All this had no other effect than to exasperate Henry the more, and to encourage the rapidly increasing crowd of Becket’s enemies. Unfortunately we have no details the next six months, save that the archbishop once or twice saw the king in vain. In October, 1164, at Northampton, the cloud finally broke. Becket’s enemies saw their way to crush him altogether, and Henry yielded to them. The council was formally summoned; all the persons who held of the king directly—that is, who were subject to no lord coming between them and the king—were duly invited; the greater barons probably, as had been usual under Henry I., and as the Great Charter afterwards enjoined, by special letters; the minor ones by a general summons made known through the sheriff in each shire. It was to the archbishop that the first letter of summons ought by ancient rule to have been directed. Instead of that he received a writ through the Sheriff of Kent ordering him to present himself at Northampton to answer the complaint of John the Marshal.
His trial.
However informal this was, Becket complied, rather than by absenting himself from the court to leave his cause in hands he could not trust. He attended, and was overwhelmed. First he was sentenced to pay 500 marks to John the Marshal, who was declared to have proved his claim against him. Then he was called on to present the accounts of the Chancery, of which he had been acquitted by a general discharge when he became archbishop. He now put on the aspect of a martyr, and declared himself ready to die for the rights of his Church. Henry and his agents declared that it was the person, not the prelate, who was aimed at; that they were not assailing the rights of the Church but vindicating the laws of the land. The bishops advised unconditional submission, which would, no doubt have been the wisest course, for it would have disarmed the king without conceding any matter of principle; for Henry was not the man to make an extreme use of victory, and might still perhaps have been induced to act with moderation. Instead of this, as Henry grew more peremptory Thomas grew more provoking; at last he declared himself really in danger, turned and fled.
His flight.
He went off in disguise from Northampton, and, after several trying adventures, landed in Flanders, whence he made his way to join the pope at Sens, and thence to Pontigny.
His exile.
Henry’s
cruel
measures.
It would be a tedious task to trace the minute circumstances of Becket’s life during the next six years; they are somewhat obscure, and the large number of undated letters of the period makes even the sequence of the main events puzzling. The upshot of the story is briefly this:—At Pontigny Becket remained until Henry threatened the whole Cistercian body if they did not expel him; in consequence of that he threw himself on the friendship of Lewis VII., who appointed as his resting-place the abbey of St. Colombe, at Sens. There he remained, making occasional journeys on his own business, until he returned to Canterbury in 1170. Whilst at Pontigny and Sens he acted up to his new character—wore a hair shirt, practised great mortifications, and behaved as if he believed himself to be undergoing a sort of modified martyrdom. All the time he was bringing all the influence which he had to bear upon Lewis VII., the Counts of Champagne and Flanders, and other potentates, to induce them to take up his cause, and either by urging the Pope to extreme measures, or by direct negotiation with Henry, to procure his honorable recall. The Pope would have given anything for peace and quietness, but he could not afford to alienate Henry so long as he was on bad terms with the Emperor. He sent commissions with legations to Normandy, of which Henry disposed either by promises or by plausible professions of his own good-will, or by substantial presents of the strongest of all the powers of silence, a handsome sum of gold. Had he rested here he might have been forgiven. But unfortunately for his own credit he determined to persecute the archbishop in the person of his relations, and by a cruel edict sent many inoffensive families, who were connected with Thomas, into exile. Then Becket answered with excommunication, including in his ban all the king’s closest counsellors, some of whom had very little to do with the proceedings against him. From time to time Becket saw the king, under the wing of Lewis VII.; once at Montmirail, in January, 1169, once at Montmartre, in November of the same year. In each case either Henry was hypocritical or Becket offensive: we cannot decide. At length a new point of quarrel brought about a reconciliation, and the reconciliation immediately resulted in Becket’s death.
Henry’s
proceedings
during the
quarrel.
Alliance
with
Germany.