Somewhat more than a year after the primate’s death, Thomas the chancellor returned to England. He came, as we have seen, at the king’s bidding, ostensibly for the purpose of securing the recognition of little Henry as heir to the crown. But this was not the sole nor even the chief object of his mission. On the eve of his departure—so the story was told by his friends in later days—Thomas had gone to take leave of the king at Falaise. Henry drew him aside: “You do not yet know to what you are going. I will have you to be archbishop of Canterbury.” The chancellor took, or tried to take, the words for a jest. “A saintly figure indeed,” he exclaimed with a smiling glance at his own gay attire, “you are choosing to sit in that holy seat and to head that venerable convent! No, no,” he added with sudden earnestness, “I warn you that if such a thing should be, our friendship would soon turn to bitter hate. I know your plans concerning the Church; you will assert claims which I as archbishop must needs oppose; and the breach once made, jealous hands would take care that it should never be healed again.” The words were prophetic; they sum up the whole history of the pontificate of Thomas Becket. Henry, however, in his turn passed them over as a mere jest, and at once proclaimed his intention to the chancellor’s fellow-envoys, one of whom was the justiciar, Richard de Lucy. “Richard,” said the king, “if I lay dead in my shroud, would you earnestly strive to secure my first-born on my throne?” “Indeed I would, my lord, with all my might.” “Then I charge you to strive no less earnestly to place my chancellor on the metropolitan chair of Canterbury.”[1]

Thomas was appalled. He could not be altogether taken by surprise; he knew what had been Theobald’s wishes and hopes; he knew that from the moment of Theobald’s death all eyes had turned instinctively upon himself with the belief that the future of the Church rested wholly in his all-powerful hands; he could not but suspect the king’s own intentions,[2] although the very suspicion would keep him silent, and all the more so because those intentions ran counter to his own desires. For twelve months he had known that the primacy was within his reach; he had counted the cost, and he had no mind to pay it. He was incapable of undertaking any office without throwing his whole energies into the fulfilment of its duties; his conception of the duties of the primate of all Britain would involve the sacrifice not only of those secular pursuits which he so keenly enjoyed, but also of that personal friendship and political co-operation with the king which seemed almost an indispensable part of the life of both; and neither sacrifice was he disposed to make. He had said as much to an English friend who had been the first to hint at his coming promotion,[3] and he repeated it now with passionate earnestness to Henry himself, but all in vain. The more he resisted, the more the king insisted—the very frankness of his warnings only strengthening Henry’s confidence in him; and when the legate Cardinal Henry of Pisa urged his acceptance as a sacred duty, Thomas at last gave way.[4]

The council in London was no sooner ended than Richard de Lucy and three of the bishops[5] hurried to Canterbury, by the king’s orders, to obtain from the cathedral chapter the election of a primate in accordance with his will. The monks of Christ Church were never very easy to manage; in the days of the elder King Henry they had firmly and successfully resisted the intrusion of a secular clerk into the monastic chair of S. Augustine; and a strong party among them now protested that to choose for pastor of the flock of Canterbury a man who was scarcely a clerk at all, who was wholly given to hawks and hounds and the worldly ways of the court, would be no better than setting a wolf to guard a sheepfold. But their scruples were silenced by the arguments of Richard de Lucy and by their dread of the royal wrath, and in the end Thomas was elected without a dissentient voice.[6] The election was repeated in the presence of a great council[7] held at Westminster on May 23,[8] and ratified by the bishops and clergy there assembled.[9] Only one voice was raised in protest; it was that of Gilbert Foliot,[10] who, alluding doubtless to the great scutage, declared that Thomas was utterly unfit for the primacy, because he had persecuted the Church of God.[11] The protest was answered by Henry of Winchester in words suggested by Gilbert’s own phrase: “My son,” said the ex-legate, addressing Thomas, “if thou hast been hitherto as Saul the persecutor, be thou henceforth as Paul the Apostle.”[12]

The election was confirmed by the great officers of state and the boy-king in his father’s name;[13] the consecration was fixed for the octave of Pentecost, and forthwith the bishops began to vie with each other for the honour of performing the ceremony. Roger of York, who till now had stood completely aloof, claimed it as a privilege due to the dignity of his see; but the primate-elect and the southern bishops declined to accept his services without a profession of canonical obedience to Canterbury, which he indignantly refused.[14] The bishop of London, on whom as dean of the province the duty according to ancient precedent should have devolved, was just dead;[15] Walter of Rochester momentarily put in a claim to supply his place,[16] but withdrew it in deference to Henry of Winchester, who had lately returned from Cluny, and whose royal blood, venerable character, and unique dignity as father of the whole English episcopate, marked him out beyond all question as the most fitting person to undertake the office.[17] By way of compensation, it was Walter who, on the Saturday in Whitsun-week, raised the newly-elected primate to the dignity of priesthood.[18]

Early next morning the consecration took place. Canterbury cathedral has been rebuilt from end to end since that day; it is only imagination which can picture the church of Lanfranc and Anselm and Theobald as it stood on that June morning, the scarce-risen sun gleaming faintly through its eastern windows upon the rich vestures of the fourteen bishops[19] and their attendant clergy and the dark robes of the monks who thronged the choir, while the nave was crowded with spectators, foremost among whom stood the group of ministers surrounding the little king.[20] From the vestry-door Thomas came forth, clad no longer in the brilliant attire at which he had been jesting a few weeks ago, but in the plain black cassock and white surplice of a clerk; through the lines of staring, wondering faces he passed into the choir, and there threw himself prostrate upon the altar-steps. Thence he was raised to go through a formality suggested by the prudence of his consecrator. To guard, as he hoped, against all risk of future difficulties which might arise from Thomas’s connexion with the court, Henry of Winchester led him down to the entrance of the choir, and in the name of the Church called upon the king’s representatives to deliver over the primate-elect fully and unreservedly to her holy service, freed from all secular obligations, actual or possible. A formal quit-claim was accordingly granted to Thomas by little Henry and the justiciars, in the king’s name;[21] after which the bishop of Winchester proceeded to consecrate him at once. A shout of applause rang through the church as the new primate of all Britain was led up to his patriarchal chair; but he mounted its steps with eyes downcast and full of tears.[22] To him the day was one of melancholy foreboding; yet he made its memory joyful in the Church for ever. He began his archiepiscopal career by ordaining a new festival to be kept every year on that day—the octave of Pentecost—in honour of the most Holy Trinity;[23] and in process of time the observance thus originated spread from Canterbury throughout the whole of Christendom, which thus owes to an English archbishop the institution of Trinity Sunday.