Canterbury

by Gordon Home

While leaving the long story to be told with the amazingly ample detail Dean Stanley was able to employ, one is tempted to quote his account of the first interview between Becket and the four knights, for too often the memory recalls nearly every fact of the murder except the indictment, if it may be so called. The four knights had discarded their weapons and concealed their armour under the cloak and gown of ordinary life on entering the cathedral precincts, so that on their first appearance in the Archbishop's private room their aspect was sinister without being immediately threatening. Becket had just finished dinner, and was seated on his couch talking to his friends when the four knights were announced, and he pointedly continued, his conversation with the monk who sat by him and on whose shoulder he was leaning.

They on their part entered without a word, beyond a greeting exchanged in a whisper to the attendants who stood near the door, and then marched straight to where the Archbishop sate, and placed themselves on the floor at his feet, among the clergy who were reclining around. Radulf the archer sate behind them, on the boards. Becket now turned round for the first time, and gazed steadfastly on each in silence, which he at last broke by saluting Tracy by name. The conspirators continued to look mutely at each other, till Fitzurse, who throughout took the lead, replied with a scornful expression, "God help you!" Becket's face grew crimson, and he glanced round at their countenances, which seemed to gather fire from Fitzurse's speech. Fitzurse again broke forth: "We have a message from the King over the water—tell us whether you will hear it in private, or in the hearing of all." "As you wish," said the Archbishop. "Nay, as you wish," said Fitzurse. "Nay, as you wish," said Becket. The monks, at the Archbishop's intimation, withdrew into an adjoining room; but the doorkeeper ran up and kept the door ajar, that they might see from the outside what was going on.

Before the knights began the recital of their complaints, however, Becket appears to have become alarmed at the demeanour of the four men, who afterwards admitted that they thought of killing him then and there with the only weapon that was handy—a cross-staff that lay at his feet.

The monks hurried back, and Fitzurse, apparently calmed by their presence, resumed his statement of the complaints of the King. The complaints—which are given by the various chroniclers in very different words—were three in number. "The King over the water commands you to perform your duty to the King on this side of the water, instead of taking away his crown." "Rather than take away his crown," replied Becket, "I would give him three or four crowns." "You have excited disturbances in the kingdom, and the King requires you to answer for them at his court." "Never," said the Archbishop, "shall the sea again come between me and my Church, unless I am dragged thence by the feet." "You have excommunicated the bishops, and you must absolve them." "It was not I," replied Becket, "but the Pope, and you must go to him for absolution."

THE CHAPEL OF "OUR LADY" IN THE UNDERCROFT OF THE CATHEDRAL.
Being entirely above the ground this is not a crypt as it is so often miscalled. The morning light in winter fills the spaces between the massive Norman piers.

After some more stormy words the knights became irritated by Becket's contradictions, and swore "by God's wounds" that they had endured enough, but Becket, putting aside John of Salisbury's suggestion that he should speak privately to the angry knights, began to complain of the grievances and insults he had himself received during the preceding week: "They have attacked my servants," he said; "they have cut off my sumpter-mule's tail; they have carried off the casks of wine that were the King's own gift." To this Hugh de Moreville, who was the least aggressive of the four, replied: "Why did you not complain to the King of these outrages? Why did you take upon yourself to punish them by your own authority?" But Becket, turning sharply towards him, said: "Hugh! how proudly you lift up your head! When the rights of the Church are violated, I shall wait for no man's permission to avenge them. I will give to the King the things that are the King's, but to God the things that are God's. It is my business, and I alone will see to it." Taking up such an attitude in front of four men who had come hot-foot to Canterbury with the express determination to seek an excuse for killing him, Becket was sealing his own fate.

For the first time in the interview the Archbishop had assumed an attitude of defiance; the fury of the knights broke at once through the bonds which had partially restrained it, and displayed itself openly in those impassioned gestures which are now confined to the half-civilized nations of the South and East, but which seem to have been natural to all classes of medieval Europe. Their eyes flashed fire, they sprang upon their feet, and, rushing close up to him, gnashed their teeth, twisting their long gloves, and wildly threw their arms above their heads. Fitzurse exclaimed: "You threaten us—you threaten us! are you going to excommunicate us all?"

Becket sprang up from his couch at this insulting demonstration, and in the state of great excitement into which he could fall when roused, he flung down his defiant challenge that all the swords in England could not shake his obedience to the Pope. The four knights, goaded to fury by other passionate words, left him, shouting, "To arms! to arms!" They made their way with an excited throng to the great gateway, where they armed, while the doors were closed to shut off the monastery from communication with the town. The Archbishop seems to have been fully alive to his danger, and yet he persistently refused to take the smallest measure for his safety, opening with his own hands the door from the cloisters into the north transept which some of the monks had closed and barred immediately after they had dragged the Archbishop into the nearly dark building.