‘Stephen is King, all the same. I myself placed the crown on his brow, and coronation alone confers royal power. Duke Henry may call the realm an hereditary fief, but it has never yet passed by hereditary right. By Henry’s argument his grandfather, from whom he claims, had usurped the right of poor Duke Robert.’
‘I adumbrated that consideration to the Angevin clerk, without putting it as bluntly as your grace puts it to me. He took the point at once, but I imagine he did not pass it on to his lord. We know, all clerks know, that coronation makes the King. But Duke Henry thinks differently. His theory is that the throne is never vacant, because at the moment a King dies his heir becomes King. Nonsense, of course, and contrary to received legal opinion. But that is what he and his mother fought for, and we can’t expect them to abandon the point before the conference opens.’
‘No, the great thing is to stop the war, on almost any terms. But I hope we can get Duke Henry to admit that Stephen has been King. Otherwise every legal decision of the last seventeen years will be invalid, and no man will enjoy a clear title to land.’
‘I hope that admission will be the fruit of this conference. The best compromise we can hope for is recognition of King Stephen with Duke Henry named his heir, and some arrangement to give the young man a share in the administration in the meantime. But we can do no more than bring the two sides together. We have no armed force, and Canterbury will look undignified if we sit helpless while matters are arranged against our wishes. For that reason, among others, I wish to avoid taking part in the conference. There are also arrears of business waiting for me.’
‘As you wish, Master Thomas. I must remain, to put the seal of the Church on the best peace they can arrange. But you will be more useful in Canterbury, doing the work that awaits you. If the Church needs an army the Bishop of Winchester is the man to levy it. You may go when you are ready, but I must repeat my thanks for your skilful negotiation of the preliminaries.’
As Master Thomas of London, archdeacon of Canterbury; withdrew from the presence of his lord, Archbishop Theobald reflected once again on his luck in finding such an efficient lawyer and diplomatist. It was a pity that the son of his old playmate, Gilbert Becket of Thierceville, would never make a holy shepherd of souls. The lad (he was nearly thirty-five, but to the elderly Theobald that seemed young) – the lad was clean-living and chaste, and not in any way scandalous; but it was impossible to ignore that the chief motive in all he did was ambition.
He had a most accurate brain, without a trace of original thinking. Canon Law was a mass of undigested and conflicting precedents, badly in need of codification (though they were making a start on that in Italy); Thomas remembered every decided case, and his own decisions were seldom upset on appeal. He had a good head for figures, so that the revenue of the See came in very regularly, considering the disturbed state of the country. Most important of all, he was a really superb negotiator. Pleading before a tribunal (and he had twice journeyed to Rome to plead before the Curia) his arguments were clear and comprehensive; his language was not eloquent, but lawyers distrust eloquence, and his trick of presenting a weak case almost apologetically made the judges feel that he was treating them fairly and that even his weak arguments should be given their full weight. But it was in compromising cases before they came into court that he really shone; as he had shone in arranging the preliminaries for the conference of Winchester. He always saw his opponent’s point of view, he could give way gracefully without arguing to the bitter end, and he sounded so reasonable that he never gave personal offence.
It was a pity that he lacked the knack of getting on with his fellow-clerks. In the household he seemed definitely unpopular, though Theobald found him pleasant enough. What was it Master Roger called him, Bailhache, the hatchet-carrier? What a curious nickname. There must be a story behind it. It was unfortunate that at Lambeth or Harrow one could not ignore his vulgar birth, since his father’s old friends were always dropping in for a chat. If he had travelled farther from his birthplace he could have passed as a gentleman, for his manners were courteous, though stiff. He was a good man, who prayed regularly and kept the Commandments.
But Theobald, an experienced director of souls, saw that Thomas was obeying the rules, not serving God for the love of God.
He made a very good archdeacon; but archdeacon was about his mark. An official whose chief duty was collecting money due to the See, and judging those sordid matrimonial cases, must be tainted with worldliness. What a pity Roger had picked up the story of that mock disputation in Paris, when the leading lecturers debated together in a tavern after supper. The real object had been to advertise the speakers, who seized the opportunity to be merely facetious; but the question in dispute had been: ‘Can the soul of an archdeacon be saved?’ and the verdict of a hilarious audience had been overwhelmingly in the negative. Roger was always coming back to the topic, though one could see that Thomas found it hard to control an exceptionally fiery temper.
Thomas was in a business sense the best clerk he had ever employed. He had the most responsible task that could be entrusted to a deacon of the Province of Canterbury. But the defects of his personality – his too-evident ambition, his quick temper, his unfortunate faculty for rubbing his colleagues the wrong way – must limit his career in the Church. Impossible to imagine Thomas calling sinners to repentance. Or rather, he could call them well enough, rebuking their faults in a manner to set them squirming and expose them to the ridicule of the conventional. But no one repents because he is told he has broken the rules laid down by God for mankind. Thomas could not convey to weak humanity the love God felt for them, which is the only basis for a lasting reformation; because the love God feels for mankind had never really entered his own soul.
The young man deserved promotion, and the next step must be a Bishopric. Theobald hesitated; he had promoted the last archdeacon, who was his own brother, to the unimportant See of Rochester; Walter was not really competent to run a Diocese, but even the most upright prelate owes something to his kin, and at Rochester, under the eye of Canterbury, he could not get into serious trouble. But with Rochester filled there was nothing of that kind left for Thomas. If he was made Bishop he must be in independent charge of his See. He would quarrel with his chapter, excommunicate laymen whom tact and kindness might have brought to repentance, and end up with half his parishes in sullen discontent. No, he did not deserve to be made Bishop.
Theobald’s thoughts ran on. He himself could give the young man nothing greater than a mitre, and when you came to think of it the office of Bishop, successor of the Apostles and shepherd of his flock, was the highest in the world. But Thomas would appreciate a post where he could give orders and get things done, without spending too much time on spiritual affairs. In fact what he deserved, and what he would like, would be an important post in some secular government. Kings were always stealing Theobald’s most valuable clerks, as King William of Sicily had stolen that excellent Master Thomas Brown; here at last was a competent servant whom he would be glad to recommend to a secular prince.
With the future of Thomas neatly docketed in his mind Theobald turned with a sigh to the more intractable problems of the government of England.
4. The Fair Promise of a New Reign
On the 19th of December 1154 Henry, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Maine and Anjou, was crowned King of England in Westminster Abbey. Henry had peacefully attained the crown for which he had fought since he was old enough to sit a horse, and he owed it chiefly to Theobald’s diplomacy. At the coronation banquet in Westminster Hall the Archbishop sat at his right hand, as was his due; and the two greatest men in England discussed affairs of state.
‘You have kept the peace for me, my lord Archbishop,’ the King said graciously. ‘For the last two months, since Stephen died, you have in fact been King yourself, and you hand me over a realm in remarkably fine order. No rebels, and only the usual brigands. I shall deal with them by pulling down the castles in which the
y store their plunder. I owe you much, and this joyful occasion seems a good time to repay it. Is there anything I can do for the Holy Church? Any wrong that needs redressing?’
‘We want nothing, my lord, except peace and good order,’ Theobald answered. ‘Since Duke William conquered this realm there have been times when the Church was oppressed, and in particular the law of the Conqueror, forbidding Bishops to go oversea without the King’s permission, was a constant source of friction. You may recall that even I was forced to quarrel with King Stephen on the subject. But King Stephen gave way, and now the Church enjoys complete liberty. Maintain the good customs you find in this realm, and especially the good customs introduced by King Stephen, and all will be well.’
King Henry frowned at this plain speaking. It was against all right that Count Stephen of Blois, the usurper against whom he and his mother had battled for eighteen years, should be recognized as lawful King of England. His acts should be annulled, and King Henry II should be written in the lawbooks as immediate successor of his grandfather Henry I. But at Winchester he had compromised, yielding this point in return for a peaceful succession; in the rolls he would appear as heir to King Stephen, bound by the customs of that feckless ruler – until he could persuade the magnates to alter them. It was the price he had paid for the support of the Church; once again the Archbishop was making this clear.
The coronation banquet went on and on. All the magnates of England were seated at long tables under the lofty roof of the Hall, the largest and most famous secular building of modern times; they must be served without unseemly haste, and they should be given plenty of time to gossip among themselves, for this meeting was a parliament as well as a feast. King Henry had sat down fasting, since communion was part of the ritual of coronation; and in consequence he was hungry as well as bored. It was ironical that he should go hungry at the most splendid banquet of his reign; but this was an occasion for show, when the sergeant-cook might let himself go in creating elaborate fantasies of almond paste and sugar. Humble spectators in the doorway cheered to see a pasty from which, when it was opened, living doves fluttered out; but Henry reflected gloomily that a cook who was encouraged to put back all the plumage on a roast peacock, and add sugar eyes to the boar’s head, always forgot to provide a plain everyday joint that would make a square meal for a hungry man. If he pushed down any more ginger or pistachio nuts his stomach would revolt, and he had not found a decent haunch of venison within reach of his knife.
He felt his anger rising, anger at these smug pudding-faced English magnates who had changed sides in the civil war until it made you dizzy to watch them, who had lain dry in warm castles while he camped by the flooded Avon, who had written friendly noncommittal letters while his mother rode for her life in a man’s saddle or slid down a rope to escape on foot through the snow. They needed a master to subdue their pride, and by God he would be that master if he had to live and die in his mail.
But this feast was no occasion for a display of the famous Angevin rage. (That was another of his crosses. No one ever restrained him. His intimates egged him on to greater and more extravagant manifestations of bad temper so that they could cap the stories of others, describing what the famous Duke Henry, the Devil’s offspring, was really like at home.) If he continued to think about these tail-wearing double-dealing English he would say something to earn him powerful enemies; he wrenched his mind back to the present.
The angry self-pity in his soul coloured even his conversation with the Archbishop. ‘My lord,’ he said with a formal smile, to show he was opening a new topic, ‘you must be my fellow-governor in this realm, for I am singularly without colleagues in my own family. My mother has willingly resigned her claims into my hands, and it would be unwise to allow her to meddle in public affairs. She has a remarkable facility in getting herself disliked, especially by the English. As for my wife, she is quite untrustworthy. She sees everything from the point of view of Aquitaine, and would reduce the rest of Christendom to a desert if she thought that would benefit the burgesses of Bordeaux. And for various other reasons I am never sure she is honestly on my side.’
‘That is his own fault,’ thought Theobald to himself. ‘He knew consanguinity was only an excuse for the annulment. He married a trollop for her lands. Of course he fears the whole world, except himself, knows him a cuckold. Serve him right for marrying for money.’ He smiled, to encourage the King to continue.
‘My brothers are no help to me,’ the complaining voice went on. ‘My first task when I am secure in England must be to expel my brother Geoffrey from Maine, which he unjustly detains. My brother William may help Geoffrey or he may help me, but more likely he will try to betray us both. My house is descended from the Devil, and I would be foolish to look to my kin for help. In England the most famous statesman is the Bishop of Winchester; but he is the brother of the late usurper, and my followers would be angry if I sought his counsel. Of course I can’t trust any lay magnate. Some of them fought for my cause, but more because they wanted to rebel against the King in London than because they recognized the lawfulness of my claim. I need an intelligent colleague, someone I can trust. He will be well rewarded, but he will have a great deal of work. Can you suggest a clerk, a good man of business, honest enough to serve me before himself?’
‘I hope my Province will never lack intelligent and honest clerks,’ answered Theobald, a little huffily. ‘I can call to mind several at this very moment; the Bishops of Hereford and Chichester, for example, or Master John of Salisbury. But they are already busy on important work, the care of immortal souls; which matters more than whether Henry or Louis rules the Vexin. I am sorry to be so blunt with you, but the work of the Church must come first.’
‘I don’t want a Bishop. In fact I don’t want a holy clerk. Bishops and holy clerks never serve a temporal ruler with their whole hearts. I want an ordinary intelligent man of business, who happens to be a clerk. Is there one you can suggest?’
The Archbishop was struck with a happy thought. This was the very opening for young Master Thomas of London. The young man deserved promotion, after his excellent work as archdeacon of Canterbury. A great post at the King’s court would be splendid promotion for the son of a burgess of Cheapside, but he had the manners of a gentleman and would not jar on the high-born nobles round him. It was just the field for his talents, a secular career where his blameless life would reflect lustre on the Archbishop who had brought him forward, and his lack of spiritual fervour would be no stumbling-block to the laity who looked to him for example.
‘I have in mind a suitable clerk,’ he said slowly. ‘I shall present him to you in a day or two, for he is now in Canterbury. He is a competent official, but no great loss to the Church. His birth is humble, I am afraid, but his manners will pass in any company. They tell me, for example, that he knows a lot about hawking. Master Thomas, called of London, or of Cheapside, or Becket.’
When Thomas heard that he was to see the King to consider the offer of an important appointment his first thought was of the clothes he should wear. He hoped this preoccupation with his appearance was not caused by vanity, a branch of the mortal sin of pride. He knew in his heart that he was not really proud. But he was abnormally self-conscious, always aware of how he would look to a casual bystander; and if he was well-dressed he found it easier to talk well and make a good impression.
In the old days, in Paris or working for the merchants of London, he had kept himself neat and clean, but he had never minded an undistinguished shabbiness. The need of splendid dress to bolster up his self-esteem was the result of perpetual teasing from Roger de Pont I’Eveque. He was never allowed to forget the unlucky impulse that had brought him to the Archbishop’s manor with a hatchet in his hand; he was ‘Bailhache’, an eccentric of low birth, who might at any moment break out into further examples of unconventional behaviour; in fact, as far as Roger could sway opinion, he was a joke.
He found the best way to deal with these gibes without losi
ng his temper was to put on an extra layer of dignity. His personal appearance was remarkable, even without the long archdeacon’s gown and hood of special French cut which was the mark of a scholar from Paris. He was nearer seven than six feet tall, very thin and very straight. He carried his head high, with his big curved nose jutting forward. It was a red nose, unfair to a moderate drinker; but now that he could not plan his own meals, but must eat what was set before him at his lord’s table, there was nearly always a dull pain under his girdle. The same cause gave him very white cheeks, from which snapping, hot-tempered eyes stared crossly. His large hands were usually purple, and his feet never felt warm. In fact he very seldom felt warm anywhere while he was in England, though sometimes he wore one gown over another until he carried twice the weight of clothing of a normal man; the resulting bulky waist looked very odd on his tall ungainly figure.
But though his body had its weaknesses, in essentials it was well provided. His fingers were never too cold to hold a pen, his eyes could pick out a hasty scrawl even in a bad light, and his ears were alert to the slightest sound. He could name vintages from unmarked flagons quicker than any other clerk of the household; though an acute sense of taste was a handicap, for this Archbishop was too holy to keep a good cook. He sat his horse like a knight, and enjoyed long journeys; whenever he had the chance he chose a destrier for his riding, in place of the expensive clerkly mules favoured by his companions.
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