Part 8

Throughout the later and the darker part of Henry's reign the clergy took care to inculcate, and the people were prone enough to believe, that all his disasters and calamities, the rebellion of his wife and of his sons, were judgments of God for the persecution if not the murder of the Martyr Thomas. The strong mind of Henry himself, depressed by misfortune and by the estrangement of his children, acknowledged with superstitious awe the justice of their conclusions. Heaven, the Martyr in Heaven, must be appeased by a public humiliating penance. The deeper the degradation the more valuable the atonement. In less than three years after his death the King visited the tomb of Becket, by this time a canonized saint, renowned not only throughout England for his wonder-working powers, but to the limits of Christendom. [SN: Penance at Canterbury. Friday, July 12, 1174.] As soon as he came near enough to see the towers of Canterbury, the King dismounted from his horse, and for three miles walked with bare and bleeding feet along the flinty road. The tomb of the Saint was then in the crypt beneath the church. The King threw himself prostrate before it. The Bishop of London (Foliot) preached; he declared to the wondering multitude that on his solemn oath the King was entirely guiltless of the murder of the Saint: but as his hasty words had been the innocent cause of the crime, he submitted in lowly obedience to the penance of the Church. The haughty monarch then prayed to be scourged by the willing monks. From the one end of the church to the other each ecclesiastic present gratified his pride, and thought that he performed his duty, by giving a few stripes.[220] The King passed calmly through this rude discipline, and then spent a night and a day in prayers and tears, imploring the intercession in Heaven of him whom, he thought not now on how just grounds, he had pursued with relentless animosity on earth.[221]

Thus Becket obtained by his death that triumph for which he would perhaps have struggled in vain through a long life. He was now a Saint, and for some centuries the most popular Saint in England: among the people, from a generous indignation at his barbarous murder, from the fame of his austerities and his charities, no doubt from admiration of his bold resistance to the kingly power; among the clergy as the champion, the martyr of their order. Even if the clergy had had no interest in the miracles at the tomb of Becket, the high-strung faith of the people would have wrought them almost without suggestion or assistance. Cures would have been made or imagined; the latent powers of diseased or paralyzed bodies would have been quickened into action. Belief, and the fear of disbelieving, would have multiplied one extraordinary event into a hundred; fraud would be outbid by zeal; the invention of the crafty, even if what may seem invention was not more often ignorance and credulity, would be outrun by the demands of superstition. There is no calculating the extent and effects of these epidemic outbursts of passionate religion.[222]

[SN: Becket martyr of the clergy.]

Becket was indeed the martyr of the clergy, not of the Church; of sacerdotal power, not of Christianity; of a caste, not of mankind.[223] From beginning to end it was a strife for the authority, the immunities, the possessions of the clergy.[224] The liberty of the Church was the exemption of the clergy from law; the vindication of their separate, exclusive, distinctive existence from the rest of mankind. It was a sacrifice to the deified self; not the individual self, but self as the centre and representative of a great corporation. Here and there in the long full correspondence there is some slight allusion to the miseries of the people in being deprived of the services of the exiled bishops and clergy:[225] "there is no one to ordain clergy, to consecrate virgins:" the confiscated property is said to be a robbery of the poor: yet in general the sole object in dispute was the absolute immunity of the clergy from civil jurisdiction,[226] the right of appeal from the temporal sovereign to Rome, and the asserted superiority of the spiritual rulers in every respect over the temporal power. There might, indeed, be latent advantages to mankind, social, moral, and religious, in this secluded sanctity of one class of men; it might be well that there should be a barrier against the fierce and ruffian violence of kings and barons; that somewhere freedom should find a voice, and some protest be made against the despotism of arms, especially in a newly-conquered country like England, where the kingly and aristocratic power was still foreign: above all, that there should be a caste, not an hereditary one, into which ability might force its way up, from the most low-born, even from the servile rank; but the liberties of the Church, as they were called, were but the establishment of one tyranny--a milder, perhaps, but not less rapacious tyranny--instead of another; a tyranny which aspired to uncontrolled, irresponsible rule, nor was above the inevitable evil produced on rulers as well as on subjects, from the consciousness of arbitrary and autocratic power.

[SN: Verdict of posterity.]

Reflective posterity may perhaps consider as not the least remarkable point in this lofty and tragic strife that it was but a strife for power. Henry II. was a sovereign who, with many noble and kingly qualities, lived, more than even most monarchs of his age, in direct violation of every Christian precept of justice, humanity, conjugal fidelity. He was lustful, cruel, treacherous, arbitrary. But throughout this contest there is no remonstrance whatever from Primate or Pope against his disobedience to the laws of God, only to those of the Church. Becket _might_, indeed, if he had retained his full and acknowledged religious power, have rebuked the vices, protected the subjects, interceded for the victims of the King's unbridled passions. It must be acknowledged by all that he did not take the wisest course to secure this which might have been beneficent influence. But as to what appears, if the King would have consented to allow the churchmen to despise all law--if he had not insisted on hanging priests guilty of homicide as freely as laymen--he might have gone on unreproved in his career of ambition; he might unrebuked have seduced or ravished the wives and daughters of his nobles; extorted, without remonstrance of the Clergy any revenue from his subjects, if he had kept his hands from the treasures of the Church. Henry's real tyranny was not (would it in any case have been?) the object of the churchman's censure, oppugnancy, or resistance. The cruel and ambitious and rapacious King would doubtless have lived unexcommunicated and died with plenary absolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The "History of Latin Christianity," is now completed in six volumes.--ED.

[2] There are no less than seven full contemporary, or nearly contemporary, Lives of Becket, besides fragments, legends, and "Passions." Dr. Giles has reprinted, and in some respects enlarged, those works from the authority of MSS. I give them in the order of his volumes. I. Vita Sancti Thomæ. Auctore Edward Grim. II. Auctore Roger de Pontiniaco. III. Auctore Willelmo Filio Stephani. IV. Auctoribus Joanne Decano Salisburiensi, et Alano Abbate Teuksburiensi. V. Auctore Willelmo Canterburiensi. VI. Auctore Anonymo Lambethiensi. VII. Auctore Herberto de Bosham. Of these, Grim, Fitz-Stephen, and Herbert de Bosham were throughout his life in more or less close attendance on Becket. The learned John of Salisbury was his bosom friend and counsellor. Roger of Pontigny was his intimate associate and friend in that monastery. William was probably prior of Canterbury at the time of Becket's death. The sixth professes also to have been witness to the death of Becket. (He is called Lambethiensis by Dr. Giles, merely because the MS. is in the Lambeth Library.) Add to these the curious French poem, written five years after the murder of Becket, by Garnier of Pont S. Maxence, partly published in the Berlin Transactions, by the learned Immanuel Bekker. All these, it must be remembered, write of the man; the later monkish writers (though near the time, Hoveden, Gervase, Diceto, Brompton) of the Saint.

[3] Brompton is not the earliest writer who recorded this tale; he took it from the Quadrilogus I., but of this the date is quite uncertain. The exact date of Brompton is unknown. See preface in Twysden. He goes down to the end of Richard II.

[4] Mons. Thierry, Hist. des Normands. Lord Lyttelton (Life of Henry II.) had before asserted the Saxon descent of Becket: perhaps he misled M. Thierry.

[5] The anonymous Lambethiensis, after stating that many Norman merchants were allured to London by the greater mercantile prosperity, proceeds: "Ex horum numero fuit Gilbertus quidam cognomento Becket, patriâ Rotomagensis .... habuit autem uxorem, nomine Roseam natione Cadomensem, genere burgensium quoque non disparem."--Apud Giles, ii. p. 73.

[6] See below.

[7] "Quod si ad generis mei radicem et progenitores meos intenderis, cives quidem fuerunt Londonienses, in medio concivium suorum habitantes sine querelâ, nec omnino infimi."--Epist. 130.

[8] Grim, p. 9. Pontiniac, p. 96.

[9] Grim, p. 8.

[10] "Eo familiarius, quod præfatus Gilbertus cum domino archipræsule de propinquitate et genere loquebatur: ut ille _ortu Normannus_ et circa Thierici villam de equestri ordine natu vicinus."--Fitz-Stephen, p. 184. Thiersy or Thierchville.

[11] Roger de Pontigny, p. 100.

[12] Fitz-Stephen, p. 185.

[13] According to Fitz-Stephen, Thomas was less learned (minus literatus) than his rival, but of loftier character and morals.--P. 184.

[14] "Plurimæ ecclesiæ, præbendæ nonnullæ." Among the livings were one in Kent, and St. Mary le Strand; among the prebends, two at London and Lincoln. The archdeaconry of Canterbury was worth 100 pounds of silver a-year.

[15] Epist. 130.

[16] Lord Lyttelton gives a full account of this transaction.--Book i. p. 213.

[17] This remarkable fact in Becket's history rests on the authority of his friend, John of Salisbury: "Erat enim in suspectu adolescentia regis et juvenum et pravorum hominum, quorum conciliis agi videbatur ... insipientiam et malitiam formidabat ... cancellarium procurabat in curiâ ordinari, cujus ope et operâ novi regis ne sæviret in ecclesiam, impetum cohiberet et consilii sui temperaret malitiam."--Apud Giles, p. 321. This is repeated in almost the same words by William of Canterbury, vol. ii. p. 2. Compare what may be read almost as the dying admonitions of Theobald to the king: "Suggerunt vobis filii sæculi hujus, ut ecclesiæ minuatis auctoritatem, ut vobis regni dignitas augeatur." He had before said, "Cui deest gratia Ecclesiæ, tota creatrix Trinitas adversatur."--Apud Boquet, xvi. p. 504. Also Roger de Pontigny, p. 101.

[18] Fitz-Stephen, p. 186. Compare on the office of chancellor Lord Campbell's Life of Becket.

[19] De Bosham, p. 17.

[20] See a curious passage on the singular sensitiveness of his hearing, and even of his smell.--Roger de Pontigny, p. 96.

[21] Roger de Pontigny, p. 104. His character by John of Salisbury is remarkable: "Erat supra modum captator auræ popularis ... etsi superbus esset et vanus et interdum faciem prætendebat insipienter amantium et verba proferret, admirandus tamen et imitandus erat in corporis castitate."--P. 320. See an adventure related by William of Canterbury, p. 3.

[22] Grim, p. 12. Roger de Pontigny, p. 102. Fitz-Stephen, p. 192.

[23] Fitz-Stephen, p. 191. Fitz-Stephen is most full and particular on the chancellorship of Becket.

[24] It is not quite clear how soon after the accession of Henry the appointment of the chancellor took place. I should incline to the earlier date, A. D. 1155.

[25] Fitz-Stephen, p. 187.

[26] P. 196.

[27] Edward Grim, p. 12.

[28] John of Salisbury denies that he sanctioned the rapacity of the king, and urges that he only yielded to necessity. Yet his exile was the just punishment of his guilt. "Tamen quia eum ministrum fuisse iniquitatis non ambigo, jure optimo taliter arbitror puniendum ut eo potissimum puniatur auctore, quem in talibus Deo bonorum omnium auctori præferebat.... Sed esto; nunc poenitentiam agit, agnoscit et confitetur culpam pro ea, et si cum Saulo quandoque ecclesiam impugnavit, nunc, cum Paulo ponere paratus est animam suam."--Bouquet, p. 518.

[29] Fitz-Stephen, p. 193.

[30] Theobald died April 18, 1161. Becket was ordained priest and consecrated on Whitsunday, 1162.

[31] Yet Theobald, according to John of Salisbury, designed Becket for his successor,--

"hunc (_i. e._ Becket Cancellarium) successurum sibi sperat et orat, Hic est carnificum qui jus cancellat iniquum, Quos habuit reges Anglia capta diu, Esse putans reges, quos est perpessa, tyrannos Plus veneratur eos, qui nocuere magis."

_Entheticus_, l. 1295.

Did Becket decide against the Norman laws by the Anglo-Saxon? Has any one guessed the meaning of the rest of John's verses on the Chancellor and his Court? I confess myself baffled.

[32] Roger de Pontigny, p. 100.

[33] In the memorable letter of Gilbert Foliot, Dr. Lingard observes that Mr. Berington has proved this letter to be spurious. I cannot see any force in Mr. Berington's arguments, and should certainly have paid more deference to Dr. Lingard himself if he had examined the question. It seems, moreover (if I rightly understand Dr. Giles, and I am not certain that I do), that it exists in more than one MS. of Foliot's letters. He has printed it as unquestioned; no very satisfactory proceeding in an editor. The conclusive argument for its authenticity with me is this: Who, after Becket's death and canonization, would have ventured or thought it worth while to forge such a letter? To whom was Foliot's memory so dear, or Becket's so hateful, as to reopen the whole strife about his election and his conduct? Besides, it seems clear that it is either a rejoinder to the long letter addressed by Becket to the clergy of England (Giles, iii. 170), or that letter is a rejoinder to Foliot's. Each is a violent party pamphlet against the other, and of great ability and labor.

[34] Foliot's nearest relatives, if not himself, were Scotch; one of them had forfeited his estate for fidelity to the King of Scotland.--Epis. ii. cclxxviii.

[35] Read his letters before his elevation to the see of London.

[36] See, _e.g._, Epis. cxxxi., in which he informs Archbishop Theobald that the Earl of Hereford held intercourse with William Beauchamp, excommunicated by the Primate. "Vilescit anathematis authoritas, nisi et communicantes excommunicatis corripiat digna severitas." The Earl of Hereford must be placed under anathema.

[37] Lambeth, p. 91. The election of the Bishop of Hereford to London is confirmed by the Pope's permission to elect him (March 19) rogatu H. regis et Archep. Cantuarensis. A letter from Pope Alexander on his promotion rebukes him for _fasting too severely_.--Epist. ccclix.

[38] Foliot, in a letter to Pope Alexander, maintains the superiority of Canterbury over York.--cxlix.

[39] See on the change in his habits, Lambeth, p. 48; also the strange story, in Grim, of a monk who declared himself commissioned by a preterhuman person of terrible countenance to warn the Chancellor not to dare to appear in the choir, as he had done, in a secular dress.--p. 16.

[40] Compare the letter of the politic Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux: "Si enim favori divino favorem præferritis humanum, poteratis non solum cum summâ tranquillitate degere, sed ipso etiam magis quam olim, Principe conregnare."--Apud Bouquet, xvi. p. 229.

[41] This strange scene is recorded by Roger de Pontigny, who received his information on all those circumstances from Becket himself, or from his followers. See also Grim, p. 22.

[42] Becket had been compelled to give up the rich archdeaconry of Canterbury, which he seemed disposed to hold with the archbishopric. Geoffrey Ridel, who became archdeacon, was afterwards one of his most active enemies.

[43] The king was willing that the clerk guilty of murder or robbery should be degraded before he was hanged, but hanged he should be. The archbishop insisted that he should be safe "a læsione membrorum." Degradation was in itself so dreadful a punishment, that to hang also for the same crime was a double penalty. "If he returned to his vomit," after degradation, "he might be hanged."--Compare Grim, p. 30.

[44] "De novo judicatur Christus ante Pilatum præsidem."--De Bosham, p. 117.

[45] De Bosham, p. 100.

[46] The fairness with which the question is stated by Herbert de Bosham, the follower, almost the worshiper of Becket, is remarkable. "Arctabatur itaque rex, arctabatur et pontifex. Rex etenim populi sui pacem, sicut archipræsul cleri sui zelans libertatem, audiens sic et videns et ad multorum relationes et querimonias accipiens, per hujuscemodi castigationes, talium clericorum immo verius caracterizatorum, dæmonum flagitia non reprimi vel potius indies per regnum deterius fieri." He proceeds to state at length the argument on both sides. Another biographer of Becket makes strong admissions of the crimes of the clergy: "Sed et ordinatorum inordinati mores, inter regem et archepiscopum auxere malitiam, qui _solito abundantius_ per idem tempus apparebant publicis irretiti criminibus."--Edw. Grim. It was said that no less than 100 of the clergy were charged with homicide.

[47] This, according to Fitz-Stephen, was the first cause of quarrel with the king. p. 215.

[48] See throughout this epistle of Arnulf of Lisieux, Bouquet, p. 230. This same Arnulf was a crafty and double-dealing prelate. Grim and Roger de Pontigny say that he suggested to Henry the policy of making a party against Becket among the English bishops, while to Becket he plays the part of confidential counsellor.--Grim, p. 29. R. P., p. 119. Will. Canterb., p. 6. Compare on Arnulf, Epist. 346, v. 11, p. 189.

[49] These are the words which Fitz-Stephen places in the mouths of the king's courtiers.

[50] Herbert de Bosham, p. 109. Fitz-Stephen, p. 209, _et seq._

[51] "Dicens se observaturos regias consuetudines bonâ fide."

[52] Compare W. Canterb., p. 6.

[53] Grim, p. 29.

[54] Dr. Lingard supposes that Becket demanded that the customs should be reduced to writing. This seems quite contrary to his policy; and Edward Grim writes thus: "Nam domestici regis, dato consentiente consilio, securem fecerant archepiscopum, quod _nunquam scriberentur_ leges, nunquam illarum fieret recordatio, si eum verbo tantum in audientiâ procerum honorâsset," &c.--P. 31.

[55] See the letter of Gilbert Foliot, of which I do not doubt the authenticity.

[56] According to the Cottonian copy, published by Lord Lyttelton, Constitutions xii. xv. iv.

[57] Constitution iii.

[58] Constitutions i. and ii.

[59] Constitution vii., somewhat limited and explained by x.

[60] Herbert de Bosham. "Caute quidam non de plano negat, sed differendum dicebat adhuc."

[61] "Superbus et vanus, de pastore avium factus sum pastor ovium; dudum fautor histrionum et eorum sectator tot animarum pastor."--De Bosham, p. 126.

[62] Read the Epistles, apud Giles, v. iv. 1, 3, Bouquet, xvi. 210, to judge of the skillful steering and difficulties of the Pope. There is a very curious letter of an emissary of Becket, describing the death of the Antipope (he died at Lucca, April 21). The canons of San Frediano, in Lucca, refused to bury him, because he was already "buried in hell." The writer announces that the Emperor also was ill, that the Empress had miscarried, and that therefore all France adhered with greater devotion to Alexander; _and the Legatine commission to the Archbishop of York had expired without hope of recovery_. The writer ventures, however, to suggest to Becket to conduct himself with modesty; to seek rather than avoid intercourse with the king.--Apud Giles, iv. 240; Bouquet, p. 210. See also the letter of John, Bishop of Poitiers, who says of the Pope, "Gravi redimit poenitentiâ, illam qualem qualem quam Eboracensi (fecerit), concessionem."--Bouquet, p. 214.

[63] I follow De Bosham. Fitz-Stephen says that he was repelled from the gates of the king's palace at Woodstock; and that he _afterwards_ went to Romney to attempt to cross the sea.

[64] "Quievisset ille, si non acquievissent illi."--Becket, Epist. ii. p. 5. Compare the whole letter.

[65] He had been sworn not on the Gospels, but on a troplogium, a book of church music.

[66] Goods and chattels at the king's mercy were redeemable at a customary fine: this fine, according to the customs of Kent, would have been larger than according to those of London.--Fitz-Stephen.

[67] "Minus fore malum verenda patris detecta deridere, quam patris ipsius personam judicare."--De Bosham, p. 135.

[68] Fitz-Stephen states this demand at 500 marks, and a second 500 for which a bond had been given to a Jew.

[69] Neither party denied this acquittance given in the King's name by the justiciary Richard de Luci. This, it should seem, unusual precaution, or at least this precaution taken with such unusual care, seems to imply some suspicion that without it, the archbishop was liable to be called to account; an account which probably, from the splendid prodigality with which Becket had lavished the King's money and his own, it might be difficult or inconvenient to produce.

[70] In an account of this affair, written later, Becket accuses Foliot of aspiring to the primacy--"et qui adspirabant ad fastigium ecclesiæ Cantuarensis, ut vulgo dicitur et creditur, in nostram perniciem, utinam minus ambitiosè, quam avidè." This could be none but Foliot.--Epist. lxxv. p. 154.

[71] "Tanquam in proelio Domini, signifer Domini, vexillum Domini erigens; illud etiam Domini non solum spiritualiter, sed et figuraliter implens. 'Si quis,' inquit, 'vult meus esse discipulus, abneget semet ipsum, tollat crucem suam et sequatur me.'"--De Bosham, p. 143. Compare the letter of the Bishops to the Pope.--Giles, iv. 256; Bouquet, 224.

[72] "Quasi pila minantia pilis," quotes Fitz-Stephen; "Memento," said De Bosham, "quondam te extitisse regis Anglorum signiferum inexpugnabilem, nunc vero si signifer regis Angelorum expugnaris, turpissimum."--p. 146.

[73] "Dicebant enim episcopi, quod adhuc, ipsâ die, intra decem dies datæ sententiæ, eos ad dominum Papam appellaverat, et ne de cetero eum judicarent pro seculari querelâ, quæ de tempore ante archipræsulatum ei moveretur, auctoritate domini Papæ prohibuit."--Fitz-Stephen, p. 230.

[74] Herbert de Bosham, p. 146.

[75] De Bosham's account is, that notwithstanding the first interruption, Leicester reluctantly proceeded till he came to the word "perjured," on which Becket rose and spoke.

[76] De Bosham, p. 150.

[77] Foliot and the King's envoys crossed the same day. It is rather amusing that, though Becket crossed the same day in an open boat, and, as is incautiously betrayed by his friends, suffered much from the rough sea, the weather is described as in his case almost miraculously favorable, in the other as miraculously tempestuous. So that while Becket calmly glided over, Foliot in despair of his life threw off his cowl and cope.

[78] Compare, however, Roger of Pontigny. By his account, the Count of Flanders, a relative and partisan of Henry ("consanguineus et qui partes ejus fovebat") would have arrested him. He escaped over the border by a trick.--Roger de Pontigny, p. 148.

[79] Giles, iv. 253; Bouquet, p. 217.

[80] Epist. Nuntii; Giles, iv. 254; Bouquet, p. 217.