Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/741

 THOMAS

677

THOMAS

existence for that occasion (Round, "Feudal Eng- land", 268-73), still Thomas undoubtedly pressed on the exaction of this money contribution in lieu of mili- tary service and enforced it against ecclesiastics in such a way that bitter complaints were made of the disproportionately heavy burden thus imposed upon the Church. In the military operations Thomas took a leading part, and Gamier, a French chronicler, who lived to write of the virtues of St. Thomas and his martjTdom, declares that in these encounters he saw him unhorse many French knights. Deacon though he was, he led the most daring attacks in person, and Edward Grim also gives us to understand that in lay- ing waste the enemy's country with fire anfl sword the chancellor's principles did not materially differ from those of the other commanders of his time. But although, as men then reported, "he put off the arch- deacon", in this and other ways, he was very far from assuming the licen- tiousmannersof those around him. No word was ever breathed against his personal purity. Foul conduct or foul speech, lying or un- chastity were hatefid to him, and on occa- sion he punished them severely. He seems at all times to have had clear prin- ciples with regard to the claims of the Church, and even during this period of his chancellorship he more than once risked Henry's griev- ous displeasure. For example, he opposed the dis- pensation which Henry for poUtical reasons extorted from the pope, and strove to prevent the marriage of Mary, Abbess of Romsey, to Matthew of Boulogne. But to the very hmits of what his conscience permit- ted, Thomas identified himself with his master's in- terests, and Tennyson is true to history when he makes the archbishop say:

I served our Theobald well when I was with him :

I served King Henry well as Chancellor:

I am his no more, and I must serve the Church.

Archbishop Theobald died in 1161, and in the course of the next year Henry seems to have decided that it would be good policy to prepare the way for further schemes of reform by securing the advance- ment of his chancellor to the primacy. Our authori- ties are agreed that from the first Thomas drew back in alarm. "I know your plans for the Church", he said, "you will assert claims which I, if I were arch- bishop, nuist needs oppose." But Henry would not he gainsaid, and Thomas at the instance of (Cardinal Henry of Pisa, who urged it upon him as a service to religion, yielded in s])ite of his misgivings. He was ordained priest on Saturday in Whitweek and con,se- craled bishop the next day, Sunilay, .3 .June, 1162. It seems to have been St. Thomas wlio obtained for Eng- land the ])rivilege of keeping the fca.st of the Bles,sed Trinity on that Sunday, the anniversary of his conse- cration, and more than a century afterwards this custom was aflopted by the papal Court itself and eventually imposed upon the whole world.

A great change took ])la('e in the saint's way of life after his consecration as archbishop. Even as chan- cellor he had practised secret austerities, but now in view f)f the struggle he clearly saw before him he gave himself to fastings and disciplines, hair shirts, pro- tracted vigils, and constant prayers. Before the end

of the year 1162 he stripped himself of all signs of the lavish display which he had previously affected. On 10 Aug. he went barefoot to receive the envoy who brought him the pallium from Rome. Contrary to the king's wish he resigned the chancellorship. Whereupon Henry seems to have required him to surrender certain ecclesiastical preferments which he still retained, notably the archdeaconry, and when this was not done at once showed bitter di.spleasure. Other misunderstandings soon followed. The arch- bishop, having, as he believed, the king's express per- mission, set about to reclaim alienated estates belong- ing to his see, a procedure which again gave offence. Still more serious was the open resistance which he made to the king's proposal that a voluntary offering to the sheriffs should be paid into the royal treasury. As the first recorded instance of any determined oppo- sition to tlie king's arbitrary wiU in a matter of taxa- tion, the incident is of much constitutional importance. The saint's protest seems to have been suc- cessful, but the rela- tions with the king only grew more strained.

Soon after this the gi-eat matter of dis- pute was reached in the resistance made by Thomas to the king's officials when they attempted to as- sert jurisdiction over criminous clerks. The question has been dealt with in some detail in the article England (V, 436). That the saint himself had no wish to be lenient with criminous clerks has been well shown by Norgate (Angevin Kings, ii, 22). It was with him simply a question of principle. St. Thomas seems all along to have suspected Henry of a design to strike at the independence of what the king regarded as a too powerful Church. With this view Henry summoned the bishops at Westminster (1 Oct., 1163) to sanction certain as yet unspecified articles which he called his grandfather's customs (arit<r rnnxiirl iirlirus), one »{ the known objects of which was to bring clerics guilty of crimes under the jurisdiction of the secular courts. The other bishops, as the demand was still in the vague, showed a willingness to submit, though with the condition "saving our order", upon which St. Thomas inflexibly insisted. The king's resentment was there- upon manifested by requiring the archbishop to sur- render certain castles he had hitherto retained, and by other acts of unfriendliness. In deference to what he believed to be the pope's wish, the archbishop in December consented to make some concessions by giving a personal and private undertaking to the king to obey his customs "loyally and in good faith". But when Henry shortly afterwards at Clarendon (13 Jan., 1 164) sought to draw the saint on to a formal and public acceptance of the "Constitutions of Clarendon", imiler which name the sixteen articles, the (iinlir rnnsiK liHlincx as finally drafted, have been commonly known, St. Thomjis, though at first yield- ing somewhat to the solicitations of the other bishops, in the end took up an attitude of uncompromismg resistance.

Then followed a period of im worthy and vindictive persecution. When ojjposing a claim made against him by .John the Marshal, Thom.as upon a frivolous pretext w.as found giiihy of ((jntcni])! of court. For this he wa.s .sentenced (o jiay £."); other demands for large sums of money followed, and finally, though a