God and My Right

by Alfred Duggan

  ‘They may be guarded, but they will not keep me in. The men of Cahors could not keep me out,’ Thomas answered stoutly. Now that it had come to open warfare he felt gay and clear-headed. ‘Let us question my cross-bearer. Herbert has been wandering through the streets to test the sentiments of the people.’

  Herbert was cheerful. It was all over the town that the King had given strict orders to respect the Archbishop’s sanctuary. The burgess militia would enforce the order, or send warning at once if zealous knights tried to curry favour with their lord by disregarding it. A discreet innkeeper had hired him another horse to take the place of that abandoned in the castle, and the destrier was fit for a journey. As for the guarding of the town gates, that was the King’s command, which must be obeyed; but quite by chance the captain of the town watch had encountered this monk whom he recognized as the Archbishop’s clerk. ‘He told me that there had been a regrettable muddle at the north gate. As a rule the castellan finds sentries for it from his garrison; tonight, with the King to guard, he relied on the burgesses. But the captain forgot to muster enough men to guard it. It will remain unguarded until dawn. The captain was very worried about it. He hoped his negligence would not bring harm to your lordship.’

  ‘I see,’ said Thomas. ‘The burgesses of Northampton are loyal to the King. But, to a burgess, peace and good order are the most important blessings. Even my warlike fellow-citizens in London might leave a gate unguarded if they were sure the disturber of the peace would use it to leave, not to enter. But we must not expose the Priory to the King’s vengeance. Let us see if we can hit on a plan.’

  When the Archbishop requested that his bed might be set up in the chapel, that he might hear the midnight office though he was too exhausted to join in it, his wish was of course granted. The bed was placed behind the high altar, hidden from the monks in choir, and he could get to it most easily through the vestry door. But if he did not mind the discomfort no one else could complain. Not until the sacristan went to light the candles for the Morrow Mass soon after dawn was it discovered that the Archbishop had left his bed during the night. It was probable that he had left the town also, but on account of that unfortunate muddle about the north gate no one could be sure. Of course no one could be blamed.

  9. The Challenge

  In high spirits the Bishop of Chichester lounged by the fire. But as the other members of the delegation entered the luxurious anteroom he held himself straight and dignified, and greeted them with a slightly patronizing smile. Though he had never before visited the city of Sens he was a veteran of the Curia; already he felt at home in the busy, intriguing, crowded Bishop’s palace which at the moment sheltered the exiled Pope.

  The lay magnates of the delegation seemed pleased to see him; they returned his smile politely, and allowed him to keep his place at the end of the room, with his back to the great hooded fire-place, where he automatically assumed the position of chairman. But a few minutes later the Bishops of London and Worcester, entering together, greeted him more coldly. He had raced through his Mass, to be first in the room where he might take this position of pre-eminence; the lay lords accorded it to him without a thought, for they must have a clerk for spokesman and they did not care which clerk. But Gilbert of London was a strict Cluniac, and Roger of Worcester a royal official who carried out his duties with dignity and care. They had said their Masses slowly and carefully, to make a good beginning to such an important day. Now they regarded the Bishop of Chichester with a slight shadow of contempt, as a worldly and lukewarm shepherd. Hilary began to feel nervous.

  This was his great chance to win the King’s favour; he was determined to push himself into the position of spokesman for the whole delegation. He began to murmur, as though musing to himself, but loud enough for the whole group to hear:

  ‘Thomas of London is certainly our Archbishop, by Canon Law and the law of England. We do not plead that he is not Archbishop of Canterbury, or lay any complaint for which there is a legal remedy. We ask His Holiness to do us a favour, to do a favour to King Henry, the most powerful King in Christendom, to do a favour to his realm, the Dowry of Mary, a land pre-eminent in fidelity to Rome and completely unspotted by heresy. We seek a friendly arrangement by which Thomas is translated to some titular See, and given responsible work in the Curia if that is necessary to save his dignity. He might even be made a Cardinal … Oh, was I talking aloud? I hope you agree with me?’

  ‘Certainly we must ask a favour. There is no point of law we can call on,’ Bishop Gilbert said firmly. ‘Is there any reason why the Pope should grant us this favour?’

  ‘Perhaps no real reason, but he will be influenced by political factors in the world at large,’ continued Bishop Hilary. He recalled with delight the days of his youth, when as a clerk of the Curia he had talked wisely with his fellows about political influences, and discovered devious reasons for the most straightforward papal decisions. ‘The Emperor lurks in the background, with his anti-Pope. Of course we shall never waver in our support of the true successor of St. Peter, but if you allow me to make the first speech I can work in a hint that our lord, whose rage is famous throughout Christendom, might be driven by anger to approach Victor IV.’

  ‘If he does, he won’t stay King of England,’ the Count of Leicester broke in bluntly. ‘He has my homage in all things temporal, but that does not give him the right to lead me into schism. The magnates of England will agree with me.’

  ‘Oh, I am not suggesting that we should encourage the King to lead a schism. For all I know he himself would be horrified at the suggestion. But one must use against the Curia the weapons they expect to see used. That is an obvious point, and if we omit it the Cardinals will think we are not really in earnest. If you will pardon what may sound like a boast, I know the Curia very well indeed, and you secular magnates do not.’ Hilary felt happier than ever before in his life. To the scandal of all Christendom the worldly clerk who had deprived him of his rights over Battle Abbey had been thrust into the greatest See in England; now that cunning and ambitious lawyer was about to be thwarted by the simple eloquence of the Bishop he had wronged. It was all quite open and above-board, a matter of a gracious favour graciously besought; not like some of the dirty tricks he had seen done in Curia.

  That made all the more stunning the blow delivered by the Bishop of Worcester, who now cleared his throat and spoke formally to the whole group.

  ‘Have I been summoned to a conference under the presidency of my brother of Chichester, to discuss our strategy before the Curia? If so, the summons must have gone astray. But since we are all gathered here for breakfast, and the talk is now of our plans, I must make plain one awkward but undeniable fact. His Holiness feels a strong personal dislike for my brother Hilary. If we wish our petition to succeed he should remain in the background, and silent.’

  Six months ago Bishop Roger had been a distinguished member of the royal administration, and he had not yet lost the habit of plain speaking in private without which no civil servant can get through his work. No one else would have put it quite so crudely, but when it had been said the other clerks present could only agree. Pope Alexander and Bishop Hilary had been clerks together in the Curia of Pope Adrian, and it was notorious that they had been on bad terms.

  ‘There is the further point,’ Bishop Roger continued, disregarding the stir caused by his plain speaking, ‘that our lord Thomas, when he was archdeacon, frequently argued before the Curia, and that he also is personally known to His Holiness. But the Pope likes and admires him, as a man and a lawyer. Luckily we are laying our complaint in his absence, but we don’t want to remind the Pope of old friendships and dislikes. Our spokesman should be a learned lawyer, famous for sanctity, but personally a stranger to the Curia. I don’t mean myself. I have never practised in the Church courts. I mean my brother of London, who has the further advantage that he was reared in holy Cluny. His Holiness is notoriously well-disposed to Cluniacs.’

  Bishop Gilbert had been think
ing along the same lines; though wondering, under the promptings of his alert and well-trained Cluniac conscience, whether the thought was the offspring of unworthy ambition. But it was necessary that this quarrelsome and shifty Archbishop be removed. At Clarendon the man had agreed to everything. Now he jibbed at the inevitable consequence of his surrender, in a hysterical manner that might bring the whole English Church into contempt. To effect his removal was the duty of the speaker best fitted for the delicate task; to hang back now would not be modesty, it would be shirking a responsibility. When the Count of Leicester turned to him in inquiry he answered with a gesture of assent, and at once fell to composing in his mind the speech which would bring peace to England.

  The disappointed Hilary was too well trained in self-control to sulk. He abandoned the commanding position before the fire which made him seem head of the delegation, and with a sigh and a shrug drifted over to a group of lay magnates who sat quietly talking French in a corner.

  (For the Bishops had spoken Latin, the unambiguous language which left no room for misunderstanding. The laymen, like all other eminent men accustomed to attending important conferences, could understand it, though themselves they used the shifting nuances of their mother-tongue.)

  Hilary was annoyed to hear his new companions discussing the exploits of that tiresome Archbishop, almost as though he were a hero whom chivalrous knights should admire. Or rather, the Justiciar, Richard de Lucy, was trying to relate the story of Thomas’s journey from England to the Ile de France, while others chipped in to interrupt him with tendentious and untrustworthy anecdotes, mere rumour put about by the enemies of King Henry.

  ‘They say the gates of Northampton opened of themselves when he approached.’ – ‘Rot, the portreeve left them open on purpose, fearing disturbance in the town if we arrested the Archbishop.’ – ‘Anyway, he rode openly from Northampton to Lincoln.’ – ‘He left Lincoln in the cowl of a Canon of Sempringham. Probably some angel closed the eyes of the King’s servants, for no one recognized him on his journey.’ – ‘Rot again. The King had given orders for his arrest, but we all knew they were not to be taken seriously. This is the best solution. He has left the country of his own accord, and we won’t let him in again in a hurry.’ – ‘Of course no one recognized Thomas of Cheapside in a Gilbertine cowl. Do you remember how he used to dress? Scarlet slippers, and ermine wherever he could stick it on his mantle.’ – ‘Thomas of Cheapside is too grand a title for him. His father was a merchant named Becket.’ – ‘Thomas Becket then, if you want to be insulting. Personally, I admire his guts. Anyway, he wore this Gilbertine cowl, and no one recognized him. That bit is perfectly true. Of course when he reached a monastery and said who he was the monks passed him on. All clerks stick together against the King.’ – ‘Thomas is their lord. You can’t blame them for being true to their oath. I hope my vassals would follow me against the King.’ – ‘Which reminds me, Richard. Haven’t you done homage to the Archbishop? Aren’t you by rights his man?’

  ‘So I am,’ said the Justiciar, in confusion. ‘Lucky you reminded me. So far I have done nothing against him, and when next we meet I shall make a formal diffidation. Then I can hold my Canterbury fief in his despite, defying him to seize it from me.’

  ‘And a lot he can do against you, stuck in the Ile de France.’

  ‘All the same, that is my legal right,’ continued the Justiciar. ‘If I defy him, and hold my fief against him, no one may call me recreant. However, to go on with the story. He persuaded the pirates of his own town of Sandwich to ferry him over to Flanders.’

  ‘He got across in a little nutshell of a boat, rowed by two men.’ – ‘But if the two men came from Sandwich they were pirates. They are all pirates. If you doubt me ask the men of Rye.’ – ‘Anyway, he landed on the dunes of Flanders, still dressed in his cowl. That was a risky step. The Count of Flanders is after his blood, because of that old grudge about the marriage of his brother.’ – ‘He had no choice. Where else could he land? From Normandy to Navarre the whole coast owes obedience to our King Henry.’

  ‘Never mind,’ continued the Justiciar, struggling against these interruptions. ‘Our King Henry rules from the Pyrenees to the Cheviots, and the Count of Flanders rules from the Rhine to the Somme. But Archbishop Thomas may travel unmolested through their lands, because vassals forsake their lords to serve him. He was recognized again and again, but no one reported him to the Viscounts. We must bear that in mind as we lay our plans. The Pope can subdue him, or we may come to some friendly arrangement to keep him out of the realm; but Kings and Counts cannot suppress a Bishop if the people support him.’

  ‘What are these stories about his being recognized?’ asked Hilary, hoping they would prove mere unfounded gossip.

  ‘There are two in particular, which I believe myself,’ answered the Justiciar. ‘They are not the kind of thing people invent to prove the holiness of a persecuted confessor, and in fact they don’t show him in an especially good light. That’s why I think they are true. Once he arrived at the hut of a poor fisherman, and begged a share of his supper. He was on foot, with a few companions, all disguised as monks. The worthy fisherman handed over his pot of fish-stew before any of the family had tasted it, hoping the monks would leave enough when they had finished. But when the leading monk had eaten he told a companion to give the pot to a beggar who happened to be passing. Then the hungry fisherman knew he had entertained a great man in disguise, a great man who always sent the leavings of his meal to the poor at the gate. After that it was easy. He knew that the Archbishop of Canterbury is one of the tallest men in the world, and that he was hiding from his enemies. But he did not tell his Count, though he might have received a rich reward. Yes, the poor always sympathize with a Bishop in distress.’

  ‘Poor fishermen may be against us, but I can’t see that really matters,’ said Bishop Hilary. ‘All the poor fishermen in Christendom could do us no harm.’

  ‘Maybe, though that is not a thing to say in the anteroom of the Curia,’ said John of Oxford, a clerk in the King’s service. ‘His Holiness might remember that he is the successor of a poor fisherman. The Curia is already too much inclined to help the poor against the powerful, without inquiring into the merits of the case.’

  ‘Perhaps fishermen don’t matter,’ continued the Justiciar. ‘But my next story concerns a knight, a man of honour who would normally keep faith with his lord. This Flemish knight rode out with his hawk, and met a party of monks on foot. It seems that in Flanders monks walk on a journey, instead of riding as with us. He took no notice of them until he saw their leader looking hard at his hawk. She had damaged a pinion, which he had imped after a new German fashion. As he rode on he thought it odd that a choir-monk should be interested in the imping of hawk’s pinions, since even in the laxest communities the brethren never go hawking. Then he recalled the enormous height of the strange monk, and something chivalrous in his bearing. He put two and two together. The story goes that he rode after the party, to inquire if the leader was the missing Archbishop. A clerk put him off with some joke about the splendid state and gorgeous raiment affected by the Archbishop of Canterbury, adding that he was not in the habit of plodding through sand-dunes on foot. But since he carefully avoided saying who they were, the knight was all the more certain he had stumbled on the famous fugitive. Yet he kept quiet about his discovery until the party was safely out of the district. It’s not only the poor who. support Thomas. Decent knights of the countryside favour him, even though they must break faith with their lords.’

  ‘That is unfortunate,’ admitted the resilient Bishop of Chichester, who could not keep silent, even after a devastating snub. But if we could handle them rightly we can turn these stories against our Thomas. The first shows him absurdly pompous, forgetful of his duty to his host and of the welfare of the poor; the second will remind anyone who has forgotten it that he is more of a sportsman than an Archbishop.’

  ‘None the less we have a difficult task,’ muttered
a frivolous young knight. ‘We must persuade the Pope, and the whole College of Cardinals, that Thomas is a bad Archbishop; and in fact he is a damn’ good one.’

  Hilary admitted to himself, though he said nothing publicly, that their task was difficult indeed. It seemed that even the members of the delegation sent to demand his dismissal secretly admired him.

  When at length the learned and holy Bishop of London opened the plaint of all the responsible clerks and lay magnates of the realm of England against their troublesome Primate, Hilary saw from the start that he was making a hash of a strong case. They should have left this speech to the most experienced curial advocate, even if the Pope was most unfairly prejudiced against him, instead of allotting it to a rash and opinionated prelate who never bothered to conceal his feelings or to conciliate the prepossessions of the bench. Gilbert began by suggesting that Thomas’s election to Canterbury must have been tainted with simony, since it had been procured by pressure from the King. He was probably the only man in that crowded hall who forgot that the appointment had been welcomed with delight by Pope Alexander himself, whom he now accused by implication of condoning simony. He went on to accuse Thomas of private immorality, playing on the two meanings of the Latin word Luxuria, which can signify either Luxury or Lust. Thomas was known all over Christendom for two things: he was the tallest Bishop in the world, and at forty-six he was still a virgin; the accusation was so absurd that it must weaken his stronger arguments.

  Finally Gilbert reached the genuine complaint against Thomas, the point on which the lawyers among the delegation had pinned their hopes. The Archbishop of Canterbury had left his See by stealth, neglecting his flock and throwing the English Church into great confusion. There was no reason for his flight, since no one menaced him (though a monetary penalty had been adjudged against him for a flagrant breach of feudal law). That he had left secretly was evidence of malice. He had not waited to see whether the King would give him leave to go; he was parading himself as a persecuted confessor while no one sought to harm him. Gilbert wound up with a neat peroration: ‘the wicked flee when no man pursueth.’