Henry enjoyed a neat legal quibble, but only if it went in his favour. Now he brushed aside the objection. ‘Don’t mention it again, Gilbert, though you were right to warn me. The Archbishop doesn’t know, nor the other suitors of the court. John Marshal is a rogue, and I don’t care whether he gets justice or not; but the Archbishop thought he was lawfully summoned, and he defiantly disregarded the summons. This case has nothing to do with the rightful ownership of the manor of Pagenham.’
Which was strictly true, as Henry could congratulate himself during the short wait that followed. He was doing well, abiding by the letter of the law and controlling his temper. Soon Thomas would appear, and sentence would be passed.
When at last the defendant arrived, in the full state of an Archbishop with his Metropolitan cross borne before him, Henry looked with interest to see if his old friend seemed ready to give in. Thomas was certainly very lined and harried-looking, but he appeared actually to have put on weight. Then Henry remembered how he used to complain of the cold, especially when he was nervous. Thomas was wearing an extra tunic under his cope; that was a good sign, proving that he was weakening.
However, the great thing was to observe the forms of law. As soon as the case was opened Thomas threw himself on the mercy of the court, the only thing he could do since he had no answer to the charge. The King withdrew to allow the suitors to reach their verdict without royal pressure. The Archbishop also asked permission to withdraw, and this was granted provided he did not leave the castle.
The castle of Northampton possessed the rare luxury of two halls and two solars. The court was assembled in the great hall on the lower floor, and the Archbishop withdrew to the adjoining solar; the King climbed the winding turret stair to the solar above. The suitors used the upper hall for informal discussion, which made it easy for Henry to know how their private discussion was going.
At the outset the clerks among the magnates sought to dodge their responsibilities; but Henry had expected nothing better of them, and his temper remained unruffled. The Bishops and Abbots pleaded that they had in the past sworn obedience to Canterbury, and every true knight agreed that it would be wrong for vassals to sit in judgment on their lord. The clergy then left the private discussion, and most of them returned to gossip in the lower hall; but Henry was disturbed to hear that a few had joined the Archbishop in his solar, as though to demonstrate that they supported him.
Among the lay magnates opinion was quick to declare itself. In the shifting groups who discussed their verdict informally, to make sure that the sentence of the Justiciar would embody the sentiments of the whole court, Thomas had few friends. The lord Richer de I’Aigle was surprised to find the magnates of England so hostile to their Archbishop. The lord Richer had recently returned from pilgrimage to Outremer, and he found that politics had moved swiftly in his absence. Since he was more than sixty years old, and too deaf to follow casual conversation, he manoeuvred his old friend and neighbour, Reginald de Braoze, into a window-seat. He tried to persuade him that Thomas must have a case; but Braoze was not to be persuaded.
‘You are out of touch, my dear Richer,’ he said soothingly, speaking clearly into the old man’s ear. ‘This Thomas was a good knight while he was Chancellor, and when he became Archbishop we all looked for peace between King and Church. But since that Parliament at Clarendon last winter, when you were oversea, he has changed greatly for the worse. For one thing we all thought he was as fearless as Roland, yet when the King threatened him he agreed to everything that was demanded. I suppose he was afraid of the mutilation the King’s father inflicted on the unlucky Bishop of Seez. You remember the old story?’
‘I remember it, and we who serve Anjou would do well to be ashamed of it. Count Geoffrey gelded the Bishop and all his chapter, for electing to the See without his permission. It’s not a precedent to be proud of, but it seems to be in everyone’s mind. You are the third to remind me of it today. But we in England are more faithful to the Church than those Angevin robber-barons. If the King behaves like his father there will be diffidations. I say that in public, and you may repeat it if you wish.’
‘I fear the King no more than you. If I wish to diffidate in a worthy cause I shall do it, and hold Bramber by my own power. But I won’t risk my fiefs to help a coward, who swore to what he thought wrong because he feared the King’s vengeance.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ cried old Richer in great indignation. ‘You met Thomas at Pevensey, and you ought to remember him. He has never been afraid of anything or anyone, in all his life.’
‘Then why did he swear to the Customs of Clarendon?’
‘There must be a secret reason. Perhaps he had orders from the Pope. Come to think of it, that’s very likely. Thomas would defy the whole world for what he thought was right, but in France they say Pope Alexander will swallow anything to keep the support of the King of England.’
‘That’s a plausible explanation of a puzzling business. As you say, Thomas is not the man to yield from fear, and I was surprised when he collapsed. But that’s not all he’s done since you have been away. Throughout the summer he behaved very oddly.’
‘What’s he done? I know he’s a good knight, for I trained him.’
‘For one thing, he swore not to go oversea without the King’s permission. The Pope may have ordered him to swear, but he made the promise and he should have kept it. Instead, as soon as he got back to Canterbury, he arranged secretly for the pirates of Romney to ferry him to France.’
‘If his oath had been extorted by force it did not bind him.’
‘Perhaps. But when you come to think of it, how many oaths are given quite freely, without any fear of the consequences of refusal? Yet we expect our vassals to keep them. And if he was going to break his oath, he should have been more energetic in his perjury. He started off in a little fishing-boat, thus showing the world that he did not keep his promises. Then the weather turned nasty, and he allowed his pirates to put back to Romney. The King heard he had left, and sent knights to seize his chattels. At Canterbury they found him sitting alone in his hall, wet through and sneezing his head off. That’s not the behaviour of a hero of romance. If he was defying the King he should have defied the waves also.’
‘I see. You make it look black for him. First he is afraid to stand up for the rights of the Church. Then he tries to break his promise and can’t even carry that off. No wonder most of the magnates are eager to condemn him. At least his brother-clerks must be glad he has given in, avoiding any danger of persecution.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ said Reginald with a knowing smile. ‘The other Bishops wanted to resist, to the point of martyrdom; though since Thomas let them down some of them have come to see that the King is the leader for a wise man to follow. The Bishop of London has become King Henry’s advocate among the clergy.’
‘So my poor Thomas is condemned by both sides! The King thinks him a rebel and the Bishops think him a coward. That only makes me more certain that the Pope gave him secret orders. One thing he would never do is yield to save his skin.’
Richer fetched a deep sigh, contemplating the downfall of the young page whose rise had been so gratifying to his pride. Then another thought struck him.
‘We know Thomas has declined to answer in his lord’s court, and for that he must be condemned,’ he said slowly. ‘Why did the King summon all his tenants to pass a sentence that should be merely a form?’
Reginald shrugged his shoulders, and made to leave the window. Then he saw a knight standing in the crowd, and beckoned him over to explain. ‘I don’t understand high policy,’ he said. ‘Once things go beyond the King of England I keep quiet and remember only my sworn homage. It’s something to do with an appeal to the Holy See. The Prior of the Temple here is the best man to explain it.’
The Prior was glad to greet a returned Crusader, and pleased to show off his knowledge of foreign affairs.
‘We Templars are genuinely neutral,’ he said earnestly. ‘Since w
e owe no obedience to the Archbishop I can remain a member of the court; yet the obedience we owe the King is highly qualified. This is how things stand. In England the Archbishop has no support worth speaking of, but in Christendom at large a great many people blame King Henry; and the King has made all Christendom a party to the dispute, when he might have kept it a domestic matter. He forbade appeals to Rome without his consent, and got all the Bishops to agree to this invasion of their rights. Then, presumably because without Thomas he has no competent lawyer to advise him, he went and laid his customs before the Curia, seeking papal approval. In other words, he himself made the very appeal he had forbidden to all the clerks of his realm.’
‘So that’s it,’ said Reginald. ‘I wondered where the Pope came into it.’
‘The King brought him in, and he must be cursing his impulsive action. Of course Henry is vain, and rightly proud of his good rule in England (he does rule well, you know). He wanted the Pope to tell him what a fine fellow he is, since the King of France is putting it about that he is a savage persecutor of the Church. Now he will have to submit to the Pope’s commands, or declare himself a schismatic. The Emperor can rule in opposition to the Holy See, but if King Henry tries it he will go the way of King Stephen.’
The Templar swaggered off, pleased to display his independence before these Sussex landholders. As local representative of an international order, and at the same time leader of a powerful mesnie, he could not easily be harmed by any power in the world.
‘What a muddle!’ said Richer unhappily. ‘If the King quarrels with the Pope I suppose I must support the Church. To put it on the lowest level, I have been a Christian since I lay in my cradle, but I was a grown man and a knight before I swore homage to Henry. Yet I wish I could avoid taking a side.’
However, in this clear case of defiance the lay magnates could reach only one verdict. The Archbishop was in the King’s mercy, and the only question to be discussed was the appropriate penalty. It might have been perpetual imprisonment, or death; but after a short discussion they fixed on a merciful sentence, forfeiture of all personal chattels. The King could not disapprove, though to him it seemed a light punishment. Nothing remained but for the spokesman of the court to apprise the culprit of its findings.
Here came a check. The Justiciar refused to deliver the message, explaining frankly that he feared excommunication; that set off all the other magnates, who began to invent frivolous excuses. Henry grew angry, until he recalled that the Bishops, who had avoided their duty as his councillors, could not be blamed for the sentence. Bishop Henry of Winchester undertook the unpleasant task, and accomplished it without trouble.
‘So now he has no chattels,’ Henry murmured with glee. ‘Not a hawk, not a horse, not even a plate for his dinner; if I enforce my full rights, as believe me I shall. We’ll see Thomas lose his dignity at last. By the way,’ he added to the Bishop of Winchester, ‘we mustn’t let him return to Canterbury. He might bury his jewels before my sheriff can take over. Let him stay here under guard until he has been stripped of everything.’
Bishop Henry had listened politely. Now he drew himself up to his full height (it was most unfair that the usurper’s brother should look like Charlemagne in a romance, while the true heir of England was short and stout, covered with red blotches and red hairs). ‘You need not hold the Archbishop under guard. I offer the whole property of the See of Winchester, the richest See in England, and the plate I inherited from my father the Count of Blois, as surety that my lord the Archbishop will pay his amercement. If you, my lord, should not think the wealth of Winchester sufficient, every Bishop of the Province of Canterbury will join me as surety.’
‘Do all the suffragans of Canterbury stand by the faithless Archbishop against their true lord the King?’ asked Henry, more to gain time than for any more important reason. Looked at in cold blood, this offer ought to help his Treasury; for he was certain to find an excuse to make Winchester pay heavily after he had taken all the movables of Canterbury. But this nobly born Bishop made the King of England look, and feel, like a boor; that was a genuine grievance, which would excuse a little properly controlled bout of rage.
‘Not quite all,’ Bishop Henry answered gravely, his voice completely neutral. ‘The Bishop of London declines to join with his brethren. He takes the view, which is tenable, that as tenant for life only of the property of the Church in the Diocese of London he is not justified in staking it all on the honesty of one man, even though that man is his lord and Metropolitan.’
The Bishop of Winchester was determined to conceal the disgust he felt at Foliot’s petty malignity; because the See of London was the equal of Winchester, and it was not for him to condemn his peer as though he were a subordinate. But the excuse he had invented gave Henry an idea, and the news that he had at least one supporter among the Bishops encouraged him to allow free rein to his anger.
‘You speak of the honesty of one man,’ he spluttered, while flecks of foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. ‘What can you know of the honesty of Thomas of Canterbury, Tom of Cheapside, Tom Becket the burgess? I know him, since he was my Chancellor, and I do not trust his honesty. Thousands of my pounds, millions of my silver pennies, have passed through his hands, and he has never shown me a quittance. Now I am poor and he is rich. He shall not leave this castle until he has rendered account for every penny he scattered as my Chancellor.’
The Bishop of Winchester looked even more dignified than before.
‘My lord the Archbishop was summoned here to answer in the cause of John the Marshal,’ he replied stiffly. ‘It is unlikely that he has brought his accounts for the last nine years, if indeed they are still in his possession and not in your Chancery. Your Council will think it unreasonable that he should answer today, unprepared.’
Henry snatched at his self-control. He longed to luxuriate in a noisy fit of rage, to roll on the floor and scream until someone told him he might have his way in everything. But when the greatest magnate in England said to his face that his Council would think a certain course of action unreasonable he could not ignore the danger-signal. He must go carefully, keeping Thomas on the wrong side of the law; and leaving the question of his accounts as an unsettled threat for the future.
For he knew, and hugged the private knowledge to himself, that Thomas could not render convincing accounts. During the War of Toulouse he had mixed up his sources of income, paying knights from the endowments of his benefices, and repairing the chapel in Hastings castle out of his wage as Chancellor. The money had produced seven hundred knights for the King’s service, and probably on balance the Church had been the loser; but Thomas would never be able to demonstrate his honesty.
In the meantime the Council must be humoured. It would be rash to permit Thomas to return to Canterbury, because there he might after all turn up some record showing where his money had gone; or more likely the monks of Christ Church would fabricate a convincing balance-sheet, as they had often fabricated new versions of lost title-deeds. But he could be given a short respite to prepare his answer.
Therefore the King ruled that the Archbishop might withdraw, on condition he came to court tomorrow with a summary of his accounts. Just to make everything more unpleasant he added that by the ancient customs of the realm a defendant who left the King’s court with a charge unanswered should give substantial bail for his reappearance; the lands of Canterbury might not be alienated for such a purpose, and Thomas had been deprived of his chattels. So he might have been in an awkward position. But the Bishop of Winchester once more intervened to make the King look both foolish and greedy; he offered bail in his own bond for two thousand marks.
On Friday the 9th of October the court reassembled, and remained in session all day. But by nightfall the magnates complained that they were kept hanging about this castle merely to provide an audience for the King’s rage. For the question of the Archbishop’s finances had got no further. This time Reginald de Braoze sought out Richer de l’Aigle to
listen to his grumbles.
‘Here we are,’ he said, as they leant together against the wall of the crowded upper hall, ‘here we are, just after harvest, when the stubble at Bramber is full of partridges. We have been edified by hearing the King accuse the Archbishop of Canterbury of embezzlement, a rare occurrence that may be worth telling to our grandchildren. Otherwise nothing has been done. It’s a charge that can never be proved, and never refuted. Why should the Chancellor keep accounts? If the King doesn’t trust him he should get another Chancellor. Could you render account of the money you spent on your journey to Outremer, though your neighbours contributed to the cost of the pilgrimage?’
‘I remember your generous contribution, my dear Reginald. You can be sure it was spent on my journey, for I was penniless when I got back to Pevensey. All the same, I wish Thomas had attempted to answer the charge. It seemed to me mere English levity to reply that the King himself didn’t know where his money went.’
‘I thought it rather amusing. It’s funny to think that Thomas was drawing the revenue of two great Honours at the King’s pleasure while the King sought to ruin him. Eye and Berkhamstead, they are rich baronies, yet the King never missed them. Next time he asks us for another tax we can tell him to look again at his records and see if he isn’t really quite well off after all.’
God and My Right Page 25
