned from the Jhemur- 
 
 0 0 derers 
 
 church to plunder the palace.* Chests and coffers hou"e erth 
 were broken open. Gold and silver and money, 
 precious vestments, and everything valuable they 
 
 * Grim, c. 83 ; Fitz-Stephen ; Letter dccxlviii. 
 
302 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 could find, they shared among them. Pope's bulls 
 and title-deeds were sent off to the king abroad. 
 The horses were taken from the stables, and the 
 murderers mounted them and rode away. 
 
 The next morning one of the Brocs ordered the 
 body to be put out of sight forthwith, or he would 
 have it thrown to the pigs and dogs. It was 
 hastily inclosed in a new sarcophagus of marble, 
 and buried without service in the crypt. 
 Public con- On the first tidings, the city was in consterna- 
 
 sternation. 
 
 tion. A deep horror at the deed spread from 
 thence over the Christian world. The name of 
 Englishman was held in loathing for a crime in 
 which no Englishman had a hand — more odious 
 in England than elsewhere. 
 
 , The young king, when he heard of it, lifted up 
 his hands and thanked God that it had been done 
 without his knowledge, and that none of his men 
 were there. 
 
 The elder soon had cause to feel that his fury 
 had driven him into a mistake worse, in tyrant's 
 eyes, than any crime. His first dejection, it was 
 told, was woeful. " For three days he was not 
 able to enter the church, and could take no food 
 but milk of almonds ! He was inconsolable ; he 
 did not show himself in public, knowing that the 
 savage conduct of his men would redound to his 
 own infamy." Such was the account of his con- 
 dition given to the monks of Canterbury by two 
 
The Murder. 
 
 303 
 
 clerical messengers who brought a letter from 
 him. 
 
 There is nothing more remarkable in the whole The bio- 
 graphers 
 
 story than the king's acquittal by most of the jȣ use the 
 biographers of all intention and complicity in the 
 murder. It is an evidence, and one of several, 
 that, whether from inclination or under more 
 urgent motive, if they err it is not to his prejudice. 
 On the evidence it is impossible to acquit him. 
 
 The story which has obtained acceptance in 
 English history is well known, and even upon that 
 he was the principal in the murder. He was well without 
 
 i-i t reason. 
 
 acquainted with the men whom he upbraided as 
 imbeciles and cowards and heedless of their fealty. 
 He knew they were not men to take such re- 
 proaches patiently from their lord and king. He 
 had had many a proof that not a few of them were 
 capable of any deed in his service. He was not 
 ignorant of the upheld arms ready for anything 
 at Clarendon. The meaning of his words was 
 plain, and he knew it. At least, therefore, when 
 he uttered them he intended them to have the 
 effect they had. If that were all, he was the 
 principal. It is related that he sent a mes- 
 senger after the four knights ; but that counts for 
 nothing. He did not overtake them, and we know 
 nothing of the message. Hot anger is no excuse 
 of the king's words, and he cannot have even the 
 palliation of it. He had shown at Freteval and at 
 
304 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Chaumont that his anger was within his control. He 
 could be angry with calculation, because for policy 
 or self-interest he could smile and flatter if he would. 
 
 But there is another account of the facts which 
 ought not to slip into oblivion, although it is true 
 the question is of little importance now, except in 
 so far as the study of every man of any personality 
 or public influence is within "the proper study of 
 mankind." 
 
 It is out of doubt that King Henry's part, as a 
 deliberate and cold-blooded principal in the murder, 
 was a prevalent opinion of the time, and was freely 
 expressed by persons who were under no fear of 
 him, as by King Lewis, the Count of Blois, and the 
 Archbishop of Sens.* The archbishop writes to 
 the pope, " What place can be safe, if the rage of 
 tyrants may murder with impunity the Vicars of 
 Christ in the holy of holies ? " f He says also, 
 " Like another Herod, he sent the executioners 
 from his own presence." 
 
 It is true that these high personages may have 
 been drawn into some exaggeration under the first 
 horror of the crime ; but this allowance is to 
 be balanced against sedative influences of greater 
 potency upon the other side. 
 
 They had also facts for their opinions ; facts 
 which sooner or later came into public knowledge 
 and remain on record. The Archbishop of Sens 
 * Letters dccxxxiv.-dccxxxvi. t Letter dccxl. 
 
The Murder. 
 
 305 
 
 declares that the king acknowledged to a messenger 
 from him that he had been the cause of his death 
 and that he had killed him. It was reported, on 
 apparently good authority, that the murderer 
 Tracy confessed to the Bishop of Exeter that they 
 were all four strictly sworn by the king to do all 
 they did.* A writer of the time, who had special 
 means of information, informs us that it was well 
 known that the Bishop of Exeter believed it. f 
 The cry to Morville, in the death scuffle — " Do 
 what you are bound to ; we are all sworn to it " — 
 speak more naturally of an obligation to a superior 
 than to one another. 
 
 Even writers who acquit the king of deliberate 
 murder admit that he took measures for the 
 seizure of the archbishop. \ That implies murder 
 if , necessary. To take him prisoner would have 
 meant, what it was to Stigand, " chains and the 
 dungeon pit " — a fate which Thomas Becket was 
 sure to resist as worse than death. To take his life 
 in such case would have been murder, because to 
 seize him was a gross and deliberate violation of 
 the compact of Freteval. 
 
 On any view of the subject, Henry was the 
 principal in the murder : the only question is, in 
 what degree. It can hardly be doubtful that he 
 
 * Herb. Bos., vi. 9. 
 
 t Girald. Camb. , vol. vii. p. 61 : an authority sufficient for the 
 rumour, confirmatory of the fact. 
 X David Hume for one. 
 
 X 
 
306 
 
 Tliomas Bccket. 
 
 was resolved to crush the archbishop, at whatever 
 cost ; and it appears most consistent with all the 
 facts, recent and prior, and all they show us of the 
 character of the man, that murder was in his 
 thoughts as a last resource from the day when he 
 gave his ungracious consent to the archbishop's 
 return, with the promises not to be kept, and the 
 kiss of peace persistently refused, and that he 
 would have avowed the deed as he did to the 
 Carthusian monk, and would have gloried in it if 
 he could have dared. 
 
 The king's conduct to the murderers is con- 
 firmatory. He had not renounced the " Constitu- 
 tions of Clarendon," and could have given signal 
 effect to them by the trial and punishment in his 
 own court of the men who had. murdered the arch- 
 bishop in his church. He was, therefore, culpable 
 for their escape. It was some time before they 
 durst face the world, if they ever faced it boldly 
 again. For twelve months they' were entertained 
 at Morville's castle of Knaresborough* Every- 
 body avoided them ; but some of them at least 
 were afterwards employed by the king. They 
 frequented his castles, hunted in his forests, and 
 lived under his favour and protection. It was said 
 that they suffered severe penances. Those of the 
 king are more notorious and afford a picture of the 
 superstition of the age. 
 
 * Benedict, i. p. 14. 
 
The Murder. 
 
 307 
 
 When the doors of the pope were closed against 
 his envoys, and the interdict had been issued by 
 the Archbishop of Sens upon his continental 
 provinces, and enemies were expecting their 
 opportunity, we may hope, if his life following will 
 allow us, that terrors within and troubles without 
 did at last bow his spirit in terror and remorse. 
 
 He gained respite from the papal sentences by Hissub- 
 
 .... TT , ... mission, 
 
 unreserved submission. He made an expedition May, u 7 2. 
 to Ireland, to be out of the way of inconvenient 
 documents, and remained there six months, till he 
 heard that two legates had arrived in Normandy 
 with powers of absolution. He crossed the seas, 
 and in St. Andrew's Church, at Avranches, swore 
 solemnly before the two cardinals sent specially to 
 receive his oath,* that he had not commanded the 
 murder, and had not desired it, and had been 
 excessively grieved by it. He swore perpetual 
 obedience to Pope Alexander ; promised, on his 
 oath, not to hinder appeals ; to revoke the Con- 
 stitutions of Clarendon, and all other customs, at 
 the pope's pleasure ; to restore the exiles, and 
 make them full restitution ; and also that he would 
 take the cross for three years and go to Jerusalem, 
 unless the pope absolved him from this service, and 
 that he would maintain for twelve months a force 
 of two hundred knights in the service of the 
 Knights Templars. 
 
 * MS. Lansd. ; Benedict, i. p. 32 Letter dcclxxi. 
 
3c8 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 In a sense, his oath may be believed. He did 
 not command, he did not desire, he was vexed to 
 hear that the murder had been perpetrated — in the 
 church. 
 
 Abject This humiliation was compulsory, after angrv 
 
 penance, 
 
 July, 1174. resistance and a week to consider. His abject 
 penance at Canterbury two years later was volun- 
 tary ; whether, in the troubles of his sons' revolt, 
 he counted upon the effects of superstition, or he 
 really hoped, by his humiliation, to propitiate the 
 anger of heaven. Barefoot, in a single robe of 
 woollen, he walked from St. Dunstan's without 
 the walls to the cathedral, and there, kneeling 
 at the martyr's tomb, he gave his naked body to 
 be lashed by every bishop and abbot who was 
 present and by every monk of Christ Church. He 
 then continued fasting at the tomb all the day and 
 the night following. 
 
 The people s But it was the English people, the burdened 
 
 " saint and 
 
 martyr." people, whom the murdered archbishop always 
 pitied and protected and loved to succour, that 
 brought King Henry to his penance at Canter- 
 bury ; for the English people had already declared 
 him their saint and martyr. Their sympathies 
 were quick. As the poor folk of the city returned 
 from the church, and talked together in the streets 
 of the father they had loved so well, now lying 
 dead before the altar, they were sure that the 
 heavens had received him. They saw the mind 
 
The Murder. 
 
 309 
 
 of heaven in the sky. First there was a tempest 
 of rain and thunder, and then the darkness bright- 
 ened into an auroral, blood-red glow. Yes, heaven 
 had taken him up ! They wanted no decree from 
 Rome to tell them that. From that night he was 
 their martyred saint. 
 
 Their instinct was sound ; a martyr he was, but 
 not of Rome's fashions. The people proclaimed 
 him saint and martyr, although they could not 
 follow him on his own lines. He was alone among 
 men, far before his age ; no one understood him 
 then ; the teachers of England misunderstand him 
 and malign him now. The common people of his 
 day understood at least his feelings, although they 
 could not follow him in his thoughts and intents. 
 Honour and worship him they would ; they could 
 only do it after their own lights. There was an 
 immediate demand for miracles, and there are 
 always people competent to supply every demand. 
 
 No doubt it was one effect of his life and death r, 
 to help to rivet the chains of Rome, and to augment P ° 
 her influence over Englishmen in times following. 
 The Roman court, always wide-awake to its own 
 interests, whatever else it was, saw its opportunity, 
 and made use of it with all its ancient skill. 
 
 Yet even in this regard Becket's work was good. 
 As yet a better religion than that of Rome had 
 hardly dawned upon the most enlightened minds, 
 since the new empire of the Latin Church, in its 
 
3 TO 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 struggles of ambition, had stifled the Church of 
 Paul and Peter under its loads of superstition and 
 formality. 
 
 Two tyrannies, the kingly and the priestly, 
 standing one over against the other, and keeping 
 one another in check, were better than one. No 
 tyranny in England has been so odious to its more 
 intelligent people, no memory more execrable, than 
 that of the tyrant, more daring in rapacity than 
 Henry II., who had the fortune to discover that the 
 priestly tyranny had lost its power over the popular 
 mind before other religious influence had taken its 
 place, and was able to gather into his own foul 
 hands, with the plunder of Becket's shrine and of a 
 thousand others, the powers of both priest and king. 
 
 Tyrants and their minions are quicker to dis- 
 cover a people's weakness than the people to assert 
 their freedom. 
 
 In Becket it is evident his zeal for the Church 
 privileges was great, but not principally for their 
 own sake. The Church liberties were the only 
 liberties that England, under the tyrant foreigner, 
 had yet remaining to her. The Church, to him, 
 was the assertor of justice and the protector of 
 freedom. In so far as the Church was faithful, he 
 loved it. Rather he loved it always, because he 
 had an ideal of a Church which could not fail to be 
 faithful, and strove to realize his ideal. The 
 Roman Church was not that ideal ; it was far 
 
The Murder. 
 
 otherwise to him. It was his aim and endeavour 
 to make that Church what it claimed to be, and, 
 with its help, to lighten the servitude of the poor of 
 his native land, and teach her nobles to be men 
 true and free. No man of any age has been more 
 conscious of Roman abominations, none more bold 
 in rebuking them than he. 
 
 An Englishman by birth and sympathy, if a 
 Norman by extraction, he showed to the world by 
 his life and death that still, in the deepest servi- 
 tude, there might arise an Englishman strong in 
 the affections of the people, whom a French tyrant 
 would not be able to make his tool ; and that 
 there were certainly crimes which no tyrant, king 
 or baron, could count upon committing with 
 impunity. 
 
 It was a lesson they much needed, and Thomas 
 of London knew it. The savageries of the kings, 
 the horrors of the castles, must often have made 
 his flesh creep during his boyhood. As chancellor, 
 he took a leading part in crushing the tyranny of 
 the many lords. As archbishop, he stood for the 
 people's rights, as only a great archbishop could 
 do it then, against the tyranny of the one. 
 
 Writers of English history could not fail to H nii. 
 
 1 11 ri-r 11 •! • Stubb 
 
 recognize the development of life and liberty in 
 the nation during the sixty years from the peace 
 of Wallingford. Upon the causes of it they are 
 not so clear. 
 
312 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 Of the peaceful settlement after the anarchy, they 
 have given the credit to the young man " of the 
 tyrant's blood," whose capacity for it may be esti- 
 mated by what we have seen of him. But the 
 settlement was well begun before he arrived, and 
 was accomplished by the same head which had 
 also been active in the peace. 
 
 Of the continued progress during the half- 
 century following, they assign the origins to en- 
 actments for the punishment of crime. But penal 
 laws, or any laws, or the administration of them, 
 never made a nation. The best of laws have been 
 enacted in the worst of times and have not 
 amended them. 
 
 The great advancement between the day of 
 Wallingford and the day of Runnymede was not 
 in the laws of England, but in the men. The men 
 of Runnymede are like men of another race from 
 the men of Clarendon and Northampton. Richard 
 de Luci made the penal laws, but THOMAS Becket 
 MADE THE MEN. 
 
 The peaceful settlement after the anarchy was 
 the work of his life ; the creation of the new Eng- 
 land of his death. The Aurora of the night of his 
 murder was the dawn of a new day after a very 
 dark night.* 
 
 And, therefore, he was truly a martyr — a martyr 
 not for clerical rights or supremacy ; not for any 
 
 * Appendix, note L. 
 
The Murder. 
 
 313 
 
 Church, either of Rome or England, against the 
 State or its king ; not for any confession of faith, 
 however sacred. Not for these ; but for something 
 even more than them all. He lived and died for 
 liberty and justice and charity to all citizens. He 
 died because he claimed as archbishop, and re- 
 fused to cede, what is the essential right of every 
 reasonable being, but had been lost to all others 
 except himself — the right to employ freely his own 
 faculties in his own works for the common benefit 
 of men, and to teach other men to do the same. 
 
 It was truly to be a martyr for God, who makes 
 every step of human progress dependent upon the 
 wise employment of the human faculties. It was 
 to be a martyr for the religion which teaches to 
 honour all men, and therefore would have men 
 worthy of honour, and not contemptible ; and calls 
 to social duties between man and man, which, 
 without the wise employment of the general 
 intelligence, are in the intricacies of human life 
 impossible. 
 
 Thomas was not a saint ; but he was a martyr 
 in a martyrdom worthy and noble as that of any 
 saint. 
 
 The people felt it, though they but dimly saw it. 
 
 Despite the ignorance and the superstition of the 
 worship they paid him, no Englishman was ever 
 more beloved in life, none has been so long or so 
 fervently honoured after his death, as the man 
 
3H 
 
 Thomas Becket. 
 
 who, for three and a half centuries and more, was 
 worshipped in England and the Christian world, 
 and, in ignorant parts of it, is worshipped still — 
 not as what he was, and will yet be known with 
 higher honour than before, and more his own, 
 Thomas Becket, the first great patriot of 
 
 THE SECOND ENGLAND, but as Set. ^Thomas Of 
 
 Canterhurg. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A (p. 194). 
 
 The most remarkable expression of opinion upon 
 " the public excommunication" of some of " the leading 
 nobles and king's ministers," and " the threats against 
 himself and his kingdom," occurs in a letter of appeal * 
 to the pope in the name of the bishops and clergy of 
 the province of Canterbury. They were convened by 
 the king for the purpose, and the value of their appeal 
 may be estimated by its description of King Henry as 
 a man most Christian in faith, most honourable in the 
 bonds ©f chaste matrimony, and a strict maintainer of 
 peace and justice ! It also declares that he humbly 
 and reverently, and without any anger, submits himself 
 and his kingdom to the pope's correction ! 
 
 The credit of this character of King Henry was given 
 to Bishop Foliot, and it agrees exactly in tone and 
 substance with a long letter of Foliot's f to the arch- 
 bishop. We learn from this that " the king's sweet 
 pledges, and his most noble and honest wife, his many 
 subject kingdoms and other precious possessions, avail 
 * Letter cciv. t Letter ccxxv. 
 
3i6 
 
 A ppendix. 
 
 nothing to hinder him, despising all, from going naked 
 to follow his Lord Jesus, and bear the cross after Him." 
 This is the letter with Foliot's account of the Council 
 of Clarendon. 
 
 Against Thomas it is a railing letter throughout. It 
 reproaches him with his methods of advancement from 
 the first. He had paid heavily to be chancellor. By 
 his promotion to Canterbury the rights of the Church 
 were subverted, righteousness and wickedness were 
 confounded. Foliot himself had only submitted to cir- 
 cumstances, and because "the lion roared." He now 
 speaks freely, without fear of " the lion." He goes on 
 to declare that the career of Thomas as archbishop has 
 been " what was to be expected from a beginning so 
 defiant of right and holiness and canon law." 
 
 So he wrote, but his acts were more cautious than 
 his words. He had already, upon the archbishop's 
 injunction, resigned the sequestrations of the exiled 
 clergy * of which the king had put him in charge, and 
 paid over all moneys in his hands belonging to them. 
 
 What others thought of these letters of Foliot and the 
 bishops has come down to us on the trustworthy evidence 
 of John of Salisbury, afterwards Bishop of Chartres, one 
 of the best-informed and most judicious of Becket's 
 friends. " You talk," he writes, " of the piety and 
 gentleness, the justice and courtesy and deference to 
 the pope, of a man of whom there is nothing too impious 
 before God or too inhuman to men but Frenchmen and 
 Italians can believe it of him. People ask, amazed, with 
 what conscience, with what shameless audacity, you dare 
 assert innocence of life in a man whose acts of injustice 
 and violence are the byword of the world." f 
 
 * Fitz-Stephen, i. 75 ; Letter clxvii. t Letter cclii. 
 
A ppcndix. 
 
 317 
 
 The archbishop himself makes answer to the long roll 
 of reproaches from his past life.* Was his family not of 
 noble blood, like those of some late archbishops ? Well ! 
 he would rather be noble by conduct than bring 
 discredit on an inherited nobility. Yet he was not of 
 mean origin. His father and his forefathers had been 
 citizens of credit in the city of London, and he was 
 himself largely endowed with preferments before he 
 entered the service of the king. His election to 
 Canterbury was regular and uncontested, and obtained 
 universal assent and applause. His resistance of the 
 king had been forced upon him ; and he had acted for 
 the king's honour, and in no spirit of opposition. 
 
 To a reproach for his flight from Northampton, he 
 makes answer that wrongs were done which he could 
 not amend but at the risk of his life, and could not be 
 blind to without danger to his soul. He therefore with- 
 drew for a time, " till iniquity was fulfilled, and the hearts 
 of the evil-doers made manifest." Evidently he is ready 
 to die for right if he cannot both maintain it and live ; 
 but he will live and defend it if he can. 
 
 Note B (p. 205). 
 
 Both to pope and cardinals he declines the judgment 
 of William of Pavia, of whom he writes further to his 
 agent at Rome : " Who thirsts for our blood and is 
 looking for our place. We know what the king has 
 promised him if he succeed in making it vacant." 
 
 To " a friend " he writes : " Let the capricious tyrant 
 threaten as he will, neither death nor life shall turn us ; 
 no, nor he of Pavia, till iniquity be fulfilled, and the load 
 
 * Letter ccxxiv. 
 
3iS 
 
 A ppendix. 
 
 of our present state vanish into nothing. . . . And yet," he 
 adds, " upon the arrival of these legates some footprints 
 of liberty begin at least to show themselves, through 
 the very zeal put forth for its utter extinction." 
 
 Note C (p. 214). 
 
 Bishop Gilbert speaks in derision of Becket's answer 
 to the king's claim against him for forty-four thousand 
 marks ; " As if debts were remitted upon promotion, like 
 sins in baptism." He ignores the full discharge given 
 him at that time " upon the word of a king." 
 
 Note D (p. 215). 
 
 We may safely supply May, 11 68, not far from the 
 date of the letter to the archbishop. It was newly 
 received when it was divulged on July 1 at La Ferte 
 Bernard. 
 
 Note E (p. 217). 
 
 John of Salisbury, writing to the Bishop of Poitiers, 
 expresses the feelings of many letters from all kinds of 
 people. " It will be written in the annals of Rome that 
 the defender of liberty and justice, after four years of exile 
 with a crowd of innocent people, his co-exiles, has been 
 suspended from his office as a criminal, not because he 
 deserved it, but to please a tyrant." 
 
 Note F (p. 235) 
 
 A singular remonstrance was at this time addressed to 
 the head of the Church by two French monks, an abbot 
 
Appendix. 
 
 319 
 
 and a prior.* " If the pope continue to dissemble," they 
 write, "he will do still more harm than he has done 
 already. His former letters containing his apparent 
 assent to the king's petitions, although really concealing 
 within them his benevolent purpose to the archbishop, 
 gave great offence to the French king and to many 
 people. He must now act with the apostolic authority 
 so long suspended. The sword of Peter will give peace 
 to the Church ; it would have given it before." They 
 entreat the pope " to dissemble no longer, but follow up 
 his letter of commination, which all the world applauds." 
 
 Note G (p. 256). 
 
 They are to make their way with all speed to the king, 
 and insist on his fulfilling all his promises. If he refuse, 
 then, within forty days and without appeal, they are to 
 lay under interdict all his provinces on that side of the sea, 
 forbidding the celebration of all Divine offices, except 
 the baptism of infants and the penance of the dying. If 
 peace be made, then, after a short interval at their dis- 
 cretion, they are to admonish him to make restitution to 
 the exiles and repeal all his perverse customs, those 
 especially which have lately been added to them ; if he 
 refuse, they are to report with all speed what alterations 
 he will allow, and to what extent make restitution f 
 
 Note H (p. 262). 
 
 He writes in similar terms to Gratian, and adds, " All 
 men are encouraged to do the will of a king who thus 
 lords it over the apostolic see, and whose messengers 
 always return triumphant." % 
 
 * Letter cccclxxi. t Letter dcxxiii. J Letter dclxiii. 
 
320 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 The co-exiles also addressed their complaints to some 
 of the cardinals. 
 
 Note K (p. 263). 
 
 He had not cast eyes on English home or castle for 
 four years ; yet writers of history expect us to believe 
 that he returned after his long absences brimming over 
 with schemes of reform for the benefit of his people. 
 
 It is more likely, in connection with all we know for 
 certain, that he had thought very little of the people 
 of his island kingdom during his absence from it, except 
 as to how much money they sent him, and whether 
 things were going well for future supplies, and how he 
 was to tread down the man who had shown a spirit 
 which might curtail them. 
 
 Reform, it is certain, was sorely wanted, whether we 
 accept literally or not the accounts given him that all 
 parts of the country were ringing with complaints of 
 excessive and wrongful extortions by the sheriffs. 
 
 Whatever information he may have had of public 
 wrongs, it is clear that there was suspicion of frauds 
 upon the exchequer. A few weeks after his return he 
 dismissed all the sheriffs from their offices, and, with 
 the assent of a great council, sent out a commission of 
 itinerant barons of the exchequer to make searching 
 inquiry into all moneys received by the sheriffs or their 
 officials upon any claims whatsoever from all hundreds, 
 manors, and persons, during the king's late absence from 
 the realm. Particular attention was directed to an aid 
 they had levied, according to feudal custom, upon the 
 marriage of the king's eldest daughter. 
 
 The inquisition was extended to all moneys received, 
 during the same time by the great lords of the land, lay 
 
Appendix. 
 
 321 
 
 and clerical, from their subject people. Special instruc- 
 tion is given for inquiry into all payments by way of 
 hush-money. 
 
 A few of the sheriffs, upon clearing themselves, or 
 giving satisfaction, were reinstated ; in other cases the 
 office was filled with men of a lower class, soldiers or 
 lawyers, more dependent upon the king; and it is in 
 accordance with all we know of the times that the new 
 men are said to have proved still more oppressive and 
 extortionate than those they displaced. 
 
 The duties of the commission were prescribed with all 
 the exactness usual in money questions under the ad- 
 ministration of affairs by De Luci. 
 
 Note L (p. 312). 
 
 Let a visitor to London, after his amazement at the 
 army of monstrosities in marble of Westminster Abbey 
 take his stand upon the bridge, and he will see in "St. 
 Thomas's Hospital" a nobler monument to a greater 
 patriot, than any he has looked at in the church. 
 
 This modern erection has replaced the old hospital. 
 Within ten years of his murder, his adversary Foliot 
 sent his letters to the churches of London, promising 
 indulgence from twenty days of penance to all their 
 parishioners who should contribute to the hospital then 
 in building " to the honour of the blessed Thomas the 
 Martyr " and for the relief and support of poor and 
 infirm people. 
 
 Another tribute to his memory, probably more sincere 
 than Foliot's letters, perished in the depredations of 
 Wolsey and his master. It was the Abbey of Lesnes 
 in Kent, built and endowed by Richard de Luci to the 
 
 Y 
 
322 
 
 Appendix. 
 
 honour of the blessed Mary the Virgin and the blessed 
 Thomas the Martyr. De Luci, on his retirement from 
 orifice, took the habit of the black canons and died in the 
 
 abbey. 
 
 The death of Becket, or any "miracles" after it. 
 could hardly have influenced De Luci thus to honour 
 him, if he had not seen much to venerate in his life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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22 
 
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 SPECIMEN OF TYPE. 
 
 4 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE Act i 
 
 Salar. My wind, cooling my broth, 
 
 Would blow me to an ague, when I thought 
 What harm a wind too great might do at sea. 
 I should not see the sandy hour-glass run 
 But I should think of shallows and of flats, 
 And see my wealthy Andrew, dock'd in sand, 
 Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs 
 To kiss her burial. Should I go to church 
 And see the holy edifice of stone, 
 And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, 
 Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, 
 Would scatter all her spices on the stream, 
 Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, 
 And, in a word, but even now worth this, 
 And now worth nothing ? Shall I have the thought 
 To think on this, and shall I lack the thought 
 That such a thing bechanc'd would make me sad ? 
 But tell not me : I know Antonio 
 Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 
 
 Ant. Believe me, no : I thank my fortune for it, 
 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, 
 Nor to one place ; nor is my whole estate 
 Upon the fortune of this present year : 
 Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad. 
 
 Salar. Why, then you are in love. 
 
 Ant. Fie, fie ! 
 
 Salar. Not in love neither ? Then let us say you 
 are sad, 
 
 Because you are not merry ; and 'twere as easy 
 For you to laugh, and leap, and say you are merry, 
 Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed 
 Janus, 
 
 Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time : 
 Some that will evermore peep through their eyes 
 And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper ; 
 And other of such vinegar aspect 
 
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