Immediately after the king went on his second Welsh war, a sort of military demonstration marked by no great victory or defeat, and on the 1st of July called a great court at Woodstock to witness the homage of the princes. The King of Scots made his appearance at this council, and took the oath of fealty to the little heir to the crown, Henry, who was now eight years old. This was the first opportunity that the archbishop had of declaring his new attitude. He had been to visit the Pope, Alexander III., at Tours. The Pope was in exile from his see; the Emperor Frederick had refused to acknowledge him, and had set up an anti-Pope. Henry and Lewis, the former probably acting by Becket’s advice, had in 1161 recognized Alexander as the Catholic Pope, and Tours, where he was holding the council at which Becket attended, was within the dominions of Henry. We can only suppose that the sight of the Pope kindled Becket’s zeal, not so much against his own lord who was the Pope’s friend, as against the secular power in general, of which he had been hitherto a devoted servant. Anyhow he came back from Tours prepared, on the first question, ecclesiastical or civil, which might arise, to take the lead of what might be called the constitutional opposition; an idea which is, for the first time since the Norman Conquest, realized in the course he now adopted.
Becket
opposes the
king on a
financial
point.
As we should expect from our knowledge of later crises of the kind, the bone of contention was found in the financial budget of the year. Henry was, as usual, busy with his reforms; and although he was an honest reformer and had a true genius for organization, he liked best those methods of reform that helped to fill the treasury. The administration of the sheriffs was during the later part of the reign a frequent subject of legislative ordinance, and the question which now arose was connected with it. The sheriffs had been used to collect from every hide of land in their counties two shillings annually. It was probable that out of this a fixed sum was paid to the king under the name of Danegeld; certainly the Danegeld was collected at that rate; and as the sums paid into the Exchequer under that name were very small compared with the extent of land that paid the tax, it is probable that the sheriffs paid a fixed composition, and retained the surplus as wages for their services in the execution of judicial work and police. Our authorities merely tell us that the king proposed to take away this money from the sheriffs and bring it into the general account of his revenue. Thomas opposed this; declared that the tax should not go into the king’s coffers, that the sheriffs should not lose, that the lands of his Church should pay the tax no more; and he seems to have prevailed, although we have no positive record to that effect.
Constitutional
importance
of this act.
Abolition of
Danegeld.
Two most important points stand out here. This is the first case of any express opposition being made to the king’s financial dealings since the Conquest. Until now, whenever money was wanted, the royal necessities were laid before the national council, the assembly of bishops, earls, and great vassals, and others, and the method was explained by which they were to be satisfied. If he wanted to marry his daughter, or to knight his son, or to tax his towns, he said how much he wanted, and it was paid. Here, however, we find the archbishop objecting to the royal dealings with the Danegeld, and thus asserting the right of the national council to refuse as well as to bestow money. A second point is, that although ever since the reign of Ethelred, with the exception of a few years of Edward the Confessor—who had, as the legend ran, seen the devil sitting on the money-bags, and had, therefore, abolished the tax—and certainly ever since the days of the Conqueror, this odious impost had been levied, from this time it ceases to appear by this name in the rolls of the revenue. Henry II. devised other ways of getting money, but the Danegeld appears no more; and thus the first-fruit of the first constitutional opposition is the abolition of the most ancient property-tax, imposed as a bribe for the Danes. We may well imagine how angry Henry would be at this interference, coming from the man who had hitherto been his right hand in all his reforms.
Becket’s
new
enemies.
Council at
Westminster,
1163.
The courtiers saw it, and they began to raise little suits against Becket on little matters by which they might harass him, and, like true courtiers, accelerate the fall of a falling man. Such in particular were John the Marshal, who raised a claim touching one of the archiepiscopal manors, and William of Eynesford, who claimed the patronage of one of the archbishop’s livings, and was rashly excommunicated by Becket, contrary to the custom which forbade the excommunication of a tenant-in-chief of the king without the king’s license. Three months, however, passed away; and on the 1st of October the king called a great council at Westminster.
Becket
defends the
clerical
immunities.