And here was Becket, the champion of the church, doing, in the eyes of many, what best he could to drive England also into the enemy’s camp. All these circumstances render the intellectual and spiritual duel between the archbishop and the cardinals one of intense interest, which again confirms what we noted in Alexander the Great, that Mr. de Vere has the true dramatic instinct of bringing together at the right place and right time opposing elements. It is the clash of contraries that imparts greatest interest to a drama, and the right working of the conflict that shows the dramatist’s skill. The contrast between the plausible, keen, politic, Italian nature, as it would be called by some, of Cardinal William, and the straight, unbending, single-minded nature of Becket, who is so rooted
in his position that nothing but death could tear him from it, is perfect. The cardinal builds up a very strong case in a negative manner against the archbishop. He hints at mistakes on the latter’s part; he counsels yielding here and there, or rather puts it to Becket why such and such might not be instead of such and such. In fact, his Eminence shows himself a thorough diplomat in cases where the issue was not a duel to the death. It would be amusing, were it not something of a far higher order, to see how Becket, with a strong, straight sentence or two, cuts mercilessly, half scornfully, through the cardinal’s fine-spun webs one after the other as they appear, scarcely giving them time to rise. Cardinal William is at length nettled into breaking quite through the diplomatic ice, and bids the archbishop resign. Becket refuses to listen to any voice but that which proceeds from the chair of Peter, and with this the act closes.
The fourth act opens with a beautiful scene between the nun Idonea and the aged Empress Matilda, whose character, small part as it plays in the drama, seems to us one of the most finished of all. Henry is back in England, only to find
“All’s well; and then all’s ill: who wars on Becket
Hath January posting hard on May,
And night at ten o’ the morn.”
On the other hand, Becket, with half-prophetic eye, seems to see the beginning of the end. After each new struggle, each new humiliation, he rises greater because humbler, leaving the dross behind him. Here is his own estimate of himself:
“Once I was unjust.
The Holy Father sees as from a height;
I fight but on the plain: my time is short,