And in it much to expiate. I must act.
I strove for justice, and my mother’s honor;
For these at first. Now know I that God’s truth
Is linked with these as close as body and soul.”
How true is this we all know. It only required a Luther to make of Henry II. a Henry VIII., and he had not stood so long in doubt as did the latter. The plot deepens. What an admirable touch it is that shows him, when the gravest news arrives from England, falling back a moment on his happier days at hearing of a smart retort given by his old pupil, the youthful prince! At last the king and Becket are brought together, and again in this long, historic meeting Mr. de Vere rises fully and easily to the level of the event. The inner vein of deceit for which he was marked shows through the monarch’s speech, and once a lurid burst of passion flashes forth like lightning and as quickly disappears. This prolonged scene, at the end of which the mask is almost openly thrown off by the king, ends the act, and is a fitting preparation for the consummation which is to follow.
The fifth act opens with preparations for the return of the archbishop to England. His heart and those of his friends are filled with the gloomiest forebodings. Ill-rumors thicken around them. Becket himself, in a speech of wonderful beauty and pathos, describes the “sinking strange” at his heart as, standing still on the French coast, he looks towards England. It is the flesh asserting itself and gaining a momentary victory over the spirit. He sails at length, and history tells us how he was received. It was a matter of life or death to his foes. There was only one end to a contest with a man of his stamp—either submission on their part or death to him. The drama
hurries on towards the catastrophe. The queen fans the flame. As Lisieux says:
“Year by year
She urged his highness ‘gainst my lord the primate;