Part 4

Thomas had promised obedience to these constitutions, but he would not put his seal to them. It seemed to him that it was not only the old “customs” that had been drawn up, but rather a new interpretation of these customs. The great Council of Clarendon was over. Thomas received a copy of the constitutions and rode off, and the king had to be content for the time with the promises delivered.

In abject remorse Thomas wrote to the pope confessing his assent to the Constitutions of Clarendon, and for forty days he abstained from celebrating the mass. The pope, still anxious to prevent any open rupture between the king and the archbishop, wrote in reply that “Almighty God watches not the deed, but considers rather the intention and judges the will,” and that Thomas was absolved by apostolic authority. All the same, Pope Alexander III., without in any way censuring Thomas, throughout the long struggle with Henry never stands up roundly for the archbishop.

Neither Henry nor Thomas could rest satisfied with Clarendon. The archbishop had compromised for the sake of peace, but his quick revulsion had provoked a keener hostility in the king. To Henry it seemed the time had come to drive Thomas out of public life by compelling him to resign the see of Canterbury. With Thomas out of the way Henry could carry out his plans for a strong central government, for bringing all under the pitiless arm of the law. Thomas was the one man in the kingdom who dared offer resistance, and if Thomas was no longer archbishop and some supple creature of the king was in his place, the royal power would be absolute, for there seemed no fear of any interference from Pope Alexander III.

There were plenty of the archbishop’s enemies among the nobles at the court ready to fan the king’s anger against Thomas, and by October, 1164, Henry was ready to crush the primate.

Another council was summoned to meet at Northampton, and now Archbishop Thomas was to learn the full significance of the Constitutions of Clarendon.

The first charge against Thomas was that he had refused justice to John, the Treasurer-Marshal, who had taken up some land under the see of Canterbury. John had taken his suit to the King’s Court, and Thomas was further charged with contempt of the majesty of the crown for not putting in a personal appearance at this court. The king now pressed for judgment against the archbishop for this contempt, and the council ordered that he should be condemned to the loss of all his moveable property, and 500 pounds of silver was accepted as an equivalent fine.

“It seemed to all that, considering the reverence due to the king and by the obligation of the oath of homage, which the archbishop had taken, and by the fealty to the king’s earthly honour which he had sworn, he was in no way to be excused, because when summoned by the king he had neither come himself, nor pleaded infirmity, or the necessary work of his ecclesiastical office.” (W. FitzStephen).

It was not easy to get the sentence pronounced against Thomas. Barons and bishops were willing enough to stand well with the king, and they agreed without contradiction to the fine. But the barons declined to act as judge on a spiritual peer, and insisted that one of the bishops must do this business. Henry, Bishop of Winchester, at last, on the king’s order, pronounced the sentence.

Thomas protested. “If I were silent at such a sentence posterity would not be. This is a new form of sentence, no doubt in accordance with the new laws of Clarendon. Never has it been heard before in England that an Archbishop of Canterbury has been tried in the King’s Court for such a cause. The dignity of the Church, the authority of his person, the fact that he is the spiritual father of the king and of all his subjects, require that he should be reverenced by all.” For an archbishop to be judged by his suffragans was, he declared, for a father to be judged by his sons.

The bishops implored him to bow to the decree of the council, and Thomas yielded, “not being willing that a mere matter of money should cause strife between the king and himself.”

The next day, Friday, October 9th, the king pressed Thomas more fiercely, calling upon him to give account for large sums spent during his chancellorship, and for various revenues of vacant churches during that period. The total amount was 30,000 marks.

In vain the archbishop urged that this demand was totally unexpected; that he had not been summoned to Northampton to render such an account; and that the justiciar, Richard, had declared that he was free of all claims when he laid down the chancellorship. The king demanded sureties, “and from that day barons and knights kept away from the archbishop’s house--for they understood the mind of the king.”

All Saturday Thomas was in consultation with the bishops, most of whom expressed themselves strongly on the king’s side. Henry of Winchester suggested the present of 2,000 marks to the king as a peace-offering, and this was done. But the king would not have it. Hilary, of Chichester, said, addressing the archbishop, “You ought to know the king better than we do, for you lived with him in close companionship and friendship when you were chancellor. Who is there who could be your surety for all this money? The king has declared, so it is said, that he and you cannot both remain in England as king and archbishop. It would be much safer to resign everything and submit to his mercy. God forbid lest he arrest you over these moneys of the chancellorship, or lay hands on you.” One or two less craven urged the archbishop to stand firm, as his predecessors had done, in the face of persecution.

“Oh, that you were no longer archbishop and were only Thomas,” said Hilary, putting the matter briefly.

All Sunday was spent in consultations. On Monday the archbishop was too ill to attend the council, but on Tuesday his mind was made up, and when he entered the council it was with the full dignity of an archbishop, carrying the cross of the archbishop in his hand.

The bishops were in despair. There were all sorts of rumours in the air. It was known the king was full of anger, and it was said that the archbishop’s life was in danger. The bishops implored him to resign, or else to promise complete submission to the councils of Clarendon. They said he would certainly be tried and condemned for high treason for disobedience to the king, and asked him what was the use of being archbishop when he had the king’s hatred.

Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, declared contemptuously of Thomas, when someone asked him why he did not carry the archbishop’s cross for him, “He always was a fool, and always will be.”

Thomas had now only one answer to the bishops. He forbad them to take any part in the proceedings against him, announced that he had appealed to “our Mother, the Church of Rome, refuge of all the oppressed,” to prevent any of them taking part, and ordered them to excommunicate any who should dare lay secular hands upon the primate.

Then, holding his cross, the archbishop took his usual place in the council-chamber, while the king sat in an inner room.

In the face of personal danger all the strength and courage of Thomas Becket were aroused. He had yielded at Clarendon for the sake of peace, and no good had come of it. He had submitted to be fined rather than be involved in a miserable dispute about money, and now he was threatened with demands for money which were beyond his resources. There was nothing to prevent the king piling up greater and greater sums against him, till hopeless ruin had been reached. He was powerless to withstand such an onslaught. To Rome, “the refuge of all the oppressed,” would Thomas appeal, and then, if it seemed well to the pope, he would retire from Canterbury. But he would not surrender his post, however great the wrath of the king, unless it were for the welfare of the Christian Church.

In the council-chamber Thomas sat alone, with one or two clergy attending him, including Herbert of Bosham and William FitzStephen, while the bishops went in to the king’s chamber. Among the nobles the cry was going up that the archbishop was a perjurer and a traitor, because, after signing at Clarendon, he now, in violation of those constitutions, forbad bishops to give judgment in a case that did not involve bloodshed, and had further made appeal to Rome.

Then the king sent to know whether the archbishop refused to be bound by the Constitutions of Clarendon, and whether he would find sureties to abide by the sentence of the court regarding the accounts of his chancellorship.

Thomas again pointed out that he had not been called there to give an account of his chancellorship, that on his appointment to the archbishopric he had been declared by the king free of all secular claims, and that he had forbidden the bishops to take part in any judgment against him, and had appealed to Rome, “placing his person and the church of Canterbury under the protection of God and the pope.”

At the end of this speech the barons returned in silence to the king, pondering the archbishop’s words.

But hostile murmuring soon broke the silence, and Thomas could overhear the barons grumbling that, “King William, who conquered England, knew how to tame his clerks. He had put his own brother Odo in prison, and thrown Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, into a dungeon.”

The bishops renewed their pitiful chorus. Thomas had placed them between the hammer and the anvil by his prohibition: of disobedience to Canterbury on the one hand, and of the king’s anger on the other. They had given their word at Clarendon, and now they were being forced to go against the promises they had made. They, too, would appeal to Rome against his prohibition, “lest you injure us still more.”

All that Thomas could say was that the Constitutions of Clarendon had been sent to the pope for confirmation, and had been returned, rather condemned than approved. “This example has been given for our learning, that we should do likewise, and be ready to receive what he receives at Rome, and reject what he rejects. If we fell at Clarendon, through weakness of the flesh, the more ought we to take courage now, and in the might of the Holy Ghost contend against the old enemy of man.”[17]

So bishops and nobles came and went between the king and the archbishop, and the day drew on. Henry allowed the bishops to stand apart from the judgment, and demanded sentence from the barons, and Earl Robert of Leicester advanced as the spokesman of the council to where the archbishop was sitting. The earl began to speak of the judgment of the court, when Thomas rose and refused to hear him.

“What is this you would do?” he cried. “Would you pass sentence on me? Neither law nor reason permit children to pass sentence on their father. You are nobles of the palace, and I am your spiritual father. I will not hear this sentence of the king, or any judgment of yours. For, under God, I will be judged by the pope alone, to whom before you all here I appeal, placing the church of Canterbury with all thereto belonging under God’s protection and the protection of the pope.” Then he turned to the bishops. “And you, my brethren, who have served man rather than God, I summon to the presence of the pope; and now, guarded by the authority of the Catholic Church and the Holy See, I go hence.”

So he passed out of the hall, no one gainsaying his passage, though some plucked rushes from the floor and threw at him. There were shouts of anger, and again the cries of “traitor” and “perjurer” were raised. The archbishop turned on Earl Hamelin, the king’s brother, and Randulf of Brok, who were calling “traitor,” and said sternly: “If I were not a priest, my own arms should quickly prove your lie. And you, Randulf, look at home (his cousin had lately been hanged for felony) before you accuse the guiltless!”

His horses were at the gate, and a great crowd that were afraid lest the archbishop had been killed. St. Thomas mounted, and accompanied by Herbert of Bosham, rode back to the monastery of St. Andrew, where he had been lodging. The crowd thronged him and prayed for his blessing all the way until the monastery was reached, and then he would have the multitude come in to the refectory and dine with him. Of his own retinue of forty who had come with him to Northampton, scarce six remained; and so the places of those who had thought it safer to desert their lord were filled by the hungry multitude. It was the archbishop’s farewell banquet, and he, the constant champion of the poor, had those whom he loved for his guests that day.

At nightfall, after compline had been sung and the monks dispersed to their cells, the archbishop, with three other men in the dress of lay brothers, rode out from Northampton by the north gate, and at dawn were at Grantham. Three weeks later Thomas had reached Flanders, and the exile had begun which was only to end six years later when death was at hand.

It was useless to remain in England, hopeless as Thomas was of any support from the bishops. He could but appeal, as Anselm had appealed, to the one court that alone was recognised as owning a higher authority than that of the kings of this world, the court of Rome.

But Pope Alexander, still harassed by an anti-pope set up by the Emperor Frederick, could do as little for Thomas as his predecessor had done for Anselm, though he refused to allow him to resign the archbishopric. Unlike Anselm, Thomas vigorously carried on his contest with the king from the friendly shelter of King Louis of France, and Henry retaliated without hesitation, driving out of England all the friends and kinsmen of Thomas, to the number of four hundred, and threatening a like banishment to the Cistercian monks, because Thomas had taken refuge in their monastery at Pontigny.

The fear that the pope would allow the archbishop to pronounce an interdict against England, and a sentence of personal excommunication against its king, drove Henry in 1166 to appeal himself to the pope. “Thus by a strange fate it happened that the king, while striving for those ‘ancient customs,’ by which he endeavoured to prevent any right of appeal (to the pope), was doomed to confirm the right of appeal for his own safety.” (John of Salisbury.)

Months and years passed in correspondence. More than once Henry and Thomas met at the court of Louis, but neither would yield. The pope, without blaming the archbishop, and without sanctioning any extreme step against Henry, did what he could to make peace between them.

At last, in the summer of 1170, the king really was disturbed by the fear of an interdict, for his last act against Archbishop Thomas had been to have his son crowned by the Archbishop of York, in defiance of all the rights and privileges of the see of Canterbury. Besides this, Louis was threatening war because his daughter, who was married to the young King Henry, had not been crowned with her husband. Henry hastened over to France and made friends with Thomas, and the reconciliation took place at Freteral. The king solemnly promised that the archbishop should enjoy all the possessions and rights of which he had been deprived in his exile, and that his friends and kinsmen should all be allowed to return home. He even apologised for the coronation of his son. It seemed as if the old friendship had been revived. “We conversed together until the evening as familiarly as in the days of our ancient friendship. And it was agreed I should arrange my affairs and then make some stay with the king before embarking for England; that the world might know how thoroughly we are restored to his favour and intimacy. We are not afraid that the king will not fulfil his promises, unless he is misled by evil counsellors.” So Thomas wrote to the pope in July, 1170. Yet there were many--including King Louis--who doubted the sincerity of the reconciliation, for Henry was not willing to give the kiss of peace to his archbishop.

On December 1st Thomas landed at Sandwich, and went at once to Canterbury. The townspeople and the poor of the land welcomed him with enthusiastic devotion. “Small and great, old and young, ran together, some throwing themselves in his way, others crying and exclaiming, ‘Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.’ In the same manner the clergy and their parishioners met him in procession, saluting their father and begging his blessing.... And when all things in the cathedral was solemnly ended, the archbishop went to his palace, and so ended that joyful and solemn day.” (Herbert of Bosham.)

But against the affection and goodwill of his own people at Canterbury, and a similar demonstration of rejoicing by multitudes of clergy and people in London, Thomas had to face the fact that the bishops generally hated his return, that the young Prince Henry, recently crowned, who had been his pupil, refused to see him and ordered his return to Canterbury, and that the nobles openly spoke of him as a traitor to the king. “This is a peace for us which is no peace, but rather war,” said the archbishop bitterly.

The end was not far off. Thomas, as zealous for good discipline in the Church as Henry was for strong authority in the State, was no sooner returned than he was asked to withdraw the sentence of excommunication against the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury. He promised to do this if the bishops on their part would promise to submit to the decision of the pope on the matter. London and Salisbury were moved to receive absolution on these terms, but Roger, of York, who had always been against Becket, dissuaded them, urging them to throw themselves on the protection of the king, and threatening Thomas “with marvellous and terrible things at the hands of the king” unless he relented. Naturally, these threats left the archbishop undisturbed, and Roger of York, with Gilbert Foliot of London and Jocelin of Salisbury, at once hastened over to France to lay their case before the king.

These bishops were not the only men who troubled Thomas in these last days. Randulf de Broc, with others of his family, and certain knights, all known as strong “king’s men,” “sought every means to entangle him in a quarrel,” and did not stop from robbing a ship belonging to the archbishop and from seizing a number of horses, and mutilating one of them. Thomas replied by excommunicating Randulf and Robert de Broc, the boldest of these offenders.

At Christmas more than one of the archbishop’s followers warned him that his life was in danger, and Thomas seems to have realised that his position was hazardous. But he would not fly.

Already his murderers were at hand.

The excommunicated bishops had reached the king at Bur, near Bayeux, had told their story, and had coloured it with a fanciful description of Thomas making a circuit of England at the head of a large body of men.[18] Someone had said, “My lord, as long as Thomas lives, you will have neither peace nor quiet in your kingdom, nor will you ever see good days;” and at this Henry had burst out into a terrible rage of bitterness and passion, for such fits at times took possession of him, “Here is a man,” he cried out, “who came to my court a sorry clerk, who owes all he has to me, and insults my kingdom and lifts his heel against me. And not one of the cowardly sluggish knaves, whom I feed and pay so well, but suffers this, nor has the heart to avenge me!”

The words were spoken, and four of the king’s knights--Reginald FitzUrse, William of Tracy, Hugh of Morville, and Richard the Breton--hearing what was said, and that Roger of York had declared “as soon as Thomas is dead all this trouble will be ended, and not before,” at once departed. They sailed from different ports and met together at Saltwood, the castle of the Brocs, on December 28th. The following day they rode on to Canterbury, taking with them twelve of Randulf’s men and Hugh of Horsea, who was called the Evil Deacon.

The king, on finding the four knights had left the court, gave orders to have them stopped, but it was too late. They were then at Canterbury, and entering the hospitable doors of the palace had made direct for the archbishop’s private chamber.

It was four o’clock. Dinner had been at three, and Thomas was sitting on his bed talking to John of Salisbury, Edward Grim, and a few other friends. When the knights entered, Thomas recognized Reginald, William, and Hugh, for they had served under him years before, and waited for them to speak.

Reginald FitzUrse was the spokesman. He declared they had come from the king, that Thomas must take an oath of fealty to the newly-crowned prince, and must absolve the excommunicated bishops. Thomas answered that the bishops might have been absolved on their willingness to obey the judgments of the Church, and that the king had sanctioned what had been done at their reconciliation.

Reginald denied there had been any reconciliation, and swore that Thomas was imputing treachery to the king in saying such a thing.

The archbishop pointed out that the reconciliation had taken place in public, and that Reginald himself had been present.

Reginald swore he had never been there, and had not heard of it. And at this the other knights broke in, swearing again and again, by God’s wounds, that they had borne with him far too long already.

Then Thomas reminded them of the insults and losses he had endured, especially at the hands of the De Brocs, since his return.

Hugh of Morville answered him that he had his remedy in the King’s Courts, and ought not to excommunicate men on his own authority.

“I shall wait for no man’s leave to do justice on any that wrong the Church and will not give satisfaction,” Thomas replied.

“What do you threaten us! Threats are too much!” cried Reginald FitzUrse.

Then the knights bit their gloves and angrily defied the archbishop.

Thomas told them that they could not intimidate him. “Once I went away like a timid priest; now I have returned, and I will never leave again. If I may do my office in peace, it is well: if I may not, God’s will be done.” Then he turned to remind them they had once sworn fealty to him when he was chancellor.

“We are the king’s men,” they shouted out, “and owe fealty to no one against the king!”

Bidding his servants keep the archbishop within the precincts on peril of their lives, the knights withdrew.

“It is easy to keep me,” said Thomas, “for I shall not go away. I will not fly for the king or for any living man.”

“Why did you not take counsel with us and give milder answer to your enemies?” said John of Salisbury. “You are ready to die, but we are not. Think of our peril!”

“We must all die,” the archbishop answered, “and the fear of death must not turn us from doing justice.”

Word was quickly brought in that the knights were putting on their armour in the courtyard, and the monks, frightened at the sight of these men with drawn swords entering the orchard to the west of the cathedral, rushed to the archbishop and implored him to fly to the cathedral. Thomas smiled at their terror, saying, “All you monks are too cowardly, it seems to me.” And not till vespers had begun would he leave for the minster. The knights broke into the cloisters after him, and reaching St. Benet’s chapel began to hammer at the door, which for safety the monks had barred behind them.

Thomas at once ordered the door to be unbolted, saying, “God’s house shall not be made a fortress on my account.” He slipped back the iron bar himself, and the angry knights rushed in with cries of “Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?”