Cassell's History of England, Vol. 1 (of 8) / From the Roman Invasion to the Wars of the Roses

by Anonymous

HENRY II.

Not long after the Conquest the Norman clergy in England began to display great moral depravity. Murders, rapes, and robberies were frequently committed by them; and, according to the laws passed by the Conqueror on the institution of episcopal courts, the offenders could only be brought to justice by men of their own order. Thus it happened that the crimes committed by licentious priests were seldom punished, and they increased to a frightful extent in consequence of this immunity. It is related that from the time of the accession of Henry II. to the year 1161, not less than 100 homicides had been committed by priests who still remained securely in possession of their benefices. To put an end to these disorders, the only course which appeared feasible was to take away from the clerical order those privileges which had been conferred by the Conqueror, and Henry determined to execute this measure. The primacy of Canterbury had long carried with it an authority second only to that of the Pope himself, and it was impossible to carry out the intended reform unless a man devoted to the royal authority, and careless of the interests of the Church, were seated in the archiepiscopal chair. It was evident that for this purpose no fitter man could be found than Becket; and on the death of Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury (1161), the king recommended his chancellor to the bishops as the person to succeed to the primacy.

The chancellor was ordained priest, and on the following day was consecrated archbishop, and appointed to the vacant see. Immediately a change took place in him so remarkable that those who saw him found a difficulty in recognising him as the same man. He threw off his gorgeous apparel, removed the splendid furniture from his house, gave up the intimacy with the gay nobles, who had been his friends, and became the friend of the poor, the beggars, and the English. He even affected poverty, and amidst unbounded wealth, and in the possession of power second only to that of the throne, lived the life of an anchorite. He was clothed in a coarse gown, allowed himself only herbs and water for sustenance, and assumed a deportment of the utmost gravity and humility. Thus Becket at once kicked down from him the ladder by which he had risen, and now, no longer obsequious towards his sovereign, he determined to maintain to the utmost the privileges of the Church. Never was there a change of life more sudden, or one that excited so much indignation, on the one hand, or so much admiration on the other. The new archbishop became the idol of the poor, and especially of his own countrymen, while the king and his favourites regarded him with the deepest anger and aversion.

Under these circumstances it was evident that a rupture must soon take place. Becket began the struggle; he claimed a number of estates and castles, including that of Rochester, from the king, and that of Tunbridge from the Earl of Clare, on the ground that they had originally belonged to the see of Canterbury. Had such restitution been given it would have tended to overthrow the legal claim of many of the barons to their estates; great alarm was, therefore, excited, and the demand met with a determined resistance. The barons urged their prescriptive rights, but Becket replied briefly that there could be no prescription for injustice, and that the estates wrongly obtained must be restored.

The archbishop proceeded to follow up his attack by appointing a priest to a benefice on the lands of a Norman baron, named William de Eynsford. William, like the rest of the Normans, assumed the right of disposing of the churches on his manor, and he expelled the priest sent by Becket. The baron was immediately excommunicated by the archbishop in defiance of a law passed by Henry, that no vassal of the crown should be excommunicated without the royal consent. The king ordered the sentence to be remitted, and after some delay Becket yielded, though with evident reluctance. The king's animosity was rather increased than appeased by a consent so reluctantly given.

In the year 1164, Henry proceeded to mature his plans for placing the clergy under civil jurisdiction; and at a general assembly of lords, lay and spiritual, he demanded the consent of the prelates to the proposed revival of ancient customs, now called the constitutions of Clarendon, by which the criminous clerks were to be made amenable to the secular courts. The reply made by Becket and his coadjutors was that they assented, "saving the rights of their order." The king angrily broke up the council, and deprived the archbishop of the castles of Berkhampstead and Eye. A few days afterwards Becket expressed his readiness to assent to the king's demands, and a great council was convened at Clarendon in Wiltshire (March, 1164), for the purpose of receiving the assent formally. When the moment came for Becket's signature to be given, he refused it; accusing himself of folly for having promised to observe the king's laws, whatever they might be. The entreaties of the barons were without effect, and the enactments were completed without his signature.

The king now proceeded to more severe measures against his former favourite. Another council was called at Northampton, before which Becket was summoned to appear, and was charged with contempt of the king's authority. He was called upon to pay various heavy fines, and to give an account of his receipts from different benefices during his chancellorship—the balance due to the crown, which he had kept back, being stated to be 44,000 marks. Becket was now convinced that his ruin had been determined on, and for several days he was confined to his bed by illness, brought on by these anxieties, and was unable to determine on the course he ought to pursue. At length his indomitable mind recovered its ordinary tone, and he determined to resist the decision of the king and the council. Having celebrated mass, he proceeded to the court dressed in his robes, and holding in his right hand the archiepiscopal cross. As he entered the hall, the king, indignant at seeing him in the robes of authority, rose up and passed into an inner room, leaving the archbishop standing in the hall. Becket, who remained calm and undaunted, seated himself on a bench, holding his cross erect. Presently the Bishop of Exeter entered, and, in the name of his colleagues, entreated the primate to obey the king's commands. A refusal was followed by the entrance of the rest of the bishops, who renounced him as their primate, and appealed to the authority of the Pope. Becket sternly answered, "I hear;" and made no other reply.

According to one of the chroniclers, the archbishop was accused before the council of magic arts, and the Earl of Leicester advanced into the hall to read his sentence; but Becket, interrupting him, refused to recognise the authority of a lay tribunal, and himself appealed to the Pope's decision. With these words he rose from his seat, and carrying the cross in his hand, strode slowly through the crowd towards the door of the hall. A murmur arose as he passed, and some of the courtiers, whose mean spirit derived satisfaction from striking a falling man, accused him of perjury and treason, and catching up straw from the floor, threw it in his face. Becket stopped short, and facing his assailants, said, in cold and haughty tones, but with high spirit, "If the sacredness of my order did not forbid it, I would answer with arms those who call me perjurer and traitor." He then mounted his horse, and proceeded to the house where he lodged, followed by a crowd of the inferior clergy and the people, among whom he was exceedingly popular, and who received him with acclamations.

Rejected by the rich, the archbishop opened his house to the poor. That same night he caused a bountiful supper to be laid out in the hall, and in all the chambers of the house. The doors were then thrown open, and the beggar by the wayside, the outcast, and the hungry, were invited to enter freely. All who came were made welcome, so that the house was filled with guests—the archbishop himself supping with them, and presiding at the repast.

In the dead of night, when the visitors at this strange banquet had taken their fill, and departed, Becket disguised himself in the dress of a monk, and, accompanied by two friars, escaped from the town of Northampton. A hasty journey of three days brought him to the fens of Lincolnshire, where he remained a little while concealed in a hermit's hut. On resuming his journey he passed without suspicion to the coast. It was at the end of November, and the weather was cold and stormy; but the archbishop preferred the risks of the sea to those which awaited him on shore, and, embarking in a small boat, reached the harbour of Gravelines in safety. Thence he resumed his journey, as before, on foot. After encountering many privations, the primate and his companions at length reached the monastery of St. Bertin, in the town of St. Omer.