Chapter V: The Struggle with Becket (2)

Shortly after this the commissioners presented to Henry letters from the pope couched in stern language and warning him of the consequences if he did not soon come to terms with Becket. Nevertheless Alexander was not prepared to take extreme measures, and accordingly he appointed yet other mediators, the Cardinals Gratian and Vivian, and wrote to Becket ordering him to take no action against the king or his supporters until they had performed their mission. Before this order reached the archbishop at Sens, where he had fixed his headquarters since his expulsion from Pontigny, he had availed himself of the expiration of the term of inaction previously set him, and early in March excommunicated the Bishop of Salisbury, Earl Hugh of Norfolk, and other offenders, laymen and clerks, following this up on Palm Sunday, 13th April, with the excommunication of the Bishop of London and the announcement of a similar fate in store for Geoffrey Ridel, archdeacon of Canterbury, Richard of Ilchester, Richard de Luci, and others. Anticipating his action the two bishops had already made provisional appeals to the pope, while precautions were taken to prevent the delivery of the notice of excommunication. But on Ascension Day, 29th May, during the celebration of mass in St. Paul’s, a young Frenchman, Berenger by name, under pretence of making an oblation, handed to the priest celebrant the archbishop’s letters, charging him to deliver them to the Bishop of London and publicly denouncing the latter excommunicate. Bishop Foliot, while accepting the sentence as valid, renewed his appeal to the pope, who strongly disapproved of Becket’s action and ordered him to suspend his sentences until the nuncios had seen the king.

Gratian and Vivian reached Damfront on 23rd August, and next day had an interview with the king, in which he endeavoured to dictate to them, insisting that the excommunicates should be absolved at once. For a week no progress was made, but on 31st August, at Bayeux, Henry undertook that if the excommunicates were absolved at once he would receive back the archbishop and his friends and allow him to hold his church and former possessions “to the honour of God, of the Church, of the king and of the king’s sons.” Next day, however, he insisted upon the further significant addition of the phrase “saving the dignity of my realm.” Even to get so far as this had proved a difficult task. The meeting had been held in the open air, and twice Henry had mounted his horse and turned to ride off in a rage, expressing his contempt for the nuncios and their threats of excommunication and interdict. A proposal to counterbalance the “dignity of the realm” with “the liberty of the Church” having failed, negotiations were broken off. Becket, as papal legate for England, having threatened to lay England under the dread sentence of interdict, by which all public services and religious ministrations were suspended, Henry issued orders that the bearer of such a sentence and any persons who obeyed it should be held guilty of high treason, at the same time prohibiting all monks and clergy from crossing the seas without his leave, and ordering the search of all laymen coming into England from foreign countries. He further consented to another meeting with the archbishop at Montmartre, whither he had gone to visit King Louis.

The negotiations at Montmartre in November 1169 turned chiefly upon the question of the restoration of Becket’s estates. While the king was willing to restore him to the possession of what he held when he left the country, Thomas insisted upon full payment of all arrears, the surrender of certain disputed estates and the displacement of such clergy as had been presented by the king to Canterbury livings during his exile. Offers of arbitration were refused by Becket; and, while Henry consented that he should have all that his predecessors had on the same terms by which they held, his promise of due service to the king was qualified by the obnoxious phrase, “saving the honour of God.” Henry therefore refused Becket the “kiss of peace,” and the conference broke up. The terms offered by Henry appear to have made a favourable impression upon Pope Alexander, and he determined to make a final effort for a settlement on those lines. Accordingly, in the early spring of 1170, the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers were appointed to negotiate; the Canterbury estates were to be restored in full, but the question of arrears might be waived; there was to be no reference to the Constitutions, and the kiss of peace was to be given by either the king or his son. If Henry refused to come to terms sentence of interdict should be laid upon his continental domains.

Negotiations remained for some little time in abeyance, as Henry had crossed to England, for the first time for four years, landing at Portsmouth on 3rd March, after a stormy passage during which at least one of his forty ships was lost. The chief matter necessitating the king’s return to England was his intention of establishing the succession to the throne beyond all doubt by the coronation of his eldest son, Henry, now sixteen years old. The need for this coronation of the heir during his father’s lifetime, for which precedents could be found on the Continent but not in England, is far from clear, and its ultimate results were to prove disastrous. The most immediate result was the creation of a fresh grievance for Becket. It would seem that the pope, willing to please Henry and not knowing that the right to crown kings was a privilege of the Archbishops of Canterbury, had granted permission for the Archbishop of York to crown the young Henry, or else such permission had been granted during the vacancy of Canterbury in 1162. When the news of the proposed coronation reached Becket he wrote letters to Archbishop Roger and the English bishops in general prohibiting them from officiating, and similar letters were sent by the pope; but none of these appear to have been delivered, and on Sunday, 14th June, the younger Henry was crowned at Westminster by Archbishop Roger, the Bishops of London, Durham, Salisbury, and Rochester assisting. For some reason the young king’s wife, Margaret,

had not been crowned with him, although a royal outfit had been provided for her,[28] and she had been ordered to hold herself in readiness at Caen, where the queen was in residence. The omission was taken by Margaret’s father, King Louis, as a deliberate insult, and was possibly so intended; but it is far more probable that Henry had intended her to be crowned with her husband, but had been obliged to hasten the coronation in order to avoid the publication of the prohibitory papal letters.

Returning to Normandy, Henry met the papal commissioners at Falaise and agreed to accept the terms which they proposed. They then had an interview with Becket and persuaded him to come to Fréteval, where the French and English kings were to hold a conference. On 22nd July, therefore, Thomas rode out to meet Henry. The king was in an excellent temper, and as soon as he saw the archbishop he pressed forward, doffing his cap and saluting him affectionately. The two then withdrew and held a long private consultation. Becket began by reproaching Henry for his action in regard to the coronation. The king defended himself, pleading historical precedents, which Becket rejected as unsound, and producing papal letters granting leave for the Archbishop of York to crown the young Henry; these letters, however, dated from 1162, when, as we have seen, some such coronation was mooted if not actually performed, and were issued during the vacancy of the see of Canterbury. In the end Henry promised to do justice in the matter, and added some ambiguous remarks to the effect that he would punish all who played either him or the archbishop false. No word was said about the Constitutions, but the king promised to restore to Becket all that he had held three months before the date of his exile and to receive him and his friends back into favour. Becket dismounted and knelt before the king, but the latter leapt from his horse, raised the archbishop and held his stirrup while he remounted. The two old friends, once more united, rode back together and announced the conclusion of peace, to the amazement of all; and even a passage of arms between the excommunicate Archdeacon of Canterbury and Becket, due to the latter’s refusal to reciprocate the king’s general amnesty by absolving the excommunicates, was not allowed to disturb the serenity of the atmosphere. The only cloud was the king’s persistent refusal of the kiss of peace, based on the rash oath which he had sworn in the presence of the French that he would never give it. On this Henry was resolute, though he expressed his willingness to kiss “his mouth, and his hands, and his feet a hundred times” when he returned to England. So much importance did Becket attach to this symbolic act that he endeavoured to obtain the kiss by a ruse at Amboise in October. For this purpose he came to the chapel where Henry was going to hear mass, in the course of which service the king would be obliged to give the ceremonial kiss; but, warned by the much excommunicated Nigel de Sackville, Henry ordered the celebration of a mass for the dead, in which the ceremony of the _pax_ is omitted.

About this time Henry wrote to the young king and the regency council in England announcing the conclusion of peace between himself and the archbishop, and ordering the restoration of the former possessions of the see and the holding of a judicial inquiry into the question of the honour of Saltwood. Early in November the king sent a message to Becket regretting that military affairs in Auvergne prevented his meeting him at Rouen, but urging him to delay his departure no longer, and appointing John of Oxford, Dean of Salisbury, to accompany him. Becket accordingly proceeded to Witsand, whence he was to cross to England. During the previous three months he had been busy corresponding with the pope, and had procured from him letters suspending and excommunicating the Archbishop of York, the bishops who had taken part with him, and the inevitable Archdeacon of Canterbury. The sentence against York, London, and Salisbury, Becket despatched from Witsand to Dover, where those prelates happened to be, before his own departure. At last, on 1st December 1170, the archbishop set sail, and, avoiding Dover, landed at Sandwich. Here he was met by Randulf de Broc, Reynold de Warenne, and Gervase of Cornhill, sheriff of Kent. Their threats of violence were restrained by John of Oxford, and after reproaching the archbishop for coming into the realm with fire and sword they suffered him to proceed to Canterbury, where he was joyfully welcomed by the clergy and populace.

The messengers whom he had sent over after the conclusion of peace between himself and the king had warned him that the estates of the see had been plundered, and their appeal to the royal officers for the promised restoration of property had been postponed long enough to enable the actual holders to secure the rents payable at Michaelmas. Becket now found that most of the Christmas rents had been anticipated, and the manors so thoroughly pillaged that nothing but empty barns and ruinous houses remained. He had, however, other matters to occupy his mind: the representatives of the censured prelates came to him desiring him to absolve their masters. So far as Archbishop Roger was concerned Becket professed inability, the pope having reserved his case to himself, but he was ready to absolve the Bishops of London and Salisbury, conditionally on their undertaking to submit to the pope’s demands. This they were willing to do, but they were dissuaded by Archbishop Roger, and all three went over to Normandy to make complaint to the king. Becket, anxious from personal affection as well as from policy to pay his respects to the young king, sent Richard, Prior of St. Martin’s, to Winchester to announce his intention, and presented Henry with three magnificent chargers gaily caparisoned. The king, or rather his council, declined the archbishop’s proffered visit, but undeterred he started for Winchester, intending after his visit to the court to make a tour of visitation throughout his province. The first night he spent at Rochester and the next at the Bishop of Winchester’s house in Southwark, but here he was met by Joscelin of Arundel, brother of Queen Adelisa, who ordered him to return to Canterbury. This he did, taking with him a small escort of some five or six men-at-arms. The existence of this escort was magnified by his enemies into a charge of riding about with a great army to capture the king’s castles, but it was certainly necessary, for threats were being openly made against his life, and the Brocs at Saltwood were indulging in a regular campaign of outrage and insult. They seized his wine, they hunted in his preserves, poached his deer and stole his hounds, and as a culminating insult cut off the tail of his pack-horse.

Becket was not a man to suffer insult patiently, and on Christmas Day he preached in the cathedral, and, after alluding to the probability of his murder, delivered a furious denunciation of his enemies, and excommunicated Robert de Broc and a number of other offenders. The news of his action was at once conveyed to King Henry, who was keeping Christmas at Bur-le-Roi, near Bayeux. Infuriated by this fresh breach of the peace, Henry uttered a wild tirade against the upstart priest and against his courtiers who sat idle and allowed their master to be insulted without avenging him. Four knights, William de Tracy, Hugh de Moreville, Reynold Fitz-Urse, and Richard le Breton, determined to gain the king’s favour by the murder of the archbishop. Taking horse at once they made for the coast, and favoured by the wind reached Saltwood Castle on Monday, 28th December. Meanwhile Henry, while refusing to go so far as Engelger de Bohun and William Mauvoisin, who urged the archbishop’s execution, had determined on his arrest. Richard de Humet was sent to England to Hugh de Gundeville and William Fitz-John, the young king’s guardians, while Earl William de Mandeville and Saer de Quincy watched the continental ports in case Becket should try to escape. The four knights, openly proclaiming that the king had decreed Becket’s death, collected a considerable force from the garrisons of the neighbouring castles, and on Tuesday, 29th December, rode into Canterbury. Failing to persuade the town authorities to assist them, they warned them not to interfere and rode on to the palace. Striding into the room where the archbishop and his attendants were sitting, the four knights, without a word of greeting, sat down in front of him. After a pause Reynold Fitz-Urse ordered him, in the king’s name, to absolve the excommunicates and afterwards to stand his trial before the young king at Winchester. Before they delivered their ultimatum, Becket, understanding that they had a private message from the king, had caused his attendants to withdraw, but he now recalled them and delivered a calm and dignified reply justifying his action and explaining his position. To their threats he replied that the king had granted him his peace, but that in any case he would never yield or waver in his obedience to God and the pope for fear of death.

The knights had entered the archbishop’s presence unarmed, and they now withdrew, uttering threats and defiance, to bring the argument of steel to bear where words had proved unavailing. The Brocs and others of their associates had seized the gatehouse of the palace and placed it in charge of Simon de Crioill and William Fitz-Nigel, the archbishop’s steward, who had joined the conspirators; Becket’s own esquire, Robert Legge, was forced by Reynold Fitz-Urse to assist in arming him, and one of the archbishop’s knights, Ralph Morin, was placed under arrest. As the armed crowd pressed forward the great door of the archbishop’s apartments was shut and bolted and for a moment they were foiled, but Robert de Broc knew the palace well, and, snatching up an axe left on the stairs by a workman, attacked a wooden partition that would give access to their victim’s room. Hearing the crash and splintering of the woodwork the monks and clerks, powerless against the mail-clad assassins, seized Becket, and in spite of his protests and resistance hurried him by a private entrance into the church. Contrary to his wishes the door was shut behind him, but when the pursuers began to thunder upon it he insisted upon its being opened, that the church might not seem to be turned into a fortress. The four knights and their followers rushed in, headed by Reynold Fitz-Urse, who flung down the axe with which he had attacked the door and brandished his sword. Hugh de Moreville faced the terrified people clustered in the body of the church, while his comrades searched for their victim. In the pillared gloom of the dim evening Becket was not at first visible, and he could easily have escaped into the darkness of the crypt or by the neighbouring stairway to the safety of the roof, but hearing cries of “Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?” he stepped forward, saying, “Here am I, no traitor but the priest of God. And I marvel that you are come into the church of God in such guise. What will ye with me?” To their threats of instant death he replied by commending his soul to God, St. Mary, St. Denis, and St. Elphage, and their endeavours to drive or drag him out of the church he resisted with all his strength, striking William Tracy a blow which almost felled him to the ground. Tracy replied with a cut at his head, but Edward Grim, one of the only three clerks who had remained with their master, intercepted the blow with his arm. Although most of the force of the stroke was spent on Edward Grim it drew blood from the archbishop’s head. A second blow, from Reynold’s sword, drove Becket

(From Harl. MS. 5102)]

to his knees, and with the third he fell with his arms stretched out towards the altar of St. Benedict. As he fell Richard le Breton struck him again with such violence that his sword broke upon the pavement, crying, “Take that for the love of my lord William, the king’s brother,” Richard having served the young William, whose early death was attributed to the foiling of his matrimonial schemes by Becket. As the assassins turned to leave the church, one Hugh Mauclerc, whose name is unknown to history save for this infamy, thrust his sword into Becket’s gaping skull and scattered his brains upon the pavement. Thus fell Thomas Becket, the obstinate and imperious archbishop, and thus rose from his dead body Thomas of Canterbury, martyr and virtual patron saint of England.

Having wreaked their vengeance on the archbishop the murderers turned to the plunder of his palace. Everything of value they seized, sending off a parcel of papal bulls and similar documents to their royal master. Then they rode off, the four knights soon afterwards retiring to Moreville’s castle of Knaresborough, while the Brocs remained at Saltwood, whence they threatened to return to Canterbury and outrage the martyr’s body. Hearing of their threats the monks of Canterbury, by the advice of the Abbot of Boxley and the Prior of Dover, proceeded at once to bury the body, which, after lying for some time neglected during the panic which followed the murder, had been reverently placed before the high altar. Accordingly the martyred archbishop was laid in a marble tomb in the crypt, clad in the penitential hair-shirt, which, to the surprise of all, he was found to have worn beneath his other garments, and in the vestments worn at the time of his ordination and preserved by him against his burial. The church having been polluted by bloodshed, Mass could not be said in it, and so without the rites and services of the Church were laid to rest the remains of him whose shrine was to be for future generations the great national centre of prayer and pilgrimage.