When his tall, thin, aloof figure was dressed in fine black cloth relieved by the scarlet hood of a Master of Paris he knew he looked imposing. Then he could smile indulgently even at Roger’s gibes.
Roger was the only member of the household who disliked him, but he had no close friends. On the whole he was pleased to see the other clerks, but he would not have felt very sad if he knew he would never meet them again. Their talk was so full of unprofitable speculation, on how the human race would have been continued if Eve had refused the apple, or whether savages who lived solitary without a lord could be said to possess private property, that a busy archdeacon sometimes became impatient.
He had found the niche that fitted him. Canon Law was at last being codified, and soon a Church tribunal would be able to judge every case concerning marriage, or testaments, or the legitimacy of infants, untroubled by local custom, whether the parties came from Scotland or Sicily, or anywhere else in the Patriarchate of the West. In the archdeacon’s court he applied Canon Law, strictly and without favour; that was his duty as a judge of first instance; and since from his court appeals could be taken to the Archbishop, and from him to Rome, he need never temper his justice with mercy. Proceedings in his court were expensive, since the fees of the litigants must keep all the unsalaried officials; but he was so obviously honest that he had never been offered a bribe. As regards his work he was completely happy. It had to be done, it was worth doing, and he did it well. He did not seek promotion.
But he could not remain archdeacon all his life; the post was normally the first step to a Bishopric. He knew that Archbishop Theobald considered him unworthy of a mitre, but if he stayed where he was while other clerks became Bishops the passing over would in time look like disgrace. A place in the secular royal service offered a convenient way out; it was the fashion in intellectual circles to despise clerks who deserted the logic of Canon Law for the haphazard mixture of precedent and magic which ruled the secular courts; but even secular courts would be the better for a trained legal intelligence to preside over them. If the King offered him a post which an archdeacon might accept with honour, he would enter his service.
In the end he set out for the fateful interview wearing his best deacon’s gown and his red hood; his costume was completed by a red girdle and red shoes, in breach of the Canon forbidding clerks to wear bright colours. That added to his self-confidence, as showing that the archdeacon of Canterbury was a little above the law, though not very much. He rode to the Tower on a showy destrier, with an armed sergeant of the Canterbury mesnie to hold it when he dismounted; a soft-paced Spanish mule was the smartest mount for a rich clerk, but he had been taught to ride like a gentleman, and he might as well display the accomplishment.
He was told that the King awaited him on the roof, a pleasant retreat on a fine day. As he climbed the spiral stair he wondered whether this might be a test of his wind and energy, for the King could mark how long he took over the ascent. But he dismissed the idea as too subtle; he must not fall into the habit of seeing everywhere the deviousness of Master Roger.
Then he was out on the high windy platform, with London and the river and the flats of Essex far below him. This had once been the eyrie of that foe of burgesses, Count Geoffrey de Mandeville; now, Thomas of Cheapside was there by invitation while Count Geoffrey’s unburied and excommunicate bones rotted in some ditch of the fenland. But where was the King? Could he be that squat shabby figure, energetically clearing a blocked gutter with his bare hands?
The young man turned and scrambled to his feet. He was nearly as broad as he was long, with arms as big as thighs bulging the sleeves of his tunic. His red hair and grey eyes gave him an Enghsh look, and his hands, now black with stinking leafmould, were as calloused and rough as those of any peasant. But he looked Thomas up and down with such certainty of his own superiority that he was evidently a great lord. As Thomas bent his knee he spoke quickly, the French words tumbling out in a high excitable voice.
‘Are you the clerk the Archbishop spoke of? Master Thomas, isn’t it? Do you know other things besides Canon Law? What happens when a gutter is blocked by rotting leaves, so that rain lies on the roof?’
‘Why, water collects in hollows, and presently seeps through a worn part of the lead. Then I suppose the roofbeams rot, and in the end the whole roof falls in.’
‘And the King has lost a castle. So the King himself must clean gutters, if he wants to be sure they run free.’
He waved his filthy hands expressively.
‘I see, my lord. And you wish me to resign the archdeaconry of Canterbury to help you to clear drains?’ Thomas was always quick to catch the tone of a conversation. This high-spirited boy of twenty-one was in the mood for chaff.
‘I want someone to help me clear drains, and pull down nests of brigands, and hold off the French, and keep the peace, and count my money, and give each man his due and no more. Would you care to do that?’
‘Certainly. They are all things that must be done. Let us begin with this gutter. Do you poke with that bit of stick while I shovel the leaves.’
The gutter ended in a most amusing gargoyle, a face under a mail coif bellowing boundless rapacity through its open mouth; presumably the mason who carved it had remembered Count Geoffrey de Mandeville. Getting it clear was an absorbing task, and only when daylight showed through the throat did Thomas notice that his fine black gown was stained, and his red girdle foul and stinking. The enthusiasm of this boy was catching; he had not felt so carefree since his student days in Paris.
The King chuckled as a lump of mud landed by the sentry in the bailey far below. ‘That’s done,’ he said. ‘What’s next for us? If you are to be chancellor you ought to come and look at the seal.’
‘What, my lord?’ gasped Thomas, ‘your chancellor? Do you know I am the son of a burgess, a drysalter in Cheapside? I hold no land, and I have served only in the family of the Archbishop.’
‘I know a lot about you, Master Thomas. All the gossip in the world comes to a King’s court. For example, I know that your father took oath to my mother many years ago, and preserved his loyalty when London turned against her. I know that you took thought to destroy her seal lest it fall into the hands of her enemies. I know you were faithful to Anjou when those beastly burgesses followed Count Stephen, and left the service of that scoundrel Osbert in disgust at his treachery.’
‘Forgive me, my lord, but he was King Stephen. Your seal proves as much, on the Treaty of Winchester. For nearly twenty years judgements were given in his name, and there will be anarchy in England if his acts are void.’
‘So you also say that. But then you are a lawyer. I know his judgements must stand, but I can never think of him as King. However, that doesn’t matter. I thought from your record you would make a good chancellor, and now we are met I like the look of you. Come down and see the condition of my archives. I need a chancellor even more than I need a clean shirt.’
‘Willingly, my lord. But there is something comes first. I am a lawyer, remember. My lord, will you please stand still.’
As King Henry paused in his darting to and fro Thomas dropped to both knees, stretching out his joined hands. The boy stood still and grave, holding the clasped hands between his own.
‘I swear to be the man of Henry, King of England, in field and court, as long as my life shall last; saving only the rights of God and His Church.’ The words rang out with the solemnity a trained orator puts into any formal statement.
‘Good. You are my man and I am your lord. I don’t like that last clause, but I know you clerks always put it in. Well, will you come at last and look at our seal.’
5. Thomas the Chancellor
By the first summer of the new reign the King and his court were back in Westminster, after that famous winter circuit which brought the Angevin peace to every corner of the realm. Travelling had been unpleasant, and both warriors and clerks found it hard to keep up with their new master, who rode from dawn far into the night,
galloping over unknown tracks from castle to abbey to walled town, halting wherever he saw a closed gate to demand by what right the lord had shut it. A guarded gate implied the right to wage war, and young Henry was determined that in England no one should wage war save himself, if he had to ride day and night until he had covered the whole land. No other King had ridden as he rode, not even the Conqueror. England had a new master.
Everyone was glad of the change, even the great magnates of the north who had coined their own money without reference to Stephen or the Empress. After nineteen years of self-help it was a pleasant experience to see the hedge keep the cow and the latch keep the door. The whole realm was eager to obey.
On the morrow of Pentecost 1166 Thomas the Chancellor was dressed by sunrise, ready for a long day in his office. Yesterday had been a holiday for the solemn crownwearing, and the court was still crowded with visiting magnates; but feasting had continued late, and the early Mass was poorly attended. Only the clerks of the court, and a few clerkly visitors, stood in the tent while the chaplain muttered through his Collects; just before the Canon, at the latest moment which allowed him to say he was hearing Mass, the King pushed his way in. He was dressed for hunting, and as usual fiddled with a bit of leather between his fingers, this time a broken spur-strap. With any luck he would ride back to Westminster after the chase, though no one could be certain. At noon, or even at vespers, the whole court might learn that they were to meet the King at some hall forty miles away. Henry of Anjou seldom slept twice in the same bed.
As the Mass ended the King strode out, without a word even for his close friend the Chancellor. The officials gathered by the door of the tent for the customary meeting, known to the irreverent as morning prayers.
Within a stone’s-throw loomed the great bulk of Westminster Abbey. It seemed rather silly to erect the chapel-tent so near a great church. But in all busy organizations it is easier to follow routine than to change it; and in fact there were few permanent buildings anywhere in his dominions which could house all the various branches of Henry’s court. Because there was plenty of room for tents the village of Westminster was a more convenient London headquarters than the cramped fortress of the Tower.
After Mass the heads of departments exchanged views and gossip, and planned the division of their labours. There were the Barons of the Exchequer, about to sit in the Tower; but no one had much to say to them; they were hidebound bureaucrats, and everyone conspired to keep as much as possible of the King’s revenue out of the clutches of their slow machinery. There were the Judges, about to sit in Westminster Hall, to decide an important suit concerning land; they must check with their colleagues to be sure that neither party owed money to the King; if one did the land would be kept in the King’s hand until the debt was satisfied. The Keeper of the Wardrobe must arrange with clerks from the Treasury at Winchester about safe custody for the robes and jewels the King had worn yesterday. A junior but confidential clerk of the Wardrobe whispered quietly to a clerk of the Chancery about a small fief which must be granted to a certain country knight, the father of a handsome daughter; but the Chancery must not make the mistake they made when they drew up the grant for Madam Alice; charters are public documents, and tongues would wag. There must be no mention of the service rendered in return.
Messengers hovered behind the meeting, waiting to be told the office which would receive their reports. The King’s court was always being remodelled, as new secretariats and bureaux broke off from the household; no messenger who had been on a long journey could be certain of finding the organization unchanged on his return.
In another group were the servants of the great officers of state. The Justiciar and the Chamberlain and the Constable could not be expected to appear at these dawn Masses, but their clerks must keep in touch with the Wardrobe and the Marshalsea, or the courtiers might go hungry. This was the only time when responsible officials from every department could meet and talk together.
The centre and focus of these groups was the Chancellor. He stood, chatting easily, with a polite smile on his lips and a courteous inclination of his immensely tall figure, as one worried clerk after another came up for a private word in his ear. He alone in the clerkly gathering looked like a layman. Thomas was already known for the splendour of his dress. Today he wore a long red tunic embroidered with the golden leopards of Anjou; its sleeves fell to his knees. His hood also was red, and his boots of soft red Spanish leather; but the silk shirt which appeared only on his forearms was yellow to match the leopards on his tunic. Under his red mantle peeped a sword whose hilt was inlaid with silver and bound with gold wire. From top to toe he was scarlet and gold.
When Treasury, Judges and Chancellor had agreed that a lord who held of the Count of Toulouse, even though he was a most rebellious vassal, could not claim the dower-lands of his English-born mother, the meeting dispersed. Thomas walked across Palace Yard to the house by the river which had been hired as a temporary Chancery.
It crossed his mind that it would have looked more fitting if he had ridden even this short distance. But if the second greatest man in England walked to his office perhaps that showed a secure greatness which took no heed of public opinion. Besides, he could not ride in this long tunic and mantle, and changing his clothes would be a nuisance. All the same, that was a promising idea; suppose a page waited with his riding-clothes outside the chapel, and he changed during the usual morning discussion? That would show the world that Thomas the Chancellor was accustomed to being waited on.
It would impress the vulgar, but perhaps the great who were now his equals would laugh at this fresh evidence of the airs he gave himself. The King, and Richard de Lucy the Justiciar, both walked short distances if there was need. He saw that a great man who had been great all his life might frequently be irked by the conventions of state. One of the attractions of warfare was that on campaign even Kings might lead the simple life. Even now, in peacetime, it was hard to persuade young Henry to dress in a manner befitting his rank. It was difficult to strike exactly the right note. Especially while he was so near London, where hundreds of burgesses could remember a hungry and unemployed clerk of Cheapside, he must keep the state required by his position. But those born to grandeur were always eager to cast it aside; when he was in Normandy, where his origins were unknown, he would try the effect of careless simplicity.
He was never for a moment free of this anxiety about his public behaviour, for never for a moment could he forget that he was now the second magnate of the realm, and most emphatically not born to the position. His training at Pevensey had taught him how to converse gracefully with noble knights and ladies, and in the same school he had learned the skill in falconry and the technical vocabulary of hunting which enabled him to join without awkwardness in the amusements of the great. But once he had been very poor, and he was uncertain how a rich man should behave.
When in doubt he chose grandeur. No magnate would ever forget his humble origin, but display would impress the populace. All through the day he was consciously the Chancellor, the busy statesman who was also a deacon, splendid without debauchery. In his youth he had seen a great household at close quarters, and his own household was luxurious and dignified; he chose the wine for his table himself, after careful tasting, and it gave him enormous pleasure to see knights of high birth drinking the best Bordeaux at his expense, while he, the master who was above such indulgence, sipped boiled water flavoured with lime-blossom. He was served by noble pages, who presented the cup on bended knee; and if they did it awkwardly they were sent home, for many great families were eager to place a son in the household of the Chancellor, the seat of power that was also a centre of courtesy and good manners.
He could say with truth that his household gave any noble youth a sound training. It was magnificent, but it was also decent and clean-living. Ladies of sufficient dignity were welcome at his table, and he could converse with them courteously, mingling a touch of the ardour of Provence with his stately north-
French speech. But his courtesy never went further than conventional praise of the lady’s beauty, and that in public; unlike most powerful clerks in comparable positions, he had not taken a mistress. When he received the order of subdeacon, which bound a clerk to celibacy, he had added a private vow of chastity from devotion to Our Lady and in memory of his mother. His body obeyed his will, and at the age of thirty-six he was still a virgin. Chastity and sobriety reigned in his hall.
Now, as he walked through Palace Yard, he was satisfied with the impression he made on the numerous onlookers. Here was the great Chancellor, whom the King delighted to honour. He filled his high position worthily, but he could not be accused of profusion or unseemly pride.
At the Chancery a pile of work awaited him. While he sat at the head of a trestle table clerks on either hand read aloud despatches from France or the north, applications to buy a royal writ as the opening of a lawsuit, begging-letters from scholars seeking benefices, stiff notes from Bishops or archdeacons who accused the King’s Judges of encroaching on their jurisdiction. Meanwhile other clerks engrossed the minutes of decisions taken in the royal council: grants of land, marriages of royal wards, every decision of the King which must be put on record in a manner binding on posterity. At the far end of the table stood the Great Seal, its silver faces held in the olive-wood screw-press. Beside it the chafe-wax tended his brazier and his copper box of sweetscented green beeswax. Thomas enjoyed the ceremony of affixing the heavy green diploma, gazing with affectionate and protective pride at the pompous little effigies on either side: Henry, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Maine, riding fiercely in mail and brandishing a drawn sword, or sitting, full face and a little pop-eyed, on his royal throne. The seal reminded him of the occasion when he had supervised the destruction of the seal of the uncrowned Lady of England, the deed that had brought him the favour of the Angevins. It also reminded him of the dear, lovable, rather absurd boy it depicted.
God and My Right Page 12
