Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/199

A.D. 1164.] Under these circumstances, it was evident that a rupture must soon take place. Henry determined to use every means to destroy the power which he had so imprudently created. He began a series of attacks against the archbishop. In the year 1162 he removed from him the archdeaconry of Canterbury, and promoted a dissolute monk of Normandy, named Clérambault, to the abbacy of St. Augustin, at Canterbury. Instigated by the king, the new-abbot refused to take the oath of obedience to the primate, according to the law, which dated from the Conquest. Becket defended the authority of his see, and the matter was referred by the abbot to the Pope Alexander III. Strange as it may seem, the decision was given against the primate, and those privileges which had been abolished by Gregory VII., at the desire of the Norman conquerors, were now restored by Alexander at the prayer of a Norman priest.

Becket, whose anger was excited by this unexpected defeat, proceeded to acts of retaliation. In the following year he claimed a number of estates and castles, including that of Rochester from the king, and that of Tunbridge from the Earl of Clare, on the ground that they had originally belonged to the see of Canterbury. Had such restitution been given, it would have tended to overthrow the legal claim of many of the barons to their estates; great alarm was, therefore, excited, and the demand met with a determined resistance. The barons urged their prescriptive rights, but Becket replied briefly that there could be no prescription for injustice, and that the estates wrongly obtained must be restored. In the words of a modern historian, the sons of the companions of William the Bastard thought the soul of Harold animated the body of him whom they had themselves made primate.

The archbishop proceeded to follow up his attack by appointing a priest to a benefice on the lands of a Norman baron, named William de Eynsford. William, like the rest of the Normans, assumed the right of disposing of the churches on his manor, and he expelled the priest sent by Becket. The baron was immediately excommunicated by the archbishop, in defiance of a law passed by Henry, that no vassal of the crown should be excommunicated without the royal consent. The king ordered the sentence to be remitted, and after some delay Becket yielded, though with evident reluctance. The king's animosity was rather increased than appeased by a consent so reluctantly given.

In the year 1164, Henry proceeded to mature his plans for placing the clergy under civil jurisdiction; and at a general assembly of lords lay and spiritual, he demanded the consent of the prelates to the proposed revival of ancient customs. The reply made by Becket and his co-adjutors was that they assented, "saving the honour of God and their order." The king angrily broke up the council, and deprived the archbishop of the castle of Berkhampstead. A few days afterwards Becket expressed his readiness to assent to the king's demands, and a great council was convened at Clarendon, in Wiltshire (March, 1164), for the purpose of receiving the assent formally. When the moment came for Becket's signature to be given, he refused it; accusing himself of folly for having promised to observe the king's laws, whatever they might be. The entreaties of the barons were without effect, and the enactments were completed without his signature. The king now proceeded to more severe measures against his former favourite. Another council was called at Northampton, before which Becket was summoned to appear, and was charged with contempt of the king's authority. He was called upon to pay various heavy fines, and to give an account of his receipts from different benefices during his chancellorship—the balance due to the crown, which he had kept back, being stated to be 44,000 marks. Becket was now convinced that his ruin had been determined on, and for several days he was confined to his bed by illness, brought on by these anxieties, and was unable to determine on the course he ought to pursue. At length his indomitable mind recovered its ordinary tone, and he determined to resist the decision of the king and the council. Having celebrated mass, he proceeded to the court dressed in his robes, and holding in his right hand the archiepiscopal cross. As he entered the hall, the king, indignant at seeing him in the robes of authority, rose up and passed into an inner room, leaving the archbishop standing in the hall. Becket, who remained calm and undaunted, seated himself on a bench, holding his cross erect. Presently the Bishop of Exeter entered, and, in the name of his colleagues, entreated the primate to obey the king's commands. A refusal was followed by the entrance of the rest of the bishops, who renounced him as their primate, and appealed to the authority of the Pope. Becket sternly answered, "I hear;" and made no other reply.

According to one of the chroniclers, the archbishop was accused before the council of magic arts, and the Earl of Leicester advanced into the hall to read his sentence; but Becket, interrupting him, refused to recognise the authority of a lay tribunal, and himself appealed to the Pope's decision. With these words he rose from his seat, and carrying the cross in his hand, strode slowly through the crowd towards the door of the hall. A murmur arose as he passed, and some of the courtiers, whose mean spirit derived satisfaction from striking a falling man, accused him of perjury and treason, and catching up straw from the floor, threw it in his face. Becket stopped short, and facing his assailants, said, in cold and haughty tones, "If the sacredness of my order did not forbid it, I would answer with arms those who call me perjurer and traitor." He then mounted his horse, and proceeded to the house where he lodged, followed by a crowd of the inferior clergy and the people, among whom he was exceedingly popular, and who received him with acclamations.

Rejected by the rich, the archbishop opened his house to the poor. That same night he caused a bountiful supper to be laid out in the hall, and in all the chambers of the house. The doors were then thrown open, and the beggar by the wayside, the outcast, and the hungry, were invited to enter freely. All who came were made welcome, so that the house was filled with guests—the archbishop himself supping with them, and presiding at the repast.

In the dead of night, when the visitors at this strange banquet had taken their fill and departed, Becket disguised himself in the dress of a monk, and, accompanied by two friars, escaped from the town of Northampton. A hasty journey of three days brought him to the fens of Lincolnshire, where he remained a little while concealed in a hermit's hut. On resuming his journey he called himself by the Saxon name of Dereman, and passed without