Part 18

“God’s blessing go with him!” murmured with a sigh of relief the aged Bishop Henry of Winchester. “We have not done with him yet!” cried the king. He at once issued orders that all the ports should be watched to prevent Thomas from leaving the country,[201] and that the temporalities of the metropolitan see should be left untouched pending an appeal to the Pope[202] which he despatched the archbishop of York and the bishops of London, Worcester, Exeter and Chichester to prosecute without delay.[203] They sailed from Dover on All Souls day;[204] that very night Thomas, after three weeks of adventurous wanderings, guarded with the most devoted vigilance by the brethren of Sempringham, embarked in a little boat from Sandwich; next day he landed in Flanders;[205] and after another fortnight’s hiding he made his way safe to Soissons, where the king of France, disregarding an embassy sent by Henry to prevent him, welcomed him with open arms. He hurried on to Sens, where the Pope was now dwelling; the appellant bishops had preceded him, but Alexander was deaf to their arguments.[206] Thomas laid at the Pope’s feet his copy of the Constitutions of Clarendon; they were read, discussed and solemnly condemned in full consistory.[207] The exiled primate withdrew to a shelter which his friend Bishop John of Poitiers had secured for him in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in Burgundy.[208] On Christmas-eve, at Marlborough, Henry’s envoys reported to him the failure of their mission. On S. Stephen’s day Henry confiscated the whole possessions of the metropolitan see, of the primate himself and of all his clerks, and ordered all his kindred and dependents, clerical or lay, to be banished from the realm.[209]

[201] Anon. I. (as above), p. 55.

[202] Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 70. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 322.

[203] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 79. Alan Tewkesb. (as above), p. 336. E. Grim (_ibid._), p. 402. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 70. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 323. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 60, 61. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 261.

[204] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[205] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 71–74. E. Grim (as above), pp. 399, 400. Alan Tewkesb. (_ibid._), p. 335. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 70. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 323–325. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 54, 55. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 245. Here again there is a confusion about the date.

[206] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 74–81. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), pp. 42–46. Alan Tewkesb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), pp. 335–341. E. Grim (_ibid._), pp. 400–403. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 70–74. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 325–340. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 57–61. Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 265–289.

[207] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 82–84. Will. Cant. (as above), p. 46. Alan Tewkesb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), pp. 341, 342. E. Grim (_ibid._), pp. 403, 404. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 340–342. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), pp. 61–64. The formal record of these proceedings is the edition of the Constitutions included among the collected letters of S. Thomas--Ep. xlv. (_ib._ vol. v. pp. 71–79), in which there is appended to each article the Pope’s verdict--“Hoc toleravit” or “Hoc damnavit.” The tolerated articles are 2, 6, 11, 13, 14 and 16. Alan of Tewkesbury, who first collected the letters of S. Thomas, was for some years a canon of Benevento, and probably got this annotated copy of the Constitutions from Lombard, who had been in Thomas’s suite as one of his _eruditi_ during this visit to Sens, and who was archbishop of Benevento at the time of Alan’s residence there.

[208] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 90. Will. Cant. (as above), p. 46. Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 313. Alan Tewkesb. (_ibid._), p. 345. E. Grim (_ibid._), p. 404. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 76. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 357. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 64. Anon. II. (_ibid._), p. 109. Cf. Ep. lx. (_ib._ vol. v.), p. 114.

[209] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 91. Will. Cant. (as above), pp. 46, 47. Joh. Salisb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), pp. 313, 314. E. Grim (_ibid._), p. 404. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 75. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 359. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 65. The dates are from Will. Fitz-Steph. The _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 347–349, puts this banishment too late in the story.

NOTE A.

THE COUNCIL OF WOODSTOCK.

The usual view of the council of Woodstock--a view founded on contemporary accounts and endorsed by Bishop Stubbs (_Constit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 462)--has been disputed on the authority of the Icelandic _Thomas Saga_. This Saga represents the subject of the quarrel as being, not a general levy of so much per hide throughout the country, but a special tax upon the Church lands--nothing else, in fact, than the “ungeld” which William Rufus had imposed on them to raise the money paid to Duke Robert for his temporary cession of Normandy, and which had been continued ever since. “We have read afore how King William levied a due on all churches in the land, in order to repay him all the costs at which his brother Robert did depart from the land. This money the king said he had disbursed for the freedom of Jewry, and therefore it behoved well the learned folk to repay it to their king. But because the king’s court hath a mouth that holdeth fast, this due continued from year to year. At first it was called Jerusalem tax, but afterwards Warfare-due, for the king to keep up an army for the common peace of the country. But at this time matters have gone so far, that this due was exacted, as a king’s tax, from every house” [“monastery,” editor’s note], “small and great, throughout England, under no other name than an ancient tax payable into the royal treasury without any reason being shown for it.” _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 139. Mr. Magnusson (_ib._ p. 138, note 7) thinks that this account “must be taken as representing the true history of” the tax in question. In his Preface (_ib._ vol. ii. pp. cvii–cviii) he argues that if the tax had been one upon the tax-payers in general, “evidently the primate had no right to interfere in such a matter, except so far as church lands were concerned;” and he concludes that the version in the Saga “gives a natural clue to the archbishop’s protest, which thus becomes a protest only on behalf of the Church.” This argument hardly takes sufficient account of the English primate’s constitutional position, which furnishes a perfectly “natural clue” to his protest, supposing that protest to have been made on behalf of the whole nation and not only of the Church:--or rather, to speak more accurately, in behalf of the Church in the true sense of that word--the sense which Theobald’s disciples were always striving to give to it--as representing the whole nation viewed in a spiritual aspect, and not only the clerical order. Mr. Magnusson adds: “We have no doubt that the source of the Icelandic Saga here is Robert of Cricklade, or ... Benedict of Peterborough, who has had a better information on the subject than the other authorities, which, it would seem, all have Garnier for a primary source; but he, a foreigner, might very well be supposed to have formed an erroneous view on a subject the history of which he did not know, except by hearsay evidence” (_ib._ pp. cviii, cix). It might be answered that the “hearsay evidence” on which Garnier founded his view must have been evidence which he heard in England, where he is known to have carefully collected the materials for his work (Garnier, ed. Hippeau, pp. 6, 205, 206), and that his view is entitled to just as much consideration as that of the Icelander, founded upon the evidence of Robert or Benedict;--that of the three writers who follow Garnier, two, William of Canterbury and Edward Grim, were English (William of Canterbury may have been Irish by birth, but he was English by education and domicile) and might therefore have been able to check any errors caused by the different nationality of their guide:--and that even if the case resolved itself into a question between the authority of Garnier and that of Benedict or Robert (which can hardly be admitted), they would be of at least equal weight, and the balance of intrinsic probability would be on Garnier’s side. For his story points directly to the Danegeld; and we have the indisputable witness of the Pipe Rolls that the Danegeld, in some shape or other, was levied at intervals throughout the Norman reigns and until the year 1163, when it vanished for ever. On the other hand, the Red King’s “ungeld” upon the Church lands, like all his other “ungelds,” certainly died with him; and nothing can well be more unlikely than that Henry II. in the very midst of his early reforms should have reintroduced, entirely without excuse and without necessity, one of the most obnoxious and unjust of the measures which had been expressly abolished in “the time of his grandfather King Henry.”

NOTE B.

THE COUNCIL OF CLARENDON.

There is some difficulty as to both the date and the duration of this council. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 176) gives the date of meeting as January 13; R. Diceto (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 312) as January 25; while the official copy of the Constitutions (_Summa Causæ_, Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv. p. 208; Stubbs, _Select Charters_, p. 140) gives the closing day as January 30 (“_quartâ die ante Purificationem S. Mariæ_”). As to the duration of the council, we learn from Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii. p. 279) and Gerv. Cant. (as above, p. 178) that there was an adjournment of at least one night; while Gilbert Foliot (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. Ep. ccxxv. pp. 527–529) says “Clarendonæ ... continuato triduo id solum actum est ut observandarum regni consuetudinum et dignitatum a nobis fieret absoluta promissio;” and that “die vero tertio,” after a most extraordinary scene, Thomas “antiquas regni consuetudines antiquorum memoriâ in commune propositas et scripto commendatas, de cætero domino nostro regi se fideliter observaturum in verbo veritatis absolute promittens, in vi nobis injunxit obedientiæ sponsione simili nos obligare.” This looks at first glance as if meant to describe the closing scene of the council, in which case its whole duration would be limited to three days. But it seems possible to find another interpretation which would enable us to reconcile all the discordant dates, by understanding Gilbert’s words as referring to the verbal discussion at the opening of the council, before the written Constitutions were produced at all. Gilbert does indeed expressly mention “customs committed to writing”; but this may very easily be a piece of confusion either accidental or intentional. On this supposition the chronology may be arranged as follows:--The council meets on January 13 (Gerv. Cant.). That day and the two following are spent in talking over the primate; towards evening of the third--which will be January 15--he yields, and the bishops with him (Gilb. Foliot). Then they begin to discuss what they have promised; the debate warms and lengthens; Thomas, worn out with his three days’ struggle and seeing the rocks ahead, begs for a respite till the morrow (Herb. Bosh.). On that morrow--_i.e._ January 16--Henry issues his commission to the “elders,” and the council remains in abeyance till they are ready with their report. None of our authorities tell us how long an interval elapsed between the issue of the royal commission and its report. Herbert, indeed, seems to imply that the discussion on the constitutions began one night and the written report was brought up next day. But this is only possible on the supposition that it had been prepared secretly beforehand, of which none of the other writers shew any suspicion. If the thing was not prepared beforehand, it must have taken some time to do; and even if it was, the king and the commissioners would surely, for the sake of appearances, make a few days’ delay to give a shew of reality to their investigations. Nine days is not too much to allow for preparation of the report. On January 25, then, it is brought up, and the real business of the council begins in earnest on the day named by R. Diceto. And if Thomas fought over every one of the sixteen constitutions in the way of which Herbert gives us a specimen, six days more may very well have been spent in the discussion, which would thus end, as the _Summa Causæ_ says, on January 30.

CHAPTER II.

HENRY AND ROME.

1164–1172.

With the archbishop’s flight into France the struggle between him and the king entered upon a new phase. Its intrinsic importance was almost entirely lost, and it became simply an element in the wider questions of general European politics. In England Thomas’s departure left Henry sole master of the field; the Constitutions of Clarendon were put in force without delay and without difficulty; a year later they were followed up by an Assize, significantly issued from the same place, which laid the foundations of the whole later English system of procedure in criminal causes; and thenceforth the work of legal and judicial reform went on almost without a break, totally unaffected by the strife which continued to rage between king and primate for the next five years. The social condition of the country was only indirectly affected by it. The causes which had ostensibly given rise to it--the principle involved in the acceptance or rejection of the Constitutions--did not appeal strongly to the national mind, and had already become obscured and subordinated to the personal aspect which the quarrel had assumed at Northampton. As in the case of Anselm, it was on this personal aspect alone that popular feeling really fastened; and in this point of view the advantage was strongly on the archbishop’s side. Thomas, whose natural gifts had already made him a sort of popular idol, was set by the high-handed proceedings of the council in the light of a victim of regal tyranny; and the sweeping and cruel proscriptions inflicted upon all who were in the remotest way connected with him tended still further to excite popular sympathy for his wrongs and turn it away from his persecutor. But the sympathy was for the individual, not for the cause. The principle of the clerical immunities had no hold upon the minds of the people or even of the clergy at large. Even among the archbishop’s own personal friends, almost the only men who clave to it with anything like the same ardour as himself were his two old comrades of the _Curia Theobaldi_, Bishop John of Poitiers and John of Salisbury; and even the devotion of John of Salisbury, which is one of the brightest jewels in Becket’s crown, was really the devotion of friend to friend, of Churchman to primate, of a generous, chivalrous soul to what seemed the oppressed and down-trodden side, rather than the devotion of a partizan to party principle. Herbert of Bosham, the primate’s shadow and second self, who clave to his side through good report and evil report and looked upon him as a hero and a martyr from first to last, was nevertheless the author of the famous verdict which all the searching criticism of later times has never yet been able to amend: “Both parties had a zeal for God; which zeal was according to knowledge, His judgement alone can determine.”[210]

[210] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.) p. 273. The whole passage from “O rex et o pontifex” to “judicium” (pp. 272, 273) should be compared with the admirable commentary of Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 140–141).

Cool, dispassionate thinkers like Gilbert Foliot, on the other hand, while inclining towards the cause which Thomas had at heart, recoiled from his mode of upholding it as little less than suicidal. In Gilbert’s view it was Thomas who had betrayed those “rights of his order” which he proclaimed so loudly, by forsaking the attitude of passive resistance which the bishops had adopted at Westminster and in which they were practically unassailable, and staking everything upon the king’s good faith, without security, in the meeting at Oxford and the council at Clarendon:--it was Thomas who by his subsequent conduct--his rash attempts at flight, his rapid changes of front at Northampton in first admitting and then denying the royal jurisdiction, his final insult to the king in coming to the council cross in hand, and his undignified departure from the realm--had frustrated the efforts whereby wiser and cooler heads might have brought the king to a better mind and induced him to withdraw the Constitutions:--and it was not Thomas, but his suffragans, left to bear the brunt of a storm which they had neither deserved nor provoked, who were really in a fair way to become confessors and martyrs for a Church brought into jeopardy by its own primate.[211] Gilbert in fact saw clearly that the importance of the point at issue between king and archbishop was as nothing compared to the disastrous consequences which must result from their protracted strife. It threatened nothing less than ruin to the intellectual and religious revival which Theobald had fostered so carefully and so successfully. The best hopes of the movement were bound up with the alliance between Church and state which had been cemented at Henry’s accession; that alliance was now destroyed; instead of the Church’s most valuable fellow-worker, the king had been made her bitter foe; and the work of revival was left to be carried on--if it could be carried on at all--in the teeth of the royal opposition and without a leader, while the man who should have directed it was only a perpetual stumbling-block in the path of those who had to supply as best they could the place left deserted by his flight. It was upon Gilbert of London that this burthen chiefly fell; and it is in Gilbert’s position that we may find a key to the subsequent direction of the controversy, as far as England was concerned.

[211] Ep. ccxxv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 526 _et seq._

For full twenty years before Becket’s rise to the primacy Gilbert Foliot had been one of the most respected members of the reforming party in the English Church. While Thomas was a worldly young subdeacon in the household of Archbishop Theobald, while as chancellor he was outshining the king in luxurious splendour or riding in coat of mail at the head of his troops, Gilbert was setting the pattern of ecclesiastical discipline and furnishing the steadiest and most valued assistance to the primate’s schemes of reform. Trained no less than Henry of Winchester in the old Cluniac traditions of ecclesiastical authority, his credit had never been shaken by rashness and inconsistency such as had marred Henry’s labours; and it would have been neither strange nor blameworthy if he had cherished a hope of carrying on Theobald’s work as Theobald’s successor. Gilbert, however, solemnly denied that he had ever sought after or desired the primacy;[212] and his conduct does not seem to furnish any just ground for assuming the falsehood of the denial. His opposition to the election of Thomas was thoroughly consistent with his position and known views; equally so was the support and co-operation which Thomas, as soon as he was fairly launched into his new course of action, anxiously sought to obtain from him, and which he for a while steadily gave. He had begun to find such co-operation difficult even before the question of the clerical immunities arose at the council of Westminster. On that question, in itself, the primate and the bishop of London were at one; but they differed completely in their way of treating it. To the impulsive, short-sighted, downright Thomas it was the one, sole, all-absorbing question of life and death; to the calm, far-seeing, cautious Gilbert it was a provoking hindrance--raised up partly by the primate’s own bad management--to the well-being of interests far too serious and too wide-reaching to be imperilled for a mere point of administrative detail. He took up his position definitely at the council of Northampton. The customs being once accepted, he held it the true Churchman’s duty to obey them, to make the best and not the worst of them, while desiring and labouring for their abrogation, but only by pacific means. A temporary submission was the least of two evils. It was infinitely safer to bend to the storm and trust to the influences of time and conciliation for turning the mind of the king, than to run the risk of driving him into irreconcileable hostility to the Church. For hostility to the Church meant something far worse now than in the days when William Rufus and Henry I. had set up their regal authority against primate and Pope. It meant a widening of the schism which was rending western Christendom in twain; it meant the accession of the whole Angevin dominions to the party of the Emperor and the anti-Pope, and the severance of all the ties between the English Church and her continental sisters which Theobald, Eugene and Adrian had laboured so diligently to secure.

[212] Ep. ccxxv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 522, 523.

The dread of this catastrophe explains also the attitude of the Pope. In the long dreary tale of negotiation and intrigue which has to be traced through the maze of the Becket correspondence, the most inconsistent and self-contradictory, the most undecided and undignified, the most unsatisfactory and disappointing part of all is that played by Alexander III. It is however only fair to remember that, in this and in all like cases, the Pope’s part was also the most difficult one. No crown in Christendom pressed so sorely on its wearer’s brow as the triple tiara:--“It may well look bright,” Adrian IV. had been wont to say to his friend John of Salisbury, “for it is a crown of fire!” Adrian indeed, though his short reign was one of marked vigour and prosperity, declared that if he had had any idea of the thorns with which S. Peter’s chair was filled, he would have begged his bread in England or remained buried in the cloisters of S. Rufus to the end of his days sooner than thrust himself into such a thicket of troubles.[213] For it was not only “the care of all the churches” that rested upon a medieval Pope, but the care of all the states as well. The court of Rome had grown into the final court of appeal for all Christendom; the Pope was expected to be the universal referee, arbitrator and peacemaker of Europe, to hold the balance between contending parties, to penetrate and disentangle the intricacies of political situations which baffled the skill of the most experienced diplomatists, to exercise a sort of equitable jurisdiction on a vast scale over the whole range of political as well as social life. Earlier and later pontiffs may have voluntarily brought this burthen upon themselves; most of the Popes of the twelfth century, at any rate, seem to have groaned under it as a weight too heavy for any human strength to bear. Unprincipled as their policy often seemed, there was not a little justice in the view of John of Salisbury, that a position so exceptional could not be brought within the scope of ordinary rules of conduct, and that only those who had themselves felt its difficulties could be really competent to judge it at all.[214] Adrian’s energetic spirit was worn out by it in four years;[215] yet his position was easy compared to that of Alexander III. Alexander was a pontiff without a throne, the head of a Church in captivity and exile; dependent on the support of the most selfish and untrustworthy of living sovereigns; with Italy and Germany arrayed against him under the rule of a schismatic Emperor, and with the fidelity of the Angevin house hanging upon a thread which the least strain, the lightest touch, might break at any moment. Moreover Alexander was no Englishman like his predecessor. He had no inborn comprehension and no experience of the ways and tempers of the north; he had no bosom-friend, no John of Salisbury, to stand as interpreter between him and the Angevin king or the English primate; he understood neither of them, and he was almost equally afraid of both. His chief anxiety was to have as little as possible to do with them and their quarrel, and the fugitive archbishop was to him anything but a welcome guest.

[213] Joh. Salisb. _Polycrat._, l. viii. c. 23 (Giles, vol. iv. p. 367).

[214] Joh. Salisb., _Polycrat._, l. viii. c. 23 (Giles, vol. iv. p. 363).

[215] _Ibid._ (pp. 366, 367). “Licet nihil aliud lædat, necesse est ut citissime vel solo labore deficiat [sc. Papa].... Dum superest, ipsum interroga.” This was written early in 1159, and in August Adrian died.

It was of course impossible for the Pope to withhold his sympathy and his support from a prelate who came to him as a confessor for the privileges of the Church. But it was equally impossible for him to run the risk of driving Henry and his dominions into schism by espousing Thomas’s cause as decisively as Thomas himself desired. Placed thus in what Adrian had once declared to be the ordinary position of a Roman pontiff--“between hammer and anvil”--Alexander drifted into a policy of shifts and contradictions, tergiversations and double-dealings, which irritated Henry and which Thomas simply failed to comprehend. If Gilbert Foliot and Arnulf of Lisieux could have succeeded in their efforts to induce the contending parties to accept a compromise, the Pope would have been only too glad to sanction it. But it was useless to talk of compromise where Thomas Becket was concerned. To all the remoter consequences, the ultimate bearings of the quarrel, he was totally blind. For him there was but one question in the world, the one directly before him; it could have but two sides, right and wrong, between which all adjustment was impossible, and with which considerations of present expediency or future consequences had nothing to do. All Gilbert’s arguments for surrender, his solemn warnings of the peril of schism, his pleadings that it was better for the English Church to become for a while a sickly member of the ecclesiastical body than to be cut off from it altogether,[216] Thomas looked upon, at best, as proposals for doing evil that good might come. After his humiliating experience at Clarendon he seems to have felt that he was no match for Henry’s subtlety; his flight was evidently caused chiefly by dread of being again entrapped into a betrayal of what he held to be his duty; and once, in an agony of self-reproach and self-distrust, he laid his archiepiscopal ring at the Pope’s feet and prayed to be released from the burthen of an office for which he felt himself unworthy and unfit.[217] Strong as was the temptation to pacify Henry thus easily, Alexander felt that the Church could not allow such a sacrifice of her champion; and Thomas never again swerved from his determination to be satisfied with nothing short of complete surrender on the part of the king. For this one object he laboured, pleaded, argued, censured, during the next six years without ceasing; his own suffragans, the monastic orders, Pope, cardinals, the Empress Matilda, the king of France, none of them had a moment’s peace from his passionate endeavours to press them into a service which he seemed to expect them all to regard as a matter of life and death not merely for England but for all Christendom. Doubtless it was a sad waste of energy and a sad perversion of enthusiasm; yet the enthusiasm contrasts pathetically, almost heroically, with the spirit in which it was met. There was something noble, if there was also something exasperatingly unpractical, in a man who, absorbed in his devotion to one mistaken idea, never even saw that he and his cause were becoming the pretexts and the tools of half the political intrigues of Europe, and whom the experience of a lifetime failed to teach that all the world was not as single-hearted as himself. Intellectually, a mind thus constituted must needs provoke and deserve the impatient scorn of a cool clear brain such as Gilbert Foliot’s; but its very intellectual weakness was the source of its true strength. It is this dogged adherence to one fixed idea, this simplicity of aim, which appeals to the average crowd of mankind far more strongly than the larger and more statesmanlike temper of men like Foliot, or like Henry himself. Whether or no the cause be worthy--whether or no the zeal be according to knowledge--it is the zealot, not the philosopher, who becomes the popular hero and martyr.

[216] Ep. cviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), p. 207.

[217] Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 46; Alan Tewkesb. (_ib._ vol. ii.), pp. 342, 343; E. Grim (_ibid._), p. 403; Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 76; _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 305–313. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 140), gives this scene as having occurred, “ut dicitur,” at the council of Tours.

From the moment of Thomas’s arrival in France, then, little though he perceived it himself, the direct question at issue between him and the king became in every point of view save his own entirely subordinate to the indirect consequences of their quarrel; the ecclesiastical interest became secondary to the political, which involved matters of grave importance to all Europe. The one person to whom the archbishop’s flight was most thoroughly welcome was Louis of France. Louis and Henry were nominally at peace; but to Louis their alliance was simply a shield behind which he could plan without danger his schemes for undermining Henry’s power on the continent, and no better tool for this purpose could possibly have fallen into his hands than the fugitive archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas had indeed just enough perception of the state of affairs between the two kings--of which he must have acquired considerable experience in his chancellor days--to choose going to live on his own resources at Pontigny rather than accept the hospitality of his sovereign’s enemy.[218] This arrangement probably delighted Louis, for it furnished him with a safe answer to Henry’s complaints and remonstrances about harbouring the “traitor”--Thomas was in sanctuary in a Cistercian abbey in Burgundy, and France was not harbouring him at all; while the welcome which Louis gave to the primate’s exiled friends and the sympathy which he displayed for their cause heightened his own reputation for devotion to the Church and served as a foil to set off more conspicuously the supposed hostility of Henry. To Louis in short the quarrel was something which might turn to his own advantage by helping to bring Henry into difficulties; and he used it accordingly with a skill peculiar to himself, making a great shew of disinterested zeal and friendly mediation, and all the while taking care that the breach should be kept open till its healing was required for his own interest.

[218] Anon. II. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iv.), p. 109.

With such an onlooker as this Henry knew that he must play his game with the utmost caution. He had been provoked by the personal opposition of his old friend into standing upon his regal dignity more stiffly than he would have thought it worth while to do so long as it remained unchallenged. On his side, too, there was a principle at stake, and he could not give it up unconditionally; but he might have been induced to accept a compromise, had not the obstinacy of Thomas forced him into a corresponding attitude of unbending determination. So keen was his sense of the danger attendant upon the fugitive archbishop’s presence in France that it led him to postpone once more the work which he had been planning in England and cross over to Normandy again early in 1165.[219] Lent was passed in fruitless attempts to bring about a triple conference between the two kings and the Pope; Henry refused to allow Thomas to be present; Thomas begged the Pope not to expose himself to Henry’s wiles without him who alone could help him to see through them; and Alexander, now busy with preparations for his return to Rome, was probably not sorry to escape by declaring that for a temporal prince to dictate who should or who should not form part of the Pope’s suite was a claim which had never been heard of before and which he could not possibly admit.[220] Immediately after Easter he set out on his journey homewards.

[219] Rob. Torigni, a. 1165.

[220] Alan Tewkesb. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), pp. 346, 347; evidently taken from the Pope’s own letter, extant only in the Icelandic version, in _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 329.

The rival party saw their opportunity and seized it without delay. Their fortunes were now at a very low ebb; the antipope Victor had died in April; his chief supporter, Cardinal Guy of Crema, had succeeded him under the title of Paschal III.; but Italy had cast him off, and even in Germany the tide was turning against him. The Emperor, however, clung with unwavering determination to his original policy; and he at once saw in the English king’s quarrel with the Church a means of gaining for Paschal’s cause what would amply compensate for all that had been lost. Before Alexander was fairly out of the French kingdom an embassy from Germany came to Henry at Rouen, bringing proposals for an alliance to be secured by two marriages: one between the English princess Matilda, Henry’s eldest daughter, and the Emperor’s cousin Duke Henry of Saxony; the other between Henry’s second daughter and Frederic’s own little son. The chief ambassador was Reginald, archbishop-elect of Cöln, who from the time of Frederic’s accession--two years before that of Henry--had been his chancellor and confidential adviser, playing a part curiously like that of Thomas Becket, till in the very year of the English chancellor’s removal to Canterbury he was appointed to the see of Cöln. There the parallel with Thomas ended; for Reginald was the most extreme champion of the privileges not of the Church but of the Imperial Crown, and was even more closely identified with the schismatic party than Frederic himself. Henry sent him over to the queen, who had been left as regent in England, to receive from her a formal promise of her daughter’s hand to the duke of Saxony, in a great council convened at Westminster for that purpose. The old justiciar Earl Robert of Leicester refused the kiss of peace to the schismatic and caused the altars at which he had celebrated to be thrown down,[221] thereby saving Henry from the fatal blunder of committing himself publicly to the cause of the anti-pope, and England from the dangers of open schism. But he could not prevent the king from sending two clerks to a council which met at Würzburg on Whit-Sunday to abjure Pope Alexander and acknowledge Paschal; and although the fact was strenuously denied, it seems impossible to doubt that they did take the oath at the Emperor’s hands in their master’s name;[222] indeed, Reginald of Cöln boasted that Henry had promised to make all the bishops in his dominions do the same.

[221] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 318. He mistakenly thinks that the _king_ was at Westminster, and he also thinks the embassy came in 1167. Its true date, 1165, is shown by the letters referred to in next note.

[222] Epp. xcviii.–ci. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 184–195). Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 52, 53. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 331.

A crisis seemed imminent, but Henry managed to avoid it. From the Emperor’s solicitations, from the Pope’s remonstrances, from all the pleadings of friends and all the intrigues of foes, he suddenly made his escape by flying back to England and plunging into a Welsh war which kept him all the summer safe out of their reach,[223] and furnished him with an excuse for postponing indefinitely the completion of his alliance with the schismatic party. Such an alliance would in fact have cost far more than it was worth. Alexander was once more safely seated upon S. Peter’s chair, and was urging Thomas to throw himself wholly on the protection of the king of France; Louis was in the highest state of triumph, rejoicing over the birth of his long-desired son; while the whole Angevin dominions, which Eleanor was governing in her husband’s absence, were full of suppressed disaffection and surrounded with threatening or intriguing foes.[224] In Lent 1166 therefore Henry hurried back to Normandy to hold a conference with Louis, and, if possible, to free his own hands for the work which lay before him.

[223] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 197) says Henry went into Wales in 1165, “quo facilius domini Papæ vel etiam Cantuariensis archiepiscopi ... declinaret sententiam.”

[224] “Movetur enim [rex] Francorum invidiâ, calumniisque Flandrensium, Wallensium improbitate, Scottorum insidiis, temeritate Britonum, Pictavorumque fœderibus, interioris Aquitaniæ sumptibus, Gasconum levitate, et (quod gravius est) simultate fere omnium quoscumque ditioni ejus constat esse subjectos.” Ep. clxii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 313, 314.

The work was in truth a vast and complex one. At the age of thirty-three Henry was already planning out an elaborate scheme for the future of his children and the distribution of his territories, in which the election of his eldest son as joint-king in England was but the first and least difficult step. Normandy and Anjou, as well as England, had to be secured for little Henry; Aquitaine was if possible to be settled upon Richard as his mother’s heir; for Geoffrey Henry was bent upon acquiring the Breton duchy.[225] Conan IV., whom Henry had in 1158 established as duke of Britanny, had but one child, a daughter, whose hand, together with the reversion of her father’s territories, the king was anxious to secure for his son. This however required the assent not only of Conan but of Louis of France, and also of the Breton barons, who bitterly resented the Norman interference which had set Conan as ruler over them, and were inclined to resist to the uttermost an arrangement which would bring them still more directly under the Norman yoke; while Louis was but too ready to encourage them in their resistance. A campaign in the summer of 1166, however, another in August 1167, and a third in the following spring so far broke their opposition[226] that in May 1169 Geoffrey was sent into Britanny to receive their homage as heir to the dukedom; three months later his father joined him,[227] and at Christmas they held their court together at Nantes,[228] whence they made a sort of triumphal progress through the duchy, receiving homage and fealty wherever they went.[229]

[225] Will. Newb. l. ii. c. 18 (Howlett, vol. i. pp. 145, 146).

[226] On the Breton campaign of 1166 see R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 329, and Rob. Torigni _ad ann._ Henry was near Fougères on June 28 (Ep. ccix., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 421); he was besieging Fougères itself on July 13–14 (Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, p. 96). On the campaigns of 1167 and 1168 see Rob. Torigni _ad ann._, the meagre entries in a Breton chronicle, a. 1168–1169 (Morice, _Hist. Bret., preuves_, vol. i. col. 104; _Rer. Gall. Scriptt._, vol. xii. p. 560), and Chron. S. Albin. a. 1167 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 40), which tells of Louis’s share in the matter. See also the account of Henry’s correspondence with King Arthur in _Draco Norm._, l. ii. cc. 17–22, vv. 941–1282 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp. 695–707). According to this writer, one of the Breton leaders--“Arturi dapifer, Rollandus, consul et idem tunc Britonum” (Mr. Howlett suggests that this may be Roland of Dinan, _ib._ p. 696 note)--wrote a letter to Arthur imploring his aid for Britanny, and received a reassuring answer; Henry also received a long epistle from the blameless king, to which, “subridens sociis, nil pavefactus,” (c. 21, v. 1218, p. 705) he returned a polite and diplomatic answer. Unluckily the good monk omits to say how the letters were conveyed, and gives us no light upon the postal arrangements between Britanny and Avalon--which by the way he places among “silvas ... Cornubiæ, proxima castra loco,” whatever that may mean (c. 20, vv. 1213, 1214, p. 705). It is quite possible that some of the Breton leaders did seek to rouse the spirit of their followers by publishing an imaginary correspondence with the mythic hero-king whose existence was to most of the common people in Britanny at that time almost as much an article of faith as any in the Creed; it is possible too that they were themselves so far carried away by the same illusion as to attempt to work upon Henry by similar means; and in that case it is extremely probable that Henry, with his Angevin tact and sense of humour, would meet the appeal pretty much as the Bec writer represents. But the letters given in the _Draco_ must be the monk’s own composition. Neither Roland nor Henry can have been capable of stringing together such a quantity of pseudo-history, ancient and modern, as is therein contained.

[227] Rob. Torigni, a. 1169.

[228] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 337. _Gesta Hen._ [“Benedict of Peterborough”] (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 3. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 3.

[229] _Gesta Hen._ as above.

It had proved easier to subdue Britanny than to hold Aquitaine. The half independent princes of the south, so scornful of a king beyond the Loire, were at least equally scornful of a king from beyond the sea; in November 1166 Henry was obliged to summon them to a conference at Chinon,[230] and to relieve Eleanor of her task of government by sending her to keep Christmas in England,[231] while he himself took her place at Poitiers.[232] His foes seized their opportunity to revive the vexed question of Toulouse; a meeting with Raymond at Grandmont and an attempt to assert Henry’s ducal authority over the count of Auvergne led to a fresh rupture with Louis;[233] and in the spring of 1168 the discontented barons of Aquitaine, secure of the French king’s goodwill, broke into open revolt. In the midst of a negotiation with Louis, Henry hurried away to subdue them.[234] Scarcely had he turned northward again when Earl Patrick of Salisbury, whom he had appointed to assist Eleanor in the government of the duchy, was murdered by one of the rebel leaders;[235] and Eleanor was once more left to stand her ground alone in Poitou, while her husband was fighting the Bretons, staving off the ecclesiastical censures which threatened him, and vainly endeavouring to pacify Louis, who now openly shewed himself as the champion of all Henry’s disaffected vassals, Breton, Poitevin, Scottish and Welsh,[236] as well as of the exiled archbishop.

[230] Ep. ccliii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), p. 74.

[231] Eyton, _Itin. Hen. II._, pp. 104, 108.

[232] Rob. Torigni, a. 1167. Cf. Ep. cclxxvii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), p. 131.

[233] Rob. Torigni, a. 1167. Cf. Chronn. S. Albin. and S. Serg. a. 1166 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, pp. 40, 149).

[234] Rob. Torigni, a. 1168. Ep. ccccix. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), p. 408.

[235] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 205. R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 331. Rob. Torigni, a. 1168. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 273, 274. This last writer states that the slayer was Guy of Lusignan, and that Guy fled to Jerusalem (of which he afterwards became king) to escape the punishment of this crime. This story has been generally adopted by modern historians. But its latter half is incompatible with the appearance of “Guy of Lusignan” among the rebels in Aquitaine in 1173, five years after the death of Patrick (_Gesta Hen._, Stubbs, vol. i. p. 46); and the whole of it seems to rest solely on Roger’s misunderstanding of the passage in the _Gesta_ which he was copying. In that passage Guy is introduced as “Guido de Lezinan, frater Gaufridi de Lezinan, qui Patricium comitem Salesbiriensem tempore hostilitatis ... occiderat. Erat enim prædictus Guido,” etc.; then comes an account of his adventures in Palestine (_Gesta Hen._, Stubbs, vol. i. p. 343). Roger of Howden chose to make _qui_ refer to _Guido_; but it might just as well, or even better, refer to _Gaufridus_. Guy comes upon the historical scene for the first time in 1173. It seems pretty clear that Geoffrey was his elder brother, and took a leading part in southern politics and warfare long before Guy was of an age to join in them. If Patrick was slain by either of the brothers, therefore, it was by Geoffrey and not by Guy. Admitting this much, however, there is still no ground for looking upon even Geoffrey as a murderer who had committed such a crime as to be obliged to fly from justice. For “Geoffrey of Lusignan” stood by the side of Guy among the rebels of 1173 (_Gesta Hen._, Stubbs, vol. i. p. 46); “Geoffrey of Lusignan” and his brothers claimed La Marche against King Henry between 1178 and 1180 (Geoff. Vigeois, l. i. c. 70, Labbe, _Nova Biblioth._, vol. ii. p. 324); “Geoffrey of Lusignan” rose against Richard in 1188 (_Gesta Hen._, Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 34; Rog. Howden, Stubbs, vol. ii. p. 339; R. Diceto, Stubbs, vol. ii. pp. 54, 55); and it was not till after he had in this revolt slain a special friend of Richard, that he betook himself to Palestine, where he arrived in the summer of the same year (_Itin. Reg. Ric._, Stubbs, p. 26), and where, moreover, he and Richard afterwards became firm allies. Geoffrey may therefore enjoy the benefit of the plea which Bishop Stubbs (_Itin. Reg. Ric._, introd. p. cxxiv, note) puts forward for Guy, that “there is nothing to show that Patrick was not killed in fair fight.” But it seems pretty clear that for the heroic king of Jerusalem himself no such plea is needed at all.

[236] Rob. Torigni, a. 1168; Epp. ccccix., ccccxxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), pp. 408, 455, 456.

Henry meanwhile was endeavouring to strengthen his political position by alliances in more remote quarters; the marriage of his eldest daughter with the duke of Saxony had taken place early in 1168;[237] two years before, the hand of one of her sisters had been half promised to the marquis of Montferrat for his son, in return for his good offices with the Pope;[238] and a project was now on foot for the marriage of Henry’s second daughter, Eleanor, with the king of Castille--a marriage which took place in 1169;[239] while the infant Jane, who was scarcely four years old, was betrothed to the boy-king William of Sicily.[240] For Richard his father was now endeavouring to gain the hand of Adela of France, the younger daughter of Louis and Constance, as a sort of security for the investiture of Aquitaine; while at the same time Henry was on the one hand making interest with the Emperor’s Italian foes, the rising commonwealths of Lombardy and the jurisconsults of Bologna;[241] and on the other, Frederic was endeavouring to regain his alliance by an embassy headed by his own cousin, Henry’s new-made son-in-law, the duke of Saxony.[242]

[237] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 205. From the Pipe Roll of the year, with Mr. Eyton’s comment (_Itin. Hen. II._, p. 109), it seems that Matilda and her mother crossed the sea together in September 1167, and that Matilda went on to Germany, where she was married early next year, while Eleanor returned to England before Christmas. Rob. Torigni, a. 1167.

[238] Ep. cclii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), p. 68.

[239] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 334. The original scheme seems to have been for marrying both Eleanor and Jane to Spanish sovereigns, among whom, however, Castille is not named. In a letter written in the summer of 1168 John of Salisbury speaks of “regum, Navariensis aut Aragonensis scilicet, quibus filias suas dare disponit [rex].” Ep. ccccxxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.) p. 457.

[240] Ep. dxxxviii. (_ib._ vol. vii.) p. 26. Jane was born at Angers in October 1165; Rob. Torigni, _ad ann._

[241] Epp. dxxxviii., dxxxix. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii.), pp. 26, 30, 31.

[242] Rob. Torigni, a. 1168. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 205. _Draco Norm._, l. iii. cc. 4, 5, vv. 191–360 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. pp. 718–724).

All this political, ecclesiastical and diplomatic coil Henry had to unravel almost single-handed. Of the group of counsellors who had stood around him in his early years, Arnulf of Lisieux on one side of the sea and Richard de Lucy on the other were almost the sole survivors. He had lost the services of his constable Henry of Essex under very painful circumstances a few months before that council at Woodstock which saw the beginning of his quarrel with Thomas. The constable was accused by Robert de Montfort of having committed high treason six years before by purposely letting fall the standard and falsely proclaiming the king’s death at the battle of Consilt. Henry of Essex declared that he had dropped the standard in the paralysis of despair, really believing the king to be dead; and it is evident from the high commands which he held in the war of Toulouse and elsewhere that the king continued to treat him with undiminished confidence, and to regard him as one of his most valuable ministers and friends. The charge once made, however, could only be met by ordeal of battle. The encounter took place at Reading; Henry of Essex went down before his accuser’s lance; and all that his sovereign could do for him was to save his life by letting the monks of the neighbouring abbey carry his body off the field as if for burial, and when he proved to be still alive, suffering him to remain as a brother of the house, while his property was confiscated to the Crown and his services were lost to the state.[243] The king’s mother died in the autumn of 1167;[244] his old friend and adviser Earl Robert of Leicester passed away in 1168.[245] A desperate attempt was even made to part him from his wife, in order to get rid of his rights over Aquitaine;[246] while the man who had once been his most successful diplomatic agent and his unfailing helper against the wiles of all his enemies was now the most formidable tool in their hands.

[243] Rob. Torigni, a. 1163. Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 5 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 108). Joc. Brakelond (Rokewode, Camden Soc.), pp. 50–52. For date see Palgrave, _Eng. Commonwealth_, vol. ii. pp. xxii, xxiii.

[244] Rob. Torigni, a. 1167. _Draco Norm._, l. iii. c. 1, vv. 1–12 (Howlett, _Will. Newb._, vol. ii. p. 711). Chron. S. Serg., a. 1167 (Marchegay, _Eglises_, p. 150).

[245] Rob. Torigni, a. 1168. Ann. Waverl. a. 1168 (Luard, _Ann. Monast._, vol. ii. p. 239). Chron. Mailros, a. 1168.

[246] See the _Gradus cognationis inter regem et reginam_ (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi. p. 266). “Hanc computationem præsentaverunt Pictavenses cardinalibus quando S. Thomas exsulabat, sed non sunt auditi.” The “computation” as there stated is wrong; but the right one really does leave Henry and Eleanor within the forbidden degrees. (See above, vol. i. p. 393, note 2{1161}, and p. 445, note 11{1418}). They were cousins in the fifth degree, their common ancestress being Herleva of Falaise.

It was for his children’s sake that Henry at last bent his pride to do what he had vowed never to do again. At Montmirail, on the feast of Epiphany 1169, he renewed his homage to Louis, made full submission to him, and promised compensation to the Breton and Poitevin barons for their losses in the recent wars.[247] Next day young Henry did homage to the French king for the counties of Anjou and Maine,[248] and, as it seems, of Britanny, which his brother Geoffrey was to hold under him.[249] Richard did the like for Aquitaine, of which Louis granted him the investiture,[250] together with a promise of Adela’s hand.[251] Three weeks later young Henry, in his new capacity of count of Anjou, officiated in Paris as seneschal to the king of France;[252] he afterwards repeated his homage to Louis’s son and heir, and received that of his own brother Geoffrey for the duchy of Britanny.[253]

[247] Ep. cccclxi. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), pp. 506, 507.

[248] _Ib._ p. 507. Rob. Torigni a. 1169. Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 208.

[249] Rob. Torigni, a. 1169, and Gerv. Cant. (as above) say that young Henry did homage to Louis for Britanny; Normandy was not mentioned, the homage done for it by young Henry in 1160 being counted sufficient (_ibid._). The elder king himself kept Touraine on the old terms of homage to Theobald of Blois (Ep. cccclxi. as above).

[250] Ep. cccclxi., Rob. Torigni and Gerv. Cant. as above.

[251] Gerv. Cant. as above.

[252] Rob. Torigni, a. 1169.

[253] _Ibid._

One thing alone was now lacking to the completion of Henry’s scheme: the crowning of his heir. There can be no doubt that when he sent Thomas and the child to England together--the one to be chosen king and the other to be made primate--he intended the coronation to take place as soon as he himself could rejoin them. Its performance, delayed by his own continued absence on the continent, had however been made impossible by his quarrel with Thomas. That the archbishop of Canterbury alone could lawfully crown a king of England was a constitutional as well as an ecclesiastical tradition so deeply rooted in the minds of Englishmen that nothing short of absolute necessity had induced Henry I. to set it aside in his own case; and still less could Henry II. venture to risk such an innovation in the case of his son.[254] Yet the prospect of a reconciliation with the primate seemed at this moment further off than ever.

[254] The historical arguments on this subject may be seen in Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 110, and Ep. dclxxxiv. (_ib._ vol. vii.), pp. 328–330. Henry was once said to have projected getting the Pope himself to crown the child; Ep. lv. (_ib._ vol. v.), p. 100. Against this, of course, Canterbury could have had nothing to say.

Thomas’s first impulse on entering Pontigny had been to give himself up to a course of study, devotion and self-discipline more severe than anything which he had yet attempted. He secretly assumed the habit of the “white monks,”[255] and nearly ruined his delicate constitution by a rash endeavour to practise the rigorous abstinence enjoined by the rules of the order.[256] He grew more diligent than ever in prayer, meditation, and study of Holy Scripture.[257] But his restless, impetuous nature could not rise to the serene heights of more than worldly wisdom urged upon him by John of Salisbury, who truly insisted that such occupations alone were worthy of a true confessor.[258] In spite of John’s warnings and pleadings, he still kept all his friends--John himself included--ceaselessly at work in his behalf; and while he sought out in every church and convent in Gaul every rare and valuable book that he could hear of, to be copied for his cathedral library, he was also raking together for the same collection all the privileges, old or new, that could be disinterred from the Roman archives or extorted from the favour of the Pope.[259] Until Easter 1166 Alexander restrained him from any direct measures against the king;[260] then, unable to keep silence any longer, Thomas again took the matter into his own hands and wrote to Henry himself, earnestly imploring him to consider his ways and to grant his old friend a personal interview.[261] Henry was inexorable; Thomas wrote again, this time a torrent of mingled warnings, intreaties and remonstrances,[262] and with just as little effect. Then, towards the end of May, as the king was holding council with his barons at Chinon, a barefooted monk came to him with a third letter from the primate.[263] Once again Thomas expressed his longing for a personal meeting; once again he set forth the doctrine of the divine rights and duties of kings, and charged Henry, by the solemn memory of his coronation-vows, to restore to the English Church her privileges and her chief pastor. Only in the last sentence came a significant warning: “If not, then know of a surety that you shall feel the severity of Divine vengeance!”[264] And there was no doubt about its meaning; for the Empress Matilda had already transmitted to her son a threat sent to her by Thomas in plain words, that unless she could bring him to acknowledge his error, “shortly, yea, very shortly” the “sword of the Spirit” should be drawn against his dominions and even against himself.[265]

[255] Alan Tewkesb. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 345. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 64. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 315.

[256] Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 126, 127. E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), pp. 412, 413. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 376–379. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), p. 317.

[257] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 77. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 379.

[258] Ep. lxxxv. (_ib._ vol. v.), pp. 163, 164.

[259] Will. Fitz-Steph. as above.

[260] Ep. xcv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 179, 180.

[261] Ep. clii. (_ib._ pp. 266–268).

[262] Ep. cliii. (_ib._ pp. 269–278), translated by Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 100–106.

[263] Garnier (Hippeau), p. 106. E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 419. Cf. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 383–385. Eyton (_Itin. Hen. II._, p. 93) dates this council June 1, but this cannot be reconciled with Thomas’s subsequent proceedings.

[264] Ep. cliv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 278–282), translated by Garnier (Hippeau), pp. 109–111.

[265] Ep. clxxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. p. 361).

Harassed by disaster and revolt, provoked by the primate’s former letters, Henry, upon reading this one and hearing the messenger’s comment upon it--for Thomas had charged him to say a good deal more than he wrote[266]--might well feel that he was standing on the brink of a volcano. He turned desperately upon the bishops around him, half imploring, half commanding them to help him out of his strait, abusing them for a pack of traitors who would not trouble themselves to rid him of this one unmanageable foe, and exclaiming with a burst of tears that the archbishop was destroying him soul and body together; for he naturally expected nothing less than an interdict on his dominions and an anathema against himself, and both sanctioned by the Pope. When Henry was thus at his wits’ end, the only one among his continental advisers who was likely to have any counsel to offer him was Arnulf of Lisieux. Once more Arnulf proved equal to the occasion; he suggested that the primate’s intended censures should be forestalled by an appeal to the Pope. The remedy was a desperate one, for, as John of Salisbury triumphantly remarked when he heard of it, the king was flying in the face of his own Constitutions and confirming that very right of appeal which he was so anxious to abolish, by thus having recourse to it for his own protection. But there was no other loophole of escape; so the appeal was made, a messenger was despatched to give notice of it in England, close the ports and cut off all communication with Thomas and with the Pope; while the bishops of Lisieux and Séez set out for Pontigny to bid the primate stay his hand till the octave of Easter next, which was fixed for the term of Henry’s appeal.[267]

[266] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 385.

[267] Ep. cxciv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 381, 382. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 393, confuses this appeal with a later one.

They were too late. No sooner had the barefooted messenger returned with his tidings of the king’s irreconcileable wrath than Thomas hurried to Soissons on a pilgrimage to its three famous shrines:--those of the Blessed Virgin, who had been the object of his special reverence ever since he learned the Ave Maria at his mother’s knee; of S. Gregory the Great, the patron of the whole English Church and more particularly of Canterbury and its archbishops; and of S. Drausius, who was believed to have the power of rendering invincible any champion who spent a night in prayer before his relics. Before each of these shrines Thomas, like a warrior preparing for mortal combat, passed a night in solemn vigil, the last night being that of the festival of S. Drausius, and also of Ascension-day.[268] On the morrow he left Soissons;[269] on Whitsun-eve[270] he reached Vézelay, a little town distant only a day’s journey from Pontigny, and made famous by its great abbey, which boasted of possessing the body of S. Mary Magdalene. Thomas found the place crowded with pilgrims assembled to keep the Whitsun feast on this venerated spot. He was invited by the abbot to celebrate High Mass and preach on the festival day;[271] his sermon ended, he solemnly anathematized the royal customs and all their upholders, and excommunicated by name seven persons whom he denounced as special enemies to the Church; the two first being Henry’s confidential envoys John of Oxford and Richard of Ilchester, who had been the medium of his communications with the Emperor; while a third, Jocelyn de Bailleul, was one of his chief advisers, and a fourth was no less a personage than the justiciar, Richard de Lucy.[272] Thomas had set out from Soissons in the full determination to excommunicate Henry himself at the same time; but on his way he learned that the king was dangerously ill; he therefore contented himself with a solemn warning publicly addressed to him by name, calling him to repentance for the last time, and in default, threatening him with immediate excommunication.[273]

[268] It was also the anniversary of his own ordination to the priesthood--June 2.

[269] Ep. cxciv. (Robertson, vol. v.), p. 382.

[270] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 391, says “proximâ ante festum die,” and he makes the festival that of S. Mary Magdalene, the patron of the place. Tempting, however, as his version is--for it would explain at once Thomas’s otherwise rather unaccountable choice of Vézelay for the scene of his proceedings, and the great concourse of people who evidently were assembled there--it is quite irreconcileable with the minute chronological details of John of Salisbury’s letter (Ep. cxciv. as above), written within a few weeks of the events, while Herbert’s story was written from memory, many years after. On the other hand, R. Diceto’s date (Stubbs, vol. i. p. 318), Ascension-day, is more impossible still.

[271] Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 391.

[272] The details of the sentence are in Thomas’s own letters, Epp. cxcv., cxcvi., cxcviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 386–391, 392–397. Cf. Ep. cxciv. (_ibid._), p. 383. The other excommunicated persons were Ralf de Broc, Hugh of S. Clare and Thomas Fitz-Bernard. Their crime was invasion of Church property. Richard of Ilchester and John of Oxford were condemned for their dealings with the schismatics; Richard de Lucy and Jocelyn de Bailleul, as being the authors of the Constitutions.

[273] Epp. cxciv., cxcvi., cxcviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v.), pp. 382, 383, 391, 396. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 391, 392.

The news of these proceedings reached Henry when, sick and anxious, he was trying to gather up strength and energy for a campaign against the Bretons. He instantly despatched another messenger to England, bidding Richard de Lucy call an assembly of the bishops and clergy and compel them to make a general appeal to the Pope against the authority and jurisdiction of their primate.[274] The meeting was held in London[275] at midsummer.[276] The appeal was made and sent to the Pope in the name of all the bishops and clergy of England; but it is tolerably clear that the main body were merely passive followers, more or less willing, of Gilbert of London and Jocelyn of Salisbury, the former of whom was almost certainly the writer of the letter which conveyed the appeal to the Pope, as well as of that which announced it to the primate.[277] The hand of Gilbert Foliot was indeed so plainly visible that Thomas’s reply was addressed with equal plainness to him personally.[278] The long and sarcastic letter with which he retorted[279] was answered in a yet more startling fashion at the opening of the next year. As Gilbert stood before the high altar of his cathedral church on the feast of its patron saint a paper was thrust into his hand; to his dismay it proved to be a papal brief granting to Archbishop Thomas a commission as legate for all England, and commanding the bishops to render him unqualified obedience and to resign within two months whatever confiscated church property had been placed in their charge by the king. In an agony of distress Gilbert, who himself had the custody of the Canterbury estates, sent this news to the king, imploring him to grant permission that the Pope’s mandate might be obeyed, at least till some method could be devised for escaping from a dilemma which now looked well-nigh hopeless.[280] Henry, absorbed in a struggle with the Bretons, had already been provoked into a vengeance as impolitic as it was mean. He threatened the Cistercian abbots assembled on Holy Cross day at the general chapter of their order that if Thomas were not immediately expelled from Pontigny, he would send all the White Monks in his dominions to share the primate’s exile.[281] When the abbot of Pontigny carried this message home, Thomas could only bid him farewell and betake himself to the sole protection left him--that of the king of France. He left Pontigny on S. Martin’s day[282] 1166, and took up his abode as the guest of Louis in the abbey of S. Columba at Sens.[283]

[274] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 200.

[275] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 200. Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 56.

[276] Ep. ccix. (_ib._ vol. v.), p. 421.

[277] Epp. cciv., ccv. (_ib._ vol. v.), pp. 403–413. Cf. Ep. ccix. (_ibid._), p. 241, and Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 56, 57. The bishop of Exeter consented to appeal, but in a fashion of his own, of which however there is no trace in the letter actually sent to the Pope. Two prelates were absent: Walter of Rochester, who pleaded illness, and Henry of Winchester, who wrote in excuse: “Vocatus a summo Pontifice, nec appello nec appellare volo.” The others thought he meant that the Pope had cited him; “ipse vero summum Pontificem, summum Judicem intelligebat, ad cujus tribunal jamjam trahebatur examinandus, tanquam qui in multis diebus processerat et vitæ metis appropinquaret.” So says Will. Cant.; but John of Salisbury says distinctly that the letter of appeal was sealed by London, _Winchester_ and Hereford (Ep. cclii., Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi. p. 65). Can William have founded his pretty story on the old confusion (which is perpetually breaking out in his favourite authority, Garnier, and in other writers who have less excuse for it) between _Wincestre_ and _Wirecestre_--and was Roger of Worcester the real absentee? He certainly did not share in the obloquy which this appeal brought upon Robert of Hereford, with whom hitherto he had usually been coupled by Thomas; on the contrary, he and Bartholomew of Exeter are henceforth always coupled together as fellow-sufferers for their loyalty to the primate.

[278] Epp. ccxxiii., ccxxiv. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 490–520).

[279] The famous “Multiplicem nobis et diffusam.” Ep. ccxxv. (_ib._ pp. 521–544).

[280] Ep. ccviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. v. pp. 417, 418). The Pope’s brief is Ep. clxxii. (_ib._ pp. 328, 329); it is dated “Anagniæ, vii. Idus Octobris,” but its true date is Easter-day, April 24 (see editor’s note, p. 329)--the actual date of the letter whereby Alexander notified his act to the English bishops; Ep. clxxiii. (Robertson, as above, pp. 229–231). The diocese (not the province) of York was exempted from Thomas’s legatine jurisdiction--the reason being that Roger of York was legate for Scotland (Ep. cclxx., _ib._ vol. vi. p. 119). Thomas sent the brief over to his friends Robert of Hereford and Roger of Worcester, bidding them communicate it to their brethren, beginning with London (Ep. clxxix., _ib._ vol. v. pp. 344–346). Canon Robertson supposes this brief to have been delivered to Gilbert on the feast of the Commemoration of S. Paul, _i.e._ June 30, 1166. Gilbert himself says merely “die beati Pauli”; and his letter has no date. But it mentions “legatos qui diriguntur ad nos”; and there is no hint elsewhere of any talk about sending legates till late in the autumn, or even winter. There really seems to be no reason why we should not adopt a more obvious rendering of the date, as representing the greater and better-known festival of S. Paul’s Conversion. In that case, of course, the year must be 1167.

[281] Will. Cant. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. i.), p. 50. E. Grim (_ib._ vol. ii.), p. 414. Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 83. Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), p. 397. Anon. I. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 65. Cf. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 371.

[282] Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 201, 202.

[283] E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.), p. 415. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 403, 404; etc.

Henry saw his own blunder as soon as it was made, and endeavoured to neutralize its effects by despatching an embassy to the Pope, requesting that he would send a legatine commission to settle the controversy. One of his envoys was the excommunicate John of Oxford; to the horror of Thomas and the indignation of Louis, John came back in triumph, boasting not only that he had been absolved by the Pope, but that two cardinals, William and Otto--the former of whom was a determined opponent of Thomas--were coming with full powers to sit in judgement on the case between primate and king and decide it without appeal.[284] The first half of the boast was true, but not the second; the cautious Pope instructed his envoys to do nothing more than arbitrate between the contending parties, if they could.[285] They did not reach Normandy till the autumn of 1167; Thomas came to meet them on the French border on November 18; he refused to enter upon any negotiations till the property of the metropolitan see was restored;[286] the legates carried their report to the king at Argentan, and were dismissed with an exclamation of disappointment and disgust--“I wish I may never set eyes upon a cardinal again!”[287] Five of the English bishops whom Henry had summoned to advise him renewed their appeal,[288] its original term having expired six months ago; and the legates insisting that Thomas should respect the appeal,[289] another year’s delay was gained.

[284] Epp. cclxxx., cclxxxiii., cclxxxv., ccxcii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), pp. 140, 146, 147, 151–153, 170, 171.

[285] Ep. cccvii. (_ibid._), p. 201. Cf. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), p. 65, and Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 202, 203.

[286] Epp. cccxxxi., cccxxxii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), pp. 247–251, 256–258.

[287] Ep. cccxxxix. (_ibid._), pp. 269, 270.

[288] Epp. cccxxxix., cccxli.–cccxlv. (_ibid._), pp. 270–272, 276, 277, 283–288.

[289] Ep. cccxliii. (_ibid._), pp. 284, 285.

At last, when the two kings made their treaty at Montmirail at Epiphany 1169, Thomas, who had come to the spot under the protection of Louis, suddenly entered the royal presence and fell at Henry’s feet, offering to place himself unreservedly in his hands. All parties thought the struggle was over, till the archbishop added once again the words which had so exasperated Henry at Oxford and at Clarendon: “Saving God’s honour and my order.” The king burst into a fury, and the meeting broke up in confusion.[290] Three months later, on Palm Sunday, from the high altar of Clairvaux, Thomas excommunicated ten of his opponents, first among whom was Gilbert Foliot.[291] Gilbert, who knew that the sentence had been hanging over him for more than a year, had appealed against it before it was uttered;[292] the king, too, was forewarned, and at every seaport guards were set to catch and punish with the utmost rigour any messenger from the primate. It was not till Ascension-day that a young layman named Berengar made his way up to the altar of Gilbert’s cathedral church in the middle of High Mass and thrust into the hand of the celebrant the archbishop’s letter proclaiming the excommunication of the bishop.[293] On that very day Thomas issued another string of excommunications.[294] Gilbert, driven to extremity, renewed his appeal two days later; and he added to it a formal refusal to acknowledge the jurisdiction of a metropolitan to whom he had made no profession, and a declaration--so at least it was reported in Gaul--of his intention to claim the metropolitical dignity for his own see, as an ancient right of which it had been unjustly defrauded by Canterbury.[295] A storm of indignant protest and vehement denunciation arose from the archbishop’s party; and the terrified Pope checked further proceedings by despatching another pair of envoys, who as usual failed to agree either with the king, with the archbishop, or even with each other, and after wasting the summer in misunderstandings and recriminations left the case just where they had found it.[296] By this time king and primate were both weary of their quarrel, and still more weary of mediation. In November they had another personal interview at Montmartre, and the archbishop’s unconditional restoration was all but decided.[297] Thomas, however, rashly attempted to hasten the completion of the settlement by a threat of interdict;[298] and the threat stung Henry into an act of far greater rashness. He had met Louis, as well as Thomas, at Montmartre, and had gained his immediate object of restraining the French king yet a little longer from direct hostilities; the settlement of Britanny was completed at Christmas, that of Aquitaine was so far secure that its conclusion might safely be left to Eleanor’s care; in March 1170 Henry went to England[299] with the fixed determination of seeing his eldest son crowned there before he left it again.

[290] Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 418–427. Epp. ccccli., cccclxi. (_ib._ vol. vi.), pp. 488, 489, 507–509. Cf. Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 73, 74, and _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 427–433.

[291] Ep. cccclxxxviii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi. pp. 558, 559). See also Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 87, and for date, R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 333.

[292] Ep. dxiii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi.), p. 614.

[293] Compare the account given by “Magister Willelmus” in Ep. dviii. (_ibid._), pp. 603, 604, with that of Will. Fitz-Steph. (_ib._ vol. iii.), pp. 89, 90. They are clearly from the same hand.

[294] Epp. dii., dvii. (_ib._ vol. vi.), pp. 594, 601–603. For date cf. Ep. cccclxxxviii. (_ib._ pp. 558, 559).

[295] Ep. dviii. (_ibid._), pp. 604–606--a very circumstantial account, yet one can scarcely understand how a man so wise and so learned as Gilbert can really have made such an utterly unhistorical claim. He must have known that it had no shadow of foundation, the nearest approach to such a thing being S. Gregory’s abortive scheme for fixing the two archbishoprics at London and York. Gilbert’s opponents, on the other hand, declared that he derived his claim from the archpriests of Jupiter who had their seat in the Roman Londinium, and denounced him as their would-be representative and successor. Epp. dxxxv., dxlvi. (_ib._ vol. vii.), pp. 10, 41.

[296] On this legation of Gratian and Vivian see R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 335; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 212, 213; Herb. Bosh. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 441–445; Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 72, 73; Epp. ccccxci., ccccxcii. (_ib._ vol. vi.), pp. 563, 564, 567; dlx., dlxi., dlxiii.–dlxviii., dlxxxi., dlxxxiv., dci., dcii. (_ib._ vol. vii.), pp. 70–76, 78–92, 115, 116, 124, 125, 151–154, etc.

[297] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), pp. 97, 98; Herb. Bosh. (_ibid._), pp. 445–451; Epp. dciv.–dcvii. (_ib._ vol. vii. pp. 158–168). _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. p. 447. R. Diceto as above, pp. 335–337. Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 213.

[298] Epp. dlxxiii.–dlxxvii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp. 97–109), etc.

[299] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 3. Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. ii. p. 3. Gerv. Cant. as above, p. 216.