Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/205

A.D. 1172] to make an impression upon men peculiarly susceptible to such influeuces, and if they hesitated we must attribute it to these causes rather than doubt the ruthless intention with which they came.

Once more they called upon him to absolve the bishops; once more he refused, and Fitzurse, drawing his sword, struck at his head. The blow was intercepted by the arm of one of the prelate's servants, who stepped forward to protect his master, but in vain. A second blow descended, and while the blood was streaming from his face, some one of his assailants whispered him to fly and save himself. Becket paid no heed to the speaker, but clasped his hands and bowed his head, commending his soul to God and the saints. The conspirators now fell upon him with their swords, and quickly despatched him. One of them is said to have kicked the prostrate body, saying, "So perishes a traitor."

The deed thus accomplished, the conspirators passed out of the town without hindrance, but no sooner had they done so than the news spread throughout the town, and the inhabitants, in the utmost excitement and indignation, assembled in crowds in the streets, and ran towards the cathedral. Seeing the body of their archbishop stretched before the altar, men and women began to weep, and while some kissed his feet and hands, others dipped linen in the blood with which the pavement was covered. It was declared by the people that Becket was a martyr, and though a royal edict was published forbidding any one to express such an opinion, the popular feeling still manifested itself. The Archbishop of York returned to his pulpit, and announced the violent death of the archbishop to be a judgment from heaven, and that he had perished in his pride, like Pharaoh. It was reached by other bishops that the body of the traitor ought not to be laid in holy ground, but that it should be left to rot on the highway, or hung from a gibbet. It was even attempted by some soldiers to seize the corpse; but the monks, who had received an intimation of the design, buried it hastily in the crypt of the cathedral.

Louis King of France, seconded the feeling of the English people with regard to this cowardly murder. He wrote to the Pope, entreating him to punish, with all the power of the Church, that persecutor of God; a Nero in cruelty, a Julian in apostaoy, and a Judas in treachery.

The opinion of the French court—which has been held also by some historians of our own country—was that Henry was guilty of the murder, having known or directed the designs of the conspirators. The question must always remain to some extent doubtful; but the balance of evidence, as well as of probability, is decidedly in favour of his innocence. When the intelligence was first conveyed to him, he displayed extreme grief, shutting himself up within a private room, and refusing either to see his friends or to taste food for three days. The extraordinary penance which he afterwards underwent at the tomb of Becket, and which will be described hereafter, would at first appear to prove his consciousness of guilt; but that penance may as reasonably be regarded as having a political object, and as being intended to overcome the prejudice against him among the people, who universally believed that an atonement ought to be made by the king. He may also have felt that, without having directly ordered the death of the archbishop, he was, nevertheless, to some extent guilty of that crime, in having used words which might, without difficulty, be construed to have such meaning.

Whether Henry did or did not direct the assassination of the archbishop, it is not improbable that he may more than once have desired the death of his troublesome servant. But the manner of that death—a prelate, whose office was regarded with the highest veneration, slain at the altar; an old man butchered in cold blood, not by robbers, but by soldiers and knights of fame—such a death, with the indignation it excited, was well calculated to induce feelings of remorse in the breast of the king. He immediately sent legates to Rome, to offer assurances of his innocence to the Pope Alexander, who threatened to place the whole kingdom under an interdict, as a punishment for the outrage upon Heaven and the Church. Some time elapsed before Alexander changed his purpose and was prevailed upon to confine his anathema to the actual murderers and their abettors.

In the year 1172 a council was held at Avranches, at which the king and the legates of the Pope were present, and which was attended by a great multitude, both of the clergy and of the people. Here Henry voluntarily swore, in what was considered the most solemn manner—that is to say, over the sacred relics—that he had no concern in the murder of the archbishop, and that he had not desired his death. We must, therefore, either believe him to have been innocent, or regard him as utterly destitute of religious feeling, as well as entirely free from those superstitious tendencies of the age which influenced, to some extent, even the hard and ruthless minds of the Conqueror and his sons.

On reviewing the remarkable career of Thomas à Becket, it appears extremely difficult to form a just estimate of his character. That he frequently acted independently of principle, and displayed qualities better suited to a soldier than a priest, is beyond question. That his sudden conversion was mere hypocrisy, his piety assumed, and his aims altogether selfish—accusations which have frequently been brought against him—is much less certain. When the religious habit was first assumed by Becket, he accepted it as a step to power, and with little regard for the sacred functions it conferred upon him; but when ho was called to a higher office, and he felt that the dignity of his order was placed in his keeping, he determined to support that dignity. What were the precise character of the motives which actuated him it is vain to inquire; but it is at least possible that he was sincere in the course he pursued, and that he believed the interests of religion to be identified with the power of the Church. Allusion has already been made to the benefits conferred upon the nation by the reforms which he introduced, and to the veneration with which the people regarded him. The popular regard is not always to be taken as a criterion of excellence, for men are apt to be attracted by a showy and noisy benevolence rather than by silent and unobtrusive virtue; but in process of time the true is distinguished from the false, and the instincts of the people are rarely long deceived. Neither the mitre which he wore, no the Saxon blood which flowed in his veins, could have placed the archbishop so high in the affections of the nation, unless there had been also high and sterling qualities in the man. Well-authenticated accounts have reached us of his conduct at the time of his death—that hour when the mask of the hypocrite usually falls away, and something of his true character seldom fails to show itself. At this time, then, we find Thomas à Becket presented to us in an aspect which