She fell to her knees. ‘Lord King. Lord King,’ she murmured.
He rejoined his escort with the energy of a youth. At the first river he flung off all his clothes and plunged head-first into the water, shouting, ‘I’ll catch a fish.’ Such was his exuberant vitality, he did catch one with his bare hands, hurtling naked out of the water with the creature twisting its grey body above his head.
Richard asked William, ‘Have you told your brother yet you’re to be a father?’
‘His head is full of Lady Clifford. I’ll wait until he’s calmer.’
At nightfall, Sir Richard slipped into Henry’s tent. ‘The Countess of Surrey is with child, sire.’ The King grabbed his arms so hard the knight felt bruises forming.
‘William is still unaware Becket has banned his marriage?’
‘Completely. He expects you to demand the dispensation as soon as we arrive at Woodstock.’
‘Did you arrange for a letter from Canterbury, withdrawing the ban?’
‘By now it will be in Rouen.’
‘The signature?’
‘Tom would swear it was his own. And his own seal.’
Henry chuckled. ‘He may have to.’
His grandfather had built the palace at Woodstock as a hunting lodge. Henry had enlarged it and enclosed its park with a wall of seven miles, the longest in England. Summer weather made the royal manor delightful; the soft rolling hills uplifted men’s hearts. They were already joyous about the return of their King. ‘His long absence left England sad,’ one magnate wrote to his brother. ‘But now we sing and play chess once more.’
Some barons from Kent, whose lands Becket had seized for the Church, had already designated the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘the Black King’.
Henry was sure Becket would gloat to William’s face over his ban on the marriage. The evening before the royal party arrived at Woodstock, he summoned his brother. ‘Willi, there’s no need for you to be bored to death at this council. Return to Normandy. You, Richard, are to stay with me for translation.’
Richard looked as if the King had struck him. The Viscount ruffled his hair. ‘I can look after myself for a few weeks.’
Henry snorted. ‘You leave tonight, William. Kiss your shadow goodbye and piss off to Southampton.’
The council assembled. King Malcolm of Scotland arrived without Douglas. Henry summoned him to a private audience, where he made him no offer of refreshment, although an abundance of fruit, cakes, yellow and white rounds of cheese, various wines and golden goblets stood on a table. A zephyr billowed the fine linen curtains that chambermaids spread over windows in summer to keep insects outside. ‘Where’s your merlin, nephew?’ he greeted the Scots King.
‘In our highlands, where he belongs, uncle.’
Henry studied Malcolm’s face. The sickness that ailed him as a younger man was now inscribed like battle scars. His jaw was distorting. His visible joints were swollen and red. But pain had given him a maturity he had lacked before in the presence of his ferocious kinsman. When Henry upbraided him for the marriage alliances he’d made without asking permission, Malcolm looked steadily back. ‘I shall not undo them, uncle.’
‘I therefore require you to pay me homage before the council,’ Henry growled.
‘That is against the vow you made to my grandfather.’
‘Don’t try to teach me kingcraft, boy.’
That evening Henry took supper alone with the Archbishop. Becket said, ‘I’d hoped your brother William would be here.’
‘He’s Seneschal of Normandy, Tom. His work is there.’
‘I wanted to soothe his feelings about the necessity to abandon an idea of marriage to the Countess of Surrey. I heard that before going with you to Wales he was with her every day. And night.’
‘Isabel has no brothers. In William she’s found one. And, may I add, priests’ gossip is as malicious as fishwives’.’
‘I find that offensive.’
‘How often in the past did you complain about the clergy’s viperish tongues?’
‘Lord King, it’s now my duty to act as shepherd to my flock. To me, this is just as important as my right to crown a monarch.’
Henry stared at him. The rest of their supper was swallowed in silence.
Later, Thomas reported to his assistants, ‘I really jolted him when, just before dessert, I mentioned my power to delay the coronation of the Crown Prince.’
‘Forever,’ Herbert said.
‘No – just until his father is dead.’ They all laughed.
The manor’s great hall was a long rectangle, a throne for the King at one end and opposite it something not quite a throne but too lavish to be mistaken for a chair. Here the Archbishop of Canterbury would sit. The baronage was accommodated on benches to the King’s left, the Church to his right.
The Archbishop of York demanded that a second great chair be placed beside Canterbury’s, but Henry refused. Instead he had York’s chair placed closest to him at the end of the ecclesiastical bench. Richard sat on a low stool behind the monarch. To keep the council alert, Henry had sent pages to announce that sittings would be held on alternate days, with a day of hunting and games for the baronage, a day the clergy could spend in contemplation.
When all were gathered, the King entered the hall wearing a cream silk gown and tunic, a circlet of gold around his forehead. At the same moment, from the opposite doorway, the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared. His eruditi had prevailed upon him to wear purple.
‘It’s high summer and lavender is summer’s purple,’ he’d complained.
‘Your Grace, purple is of greater magnificence.’
His cross-bearer stood ready to precede him, the gold cross, tall as a woman, secured in a sling around his waist.
A royal knight in full armour preceded the King. The hall leaped to its feet at the entrance of the princes of state and church, but Becket sat immediately, before the King had taken his throne. Only glares from magnates and bishops goaded him to rise languidly and wait for Henry to sit. The monarch acknowledged him with an affable nod.
The English baronage, especially those from the north, laughed and elbowed each other as King Malcolm kneeled before their liege. One stood to give a loud fart that set the left-hand side of the hall howling with laughter. Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd was to pay homage next. Among the spectators was Owain Gwynedd, prince of North Wales.
Henry had taken counsel from the justiciar Richard de Lucy and Bishop Foliot, but had rejected their advice to punish the Welsh; on the journey to Woodstock he had reflected that, given their meagre resources, the easiest way to keep them peaceful was to seek alliances with their rulers. After the rough treatment of Malcolm, Rhys flushed at the leniency Henry showed when he announced that the prince would be restored to all his lands and honours. He replied in English, ‘Great King, I thank you.’ Then, to the delight of the assembly, he raised his voice in a song that Richard translated as a hymn of praise for Henry’s magnanimity. At the end, he added in Welsh, ‘But we still hate you.’
Owain applauded loudly. Becket clapped languidly, waiting his chance. Once the issue of homage from foreign rulers was dealt with, the council would turn its attention to the administration of the realm. The night before, Thomas had alerted his followers: ‘Like a tiny spark that lights a fire that consumes a great city, I choose a trifling issue to publicly display my contempt for the Beast.’
Henry had just announced that the customary payments from landowners to sheriffs – known as sheriff’s aid – should in future be rendered to the exchequer. With slow magnificence, Becket rose to his feet. In his demeanour no hint of his former terror of the King appeared. He did not stammer.
‘The Church,’ he announced, ‘will not make contributions to the royal revenue. We do not pay taxes to the Crown.’
The King roared across the hall, ‘By the eyes of God, it shall be given as revenue and entered in the royal rolls! It’s not fit you should gainsay it, Archbishop, for no one would oppose your me
n against your will.’
Thomas inclined his head in swan-like serenity. The company hushed. Bishops crossed themselves. He did not bother to stand a second time. ‘By my reverence for the eyes by which you have sworn, Lord King, there shall be given from all my land and from the property of the Church not a penny.’
Foliot scribbled a note and quickly passed it to Henry. He seeks to undermine the basis of cooperation between church and state. Henry’s flushed face grew still.
‘Since you seek to overturn an important tradition of the realm, Archbishop, I too now wish to raise an issue about the Church. I had been hoping to discuss it in a more private setting, but I perceive from your remarks that this is the appropriate moment. All the great men of England are gathered here, lay and ecclesiastical, the two swords of state, which as we know from time immemorial must work in harmony. At the moment, they do not!’
His face turned red again. ‘Ecclesiastical justice! It’s full of holes and stinks to heaven like a putrefying fox. You, Archbishop, are responsible for restoring church justice to wholesomeness and life. But what do I find in England? Bishops who wish to uphold canon law in their sees are thwarted by appeals to the papal curia – appeals, Archbishop, that you allow. Once in the curia, these appeals are handed on to canon lawyers, the majority of whom reside in Rome. And there they vanish, for months, for years. Forever. As has been recognised since ancient times, justice delayed is justice denied. But the situation is more egregious than that which I have just outlined for the benefit of some members of my baronage who may be less familiar with these issues than you and your bishops.’
He paused to glare at Becket, who stared back defiantly. ‘Egregious, Lord King?’
‘I would add “dishonest” and “illegal”. There is a power creeping from the altars of churches over the people of England, a stealthy power that seeks to usurp to itself the law of the land. My law, carefully developed to raise this realm from the chaos in which I found it to a country whose subjects can rely on it for personal safety, prosperity and legal redress of wrongs. Royal law, Archbishop, maintains the peace and good governance of the kingdom. But I find that Mother Church undermines it. All clergy and all laity are now answerable to her for any issue pertaining to religion. And what is this? Despite scores of books defining it, “pertaining to religion” is now whatever a member of clergy decides is in his interests.’
The bishops were now alarmed. ‘We don’t want a confrontation with you on this issue, Highness,’ York whispered.
‘Speak up!’ Henry said, but York remained silent. ‘Let me give you an example of the Church’s definition of “pertaining to religion”,’ the King continued. ‘Riding from Dover some time ago, I saw two bodies hanged from a tree, put to death by a sheriff on the orders of a local priest. Why? Because this priest had been assaulted by the men after ravishing their wives and daughters. Therefore, those who acted to defend their womenfolk against him were breaking a law “pertaining to religion” by assaulting a criminal. Let me ask you, Archbishop, was it just for them to be hanged? Or was it a murder instigated by a pestilent priest?’
Herbert murmured, ‘You’ve got him!’
Becket lowered his voice so the council had to strain to hear him.
‘Lord King, how fortunate that you’ve raised this case, as I happen to have with me a deposition from the poor man to whom you refer. The pagan harlots against whom he preached banded together to make charges of rape against the priest. These pots of filth urged their customers to attack him with their fists, while they abused him verbally. He sought refuge in his church, his back against the altar. Was he safe in the sanctuary of God? No!’
Suddenly Becket reared to his feet, his face flaming. ‘At your wink, Lord King, his church was burned down with him inside it. He fled to save his life, but your knights arrested him and brought him to Canterbury, where you prevailed upon some weak reeds to hold him prisoner. After months of penitence, he was purified and given another church. But once more you sought him out and had him arrested and beaten. This time he escaped and I gave him sanctuary.’ He looked from face to face around the hall. ‘You boast of this? Your violence to my clergy?’ With magisterial dignity, he sat.
Henry said nothing. One hundred and twenty men, plus scribes, churls and other servants, slipped glances from the King to the Archbishop and back again. The monarch waited until he sensed the hall was on the verge of nervous screaming.
‘In his new church, your priest, Archbishop, has raped and murdered a child. A little girl. You are to hand over to my justiciars the swine and the ten other criminous clerks you harbour at Canterbury. The clergy will be tried under civil law, as they were in the days of my grandfather!’
Henry stood. The council leaped up. The King sauntered out.
Foliot snatched his sleeve. ‘Is it true he harbours a number of criminal clergy?’
Henry’s demeanour was offhand. ‘We’re not without friends in Canterbury, uncle.’
Three days later, carrier pigeons brought Becket news that the priest to whom he had given sanctuary had confessed to rape and murder. After this confession, he had fled.
The council was over and its members were preparing to leave when a post rider reached Woodstock with a letter for the Archbishop. It announced that the cleric had been arrested on the road to London and was to be tried in a royal court. Conviction was certain, but instead of rope, his punishment would be disembowelment, and the rest. Worse, the King had commanded the new Archdeacon, Geoffrey Riddel, to hand over all other clergy accused of crimes.
Thomas walked back and forth, fingering the rosary of pale pink stones that Theobald had bequeathed him, along with his throne. In the distance a summer storm brewed. Lightning shivered the afternoon air but thunder was a long time coming, although the sky above Woodstock was as grey as charcoal. From a small window in his apartment he could see sheets of rain falling on far-off hills. That sight and the rosary soothed him.
After a while, he ordered an assistant to bring him Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. ‘I recall hearing a phrase at dinner and need to refresh my memory.’
Becket read to himself, Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. His face, pale with rage when he first heard the contents of the letter from Archdiabolos Riddel, resumed its fine colour. To the men gathered around, he recited the saint’s commandment. ‘You see, my learned men, God instructs us in the art of war.’
They exchanged glances. ‘Your Grace …?’
‘The King and I are at war. But heaven is on our side.’
Herbert of Bosham stamped a finely worked shoe on the floor. ‘As Pope Gregory said, “No king can stand against God.”’
In his own apartment, Henry dictated to a scribe his anger with the Archbishop. ‘In the first instance, he gives protection to clerical criminals, thereby allowing them to evade punishment in my courts. In the second instance, he has encouraged and extended inordinate and irregular persecution of the laity for “moral offences”, for which he imposes fines. By these means, he seeks to increase the wealth of the Church and to intimidate my subjects. The Church should uplift the faithful with hope. Instead he fills their minds with fear. He orders priests to give sermons about the imminence of Judgement Day.’ He paused to stare at his scribe. ‘Do you believe the Day of Judgement is near?’ he demanded.
The scribe looked abashed. ‘So many people talk about it …’
‘Allow me to add my voice,’ Henry said. ‘If it was going to happen, it would have happened at the millennium, would it not? So it’s late by one hundred and sixty-three years. The Saviour may be waiting for the second millennium. Judgement Day is the veiled unknown. How can one call it good or bad? The Church declares it terrifying in order to increase her power over gullible believers!’ He inhaled. ‘The Saviour is loving, is He not? Why then dread His return?
‘Where was I? Oh yes. In the third instance, he shows disregard for the ancient customs that govern rela
tions between royal and ecclesiastical authorities. He seeks to increase the might of the Church and diminish the might of the Crown.’ He glanced at his scribe, adding, ‘Under my grandfather, clergy were tried as criminals. They shall be again.’
Richard, lounging in a chair, was concocting in his head puzzles for the King. ‘Sire, Bec’s a Pharisee. He’s surrounded himself with Pharisees.’
‘Thank you, Lout. I’ll bear that in mind.’
Richard added, ‘Pharisees put the Saviour to death. They’re dangerous. They’re clever.’
Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘You, Richard, are clever. Do you have a suggestion or do you merely distract me with chatter?’
‘Sire, I have no suggestion. Yet.’
‘Your cleverness is a whetstone for my thinking,’ the King mused. ‘I face a great unsolved problem in England’s unwritten constitution. We have the existence of two virtually independent powers but with interdependent hierarchies. Friction is inevitable. But the friction is exacerbated by our new Archbishop, whose view of the privileges and immunities of the Church is more extreme than the Pope’s!’
‘Why is this not a problem in France?’
‘The Narrow Sea, Lout! The Narrow Sea. You and I regard it with no more trepidation than if it were a roadway, but Roman cardinals fear to wet their silken shoes. In England, far from Rome and the hand of the Holy Father, the Church has grown however it pleases.’
‘And now it pleases her to challenge the authority of the Crown.’
‘Quite. What do you suggest?’
‘Set a trap for Bec.’
For the first time in days, Henry laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When William’s ship berthed at Rouen, the Bishop of Le Mans, an old family friend, waited on the dock to greet him. Who alerted him to my arrival? William wondered. He had returned so suddenly, Isabel was unaware, and he was filled with excitement at giving her a surprise. Before leaving England, he’d bought her a necklace of pearls.
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