CHAPTER III. BECKET. Early life-Household of Theobald-Chancellor-Scutage-On the battlefield--Archbishop of Canterbury-Quarrel with Henry--Constitutions of Clarendon-Council of Northampton-Six years of exile-Freteval -Blood on the altar-steps- A martyr's tomb. IN N 1118, when their eldest son Thomas was born, Gilbert Becket, a native of Rouen, and his wife Matilda, whom an old story describes as a Saracen girl, were living in Cheapside. Whatever kind of stall the Norman merchant kept, he held so marked a place among the citizens of London that he was chosen Port-reeve or Mayor. His son received an education which enabled him to play many parts in life right well. Though never a deep scholar, Becket acquired an uncommon amount of knowledge on many subjects; and, what perhaps availed him more than book learning, he studied life and men in various places and various ranks. The monastery of Merton in Surrey was his first school. He then studied in London and in Paris, spent some time in a knightly household, and became proficient in all the accomplishments of the day. The failure of his father cast a shadow over his prospects for a time, during which he wrote in the office of Master Eightpenny, clerk to the Portreeves of London. But his sun soon shone again. Two learned priests of Normandy, who had formerly feasted at his 1142 father's hospitable table, introduced the young man about 1142 to the notice of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury; and this proved the first stepping-stone to brilliant honours. Though he lived in the primate's household, he showed a decided dislike to theology, for his sanguine temperament inclined him to greater gaiety and a freer life than the monkish habit permitted. A trip to Italy, whither he went to study law at Bologna, decided the direction of his life. For, intrusted with a piece of diplomatic work, he skilfully obtained from the Pope a Bull forbidding the coronation of Eustace, Stephen's son and Henry's rival. Thus he won the favour of the first Plantagenet. On his return, he took orders, and became a pluralist being at once rector of St. Mary-le-Strand and Orford in Kent, a prebendary of St. Paul's, and a prebendary of Lincoln. When, as soon happened, the archdeaconry of Canterbury was added to the list, his income swelled to something like the revenue of a rich bishopric. As keeper 1155 So by rapid steps he rose, until in 1155 the favour of the new king, the good word of old Theobald, and, it was said, a good round sum out of his own purse, elevated him to the chancellorship of the kingdom. of the royal seal, it was the duty of the chancellor to prepare charters and royal letters, and to issue certain writs. He had the care of vacant bishoprics, abbeys, and baronies, distributed the king's alms, and heard the king's confession. He also sat as assessor to the king in the Curia Regis, that great court of the king's tenants-in-chief which, after the Conquest, took the place of the Witenagemôt.* The office of chancellor needed, therefore, an odd jumble of priesteraft and statesmanship. We next find Becket shining in knightly armour on the battle-field. The claim which Henry made on the earldom of Toulouse,† in right of his wife, kindled war in the south of France. Becket gave the king a remarkable hint, which resulted in the levying of a tax called scutage, or shield-money, * See chap. vii., below--"Life and Law in Anglo-Norman England." Toulouse (anciently Tolosa) is on the Garonne; once the capital of Languedoc. Scutage was a recognized feudal "incident;" but it was now for the first time regularly instituted in England. a certain sum paid out of every knight's fee in lieu of personal service in the field. Applying the money thus raised 1159 to the payment of a body of Dutch pikemen, Henry, whose French possessions* by marriage and inheritance already exceeded those of the French king, marched on Toulouse in the hope of adding that land of vineyards to his dominions. The priestly chancellor, in helm and cuirass, rode gallantly at the head of seven hundred lances equipped at his own expense; and when the work of death began, his tall figure loomed conspicuous in the dusty charge and amid the crumbling gaps of * Henry the Second ruled all the northern and western coasts of France except the rocky horn of Bretagne. He inherited Normandy from his mother; Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, from his father; while Poitou and Aquitaine (Guienne and Gascony) came to him through his marriage with Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis the Seventh. the shattered wall. The expedition failed, but it exhibits Becket in a characteristic light. On Becket's appointment to succeed Theobald as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, all was changed with the suddenness of a transformation scene-sacking for cloth of gold; bitter water instead of wine; the washing of beggars' feet for 1162 the gay music of the greenwood. There was some re luctance, it seems, on the part of Becket himself to undertake the duties of so high and sacred an office. "A pretty saint indeed," said he to the king, when first he heard that the mitre awaited his acceptance. But ambition proved stronger than conscience, and the king's word prevailed. A gulf then opened between Becket and his king which never closed again. In the great battle between Church and State then going on, it was impossible for Becket to be neutral; and taking any part, he must perforce take part against the king. The resignation of his chancellorship immediately after consecration foreboded yet more decided steps to come (June 3). Henry had resolved to strike a heavy blow at the roots of monkish wickedness. Priests charged with crimes could be tried, as the law then stood, only by priestly tribunals; and as the clerical robe could not, in theory, be stained with blood, neither death nor mutilation had terrors for those who were covered with the shield of holy orders. Unfrocking formed a punishment worse than death, these holy judges said; or there lay an appeal to higher courts at Rome, which opened a door for endless delays and technical quibblings. The result of all this was that many English priests ran riot in wickedness. Henry, seeing this, proposed at Westminster that men in orders taken in a felony should be first degraded in their own courts, and then handed over for punishment to lay tribunals. At first Becket said "No" to the king's demand, but afterwards the desertion of the bishops and the advice of the Pope induced him to yield so far as to attend a great council held at Clarendon in Wiltshire,* to which eighteen articles were submitted by the crown lawyers, stating the rights of crown and mitre from the king's point of view. Of the various enactments of the Constitutions of Clarendon, as the articles were called, a few may be mentioned. Prelates and abbots were to pay homage to the king as their liege lord, for their ecclesiastical benefices as well as for lay fees; and they were not to leave the kingdom without permission of the king. The clergy, both in person and in property, were rendered amenable to the king's courts. No royal officer or tenant-inchief was to be excommunicated or to have an interdict laid on his lands without the consent of the king. There was to be no appeal to Rome without the king's consent. The sons of serfs were not to be admitted to orders without the consent of their lord. 1164 Startled by the wide sweep of these articles, Becket refused to affix his seal to them. A stormy scene ensued. Three days of tumult ended in a verbal promise wrung from the primate, who rode away with a copy of the Constitutions to repent in solitude his passing weakness. The Pope, whose battle he was fighting, sent him absolution and advice. Northampton † witnessed the final fury of the storm. Henry resolved to crush the rebel whom his own hand had uplifted to the primate's chair. He demanded an account of the various sums received by Becket as chancellor. We know already how the chancellor had lived, and there was no doubt that he had dipped deeply into the royal purse. For the large sum of 30,000 marks thus required at his hand, Becket pleaded a quittance which he had received from the justiciary on his resignation of the Great Seal. He sent for the bishops, but he found that they had all gone over to the side of the king. * Clarendon, a place in Wiltshire, where the Norman kings had a hunting lodge and forest, is two miles south-east of Salisbury. ↑ Northampton, a borough on the Nen, sixty-six miles from London. |