This Sceptred Isle

by Christopher Lee

  The open quarrel between the two former friends began as soon as Henry returned from Normandy in January 1163. Becket successfully opposed Henry’s demand for customary dues to be paid into the royal Exchequer. He excommunicated one William of Eynesford without consulting the King, as in theory he should have done. He protected clerks and clergy from the full punishment under the law even when some were charged with rape, murder and theft. The King claimed, at the Council of Westminster, the right to punish clerks. The bishops hesitated. Becket told them to stand firm. Henry then confiscated lands owned by Becket from his days as Chancellor. A meeting was arranged between King and Archbishop but what could have been reconciliation became recrimination. And Becket did not have the full support of the clergy, nor of the one person he expected to be sympathetic to his stand against the throne: the Pope, Alexander III. The Pope did not wish to anger the King, nor could he entirely ignore his Archbishop. His decision was to advise Becket to give way to Henry. Henry then made what appears to have been a mistake: he attempted to revoke the promise made by King Stephen that the State should be subservient to the Pope. He published this attempt to put back the clock in 1164, in what was called the Constitutions of Clarendon. Becket was ordered to appear before the Great Council. He would not recognize the king’s supremacy and claimed the protection of Rome and God.

  That Council was held at Northampton. Becket faced charges of contempt of court, of wrongful use of money that had passed through his hands when he was Chancellor and of wrongfully borrowing money and using the King’s name as a guarantor. He was found guilty.

  On the fourth day of the Council, the Archbishop offered the King 2,000 marks in compensation. But Henry refused. He was determined to destroy his former friend. The bishops were divided. Becket was shamed and vilified and that night he escaped, first from Northampton, and then from England, into exile. Many churchmen were glad that he was gone. Confrontation with the monarch was a dangerous game, as the Pope knew. Becket became vindictive and on Whit Sunday, 1166, excommunicated a whole bench of bishops. The bishops and clergy complained to the Pope and denounced Becket’s declaration as uncanonical and unlawful. It was a quarrel that would have tested the powers of the cleverest diplomat. And here is the irony. Previously, Henry would have had the perfect envoy to resolve such a delicate matter: Becket himself.

  But then, six years after Becket’s exile, something happened that would eventually bring them together: Henry wanted his son crowned as his successor during his own lifetime. Becket, still Archbishop of Canterbury, should have been the person to officiate. Henry said that the Archbishop of York should stand in for him. The Pope said no. Henry ignored the Pope’s ruling. To Becket this was an outrage. The Pope was bound to support him, and so was Louis VII of France, who was in a position to threaten Henry’s French possessions. Henry relented. The two men met and according to Henry of Bosham were reconciled with Becket honouring his monarch and, in the sight of all there present, humbly prostrated himself at the King’s feet.

  That was on 22 July 1170. On 15 October the King issued a proclamation of reconciliation. But the difference was deeper rooted than a proclamation. The next month Becket, still in France and preparing to return to England, suspended the Archbishop of York and once again excommunicated the Bishops of London and Salisbury. On 1 December he landed at Sandwich in Kent and rode to Canterbury. The excommunicated bishops sailed for Normandy, where the King was. Their advice, or so we are told by Becket’s friend, William fitz Stephen, in his Materials for the Life of Thomas Becket, was blunt, ‘My lord, while Thomas lives, you will not have peace or see good days.’ Four knights, eager to win Henry’s favour, left the court for Canterbury.

  It was 29 December 1170. The knights, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Traci, Hugh of Morville and Richard Brito, arrived at Canterbury and demanded to see Becket whom they accused of plotting to remove the crown from the King’s son. Becket denied it and treated the knights with contempt. ‘Cease your threats,’ he said, ‘and still your brawling. I put my trust in the King of Heaven. I have not come back to flee again. Here shall he who wants me find me.’ Becket threatened to excommunicate all who disobeyed the Church. The knights sprang to their feet. One shouted at him, ‘We declare that you have spoken in peril of your head.’ The knights left but Becket knew they would be back. His clergy pleaded with him to escape. ‘It is not meet to make a fortress of the house of prayer,’ said Becket in reply. The knights returned and the clergy deserted Becket, hiding among the altars of the vast cathedral. But three remained, including Edward Grim, who wrote down what happened. A translation is in Grim’s Vita S. Thomae, Cantuariensis Archepiscopi et Martyris:

  The invincible martyr – seeing that the hour which would bring the end to his miserable mortal life was at hand and already promised by God to be the next to receive the crown of immortality – with his neck bent as if he were in prayer and with his joined hands elevated above – commended himself and the cause of the Church to God, St Mary, and the blessed martyr St Denis. He had barely finished speaking when the impious knight, fearing that [Becket] would be saved by the people and escape alive, suddenly set upon him and, shaving off the summit of his crown which the sacred chrism consecrated to God, he wounded the sacrificial lamb of God in the head; the lower arm of the writer was cut by the same blow. Indeed [the writer] stood firmly with the holy archbishop, holding him in his arms – while all the clerics and monks fled – until the one he had raised in opposition to the blow was severed. Behold the simplicity of the dove, behold the wisdom of the serpent in this martyr who presented his body to the killers so that he might keep his head, in other words his soul and the church, safe; nor would he devise a trick or a snare against the slayers of the flesh so that he might preserve himself because it was better that he be free from this nature! O worthy shepherd who so boldly set himself against the attacks of wolves so that the sheep might not be torn to pieces! and because he abandoned the world, the world – wanting to overpower him – unknowingly elevated him. Then, with another blow received on the head, he remained firm. But with the third the stricken martyr bent his knees and elbows, offering himself as a living sacrifice, saying in a low voice, ‘For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to embrace death.’ But the third knight inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one; with this blow he shattered the sword on the stone and his crown, which was large, separated from his head so that the blood turned white from the brain yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood; it purpled the appearance of the church with the colours of the lily and the rose, the colours of the Virgin and Mother and the life and death of the confessor and martyr. The fourth knight drove away those who were gathering so that the others could finish the murder more freely and boldly. The fifth – not a knight but a cleric who entered with the knights – so that a fifth blow might not be spared him who had imitated Christ in other things, placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and precious martyr and (it is horrible to say) scattered the brains with the blood across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, ‘We can leave this place, knights, he will not get up again.’

  The night passed in lamentation and mourning. The single most shocking event in the twelfth-century Christian world had occurred. The Christian ruler of a Christian nation had ordered the assassination of his Archbishop because that Archbishop had stood up for his belief that no one, not even a king, was above the law of the Church and therefore God. The rights and wrongs of the tale are irrelevant. That is how the event was seen by the majority. Becket was a martyr and within two years he was canonized. Churches were dedicated to his name. In the Holy Land the order of the knights of St Thomas of Acre was instituted. As far north as Iceland the life of the martyr appeared in sagas. He became the subject of iconography. Thomas Becket frescoes appeared in Rome. In his name antiphons were sung with psalms.

  For two years Henry II was ostracized. But he recovered. He was, after all, a king and he had done at least symbolic penance.
The symbol of his recovery was Ireland. The story that Henry II invaded Ireland to enlarge his empire is only a small part of the beginnings of the Anglo-Irish condition – often seen as a difficult one from whichever shore of the treacherous sea it is viewed.

  The beginning of the story may lie with Nicholas Breakspear of St Albans who became Pope Adrian IV and still the only English pontiff albeit for a short time (1154–9). He was not much regarded in Ireland, not because he was English but because the Irish did not much care for any doctrine of papal authority, particularly supremacy. The Irish Church was dominated by the monasteries, much to Rome’s annoyance because that monastic existence had no need for Rome. The monasteries influenced the running of the Church and doctrine in Ireland, and took small notice of custom other than their own. For example, the See of Armagh was hereditary (family patronage being a powerful influence) and therefore in need of broods. It is not surprising, then, that eight of its bishops appear to have been married and had children, and did not even have to be ordained. Even considering the sentiments and conditions of the times, the bishops of Armagh led eccentric livings.

  Looking over maps and charts in his papal room, it is not unlikely that Pope Adrian could see that geography held an answer to the aggravation. The British Isles, as we shall still call them, was from Rome’s distance an obvious collection of land and peoples with no hard reason to live separately from each other. If England came under Rome’s dominion, then so should the whole collection of islands, including Ireland. Adrian therefore made this official by issuing a papal bull, ‘Laudabiliter’, which gave Henry II authority over Ireland and therefore brought it into Rome’s map of Catholic holdings. In future, it was up to Henry II, or any other monarch for that matter, to make sure that Ireland did not break away.

  The matter came to something long after Adrian IV’s passing in 1159. The King of Leinster, Dermot MacMurrough was deposed by the King of Connaught, Rory O’Connor. It took MacMurrough nearly two years to find Henry who was seemingly far away looking after his French interests. Henry gave permission of some of the Norman knights castled in Pembrokeshire to go to the rescue. It was a difficult decision, which Henry monitored very carefully. The Norman knights, led by Richard de Clare, known as Strongbow, landed in 1170 and were successful in restoring the Irish monarch to his Leinster throne. But Henry, probably rightly, then guessed that the Norman knights might stay, marry into the Irish royalty and aristocracy and so build a potential stronghold that would eventually threaten his kingdom. He could have had no doubt of this when MacMurrough died in 1171 leaving Leinster to Strongbow.

  With the dubious authority of Adrian’s Laudabiliter, Henry landed at Waterford on 17 October 1171. He took with him nearly 5,000 knights and archers. It took 400 ships from Bristol to transport men, stores and even siege towers. Only the kings of Tyrone and Tyrconnell refused to pay homage to Henry. This didn’t bother him. He moved to Dublin, built a palace, entertained the princes and very soon the submission of the Irish Church followed. Within a year, Henry, supported by the Pope, was recognized as Lord of Ireland. The Pope made it clear to the bishops that they must support Henry in his work of subduing what he called, ‘this barbarous and uncouth race, ignorant of divine law’.

  However, Henry failed to understand the triad of interests that existed. Anglo-Norman barons fought each other. The Irish fought among themselves and against the barons. And third, intermarriage founded a new class: the Anglo-Irish. Despite this Henry Plantagenet, restored to papal favour after Becket’s death, was now one of the most powerful rulers in Europe.

  Although he may have for a brief moment brought his reputation up high, he was beside himself with the treachery and scheming of his own family. His sons, Henry (who died of dysentery in 1183), Richard, Geoffrey and John, wanted power and, to get it, only the death of their father would do. Eleanor, Henry II’s Queen, drove their ambition. They rejoiced even when their father imprisoned his wife for her treason. They promised one day to free her, but really gave little sign that they meant it. During 1173 and 1174, they had the help of disaffected barons and they rebelled. At the right moment Philip II Augustus of France (1165–1223) joined with them. The French monarch was to be remembered as the man who broke the spirit and the influence of the Angevin empire, from which Henry II, as Henry Plantagenet, came. In 1188, his son Richard, who ruled Aquitaine, defeated him at Le Mans with the support of King Philip. Henry II was defeated by his sons and stepped away from the struggle life had dealt. ‘Shame, shame on a conquered king,’ he is said to have uttered before his death and, perhaps, that shame was the sadness that he, the monarch, had sired such treacherous sons.

  The chronicler, Gerald of Wales, tells us that Henry, ‘uttering words of dire calamity, the herald of his own confusion, passed away, overwhelmed and oppressed with grief rather than succumbing to a natural death’. At his burial, there was not, says Gerald, ‘a ring for his finger, a sceptre for his hand or crown for his head; scarcely any insignia of royalty but what had been begged for the purpose’.

  Henry II, the lawmaker, the gatherer of lands and riches, died on 6 July 1189. Only one son, Geoffrey, was at his deathbed. In cloisters and chancels, news of Henry’s miserable end was recited and, with it, the pronouncement that this was God’s vengeance delivered upon Henry Plantagenet, murderer of Thomas Becket.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1189–99

  Henry II’s eldest surviving son, Richard, succeeded him in 1189. Richard I (1157–99) was to rule for just ten years, mostly in absentia. But in that decade he built a naval town, Portsmouth, on the south coast; drew up the first Articles of War; sold Scotland its independence; led a great Crusade; and would be called Richard Coeur de Lion.

  And yet this was the man who rejected the peace efforts of Pope and bishops and, with the King of France, defeated his own father in battle; the man who, once the campaign was done, forced the dying King, his father, into accepting humiliating terms and who wasted little time in mourning. And yet, Richard is probably remembered as a man of great chivalry. That can only be because he is Richard Coeur de Lion, Richard the Lionheart, the crusader hero of European medieval history. He captured Messina and Cyprus, where he married Berengaria of Navarre (c.1170–1230), and defeated the feared Saladin. He was kidnapped, held to ransom and only briefly returned to England.

  So Richard I was an absentee landlord. He freed his mother, Queen Eleanor, whom Henry II had imprisoned for encouraging Richard’s and John’s rebellion. Eleanor became Richard’s representative in England. He also made peace with his late father’s supporters, partly because it was in his nature to do so, but mainly because he did not want a palace coup while he was away. He also intended to install himself as Duke of Normandy. Richard was also generous to his two surviving brothers who had not always shown loyalty to him. To Geoffrey he gave the vacant Archbishopric of York and to the youngest son, John, he gave Isabel, the third daughter of the Earl of Gloucester, as well as lordships, castles and six entire counties: Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Nottingham and Derby. John was already Lord of Ireland. When Richard finally arrived in England, in the summer of his father’s death, he was received with great delight by the people. But within four months, and having been crowned at Westminster, he was gone again. The Crusades were an expensive business. Money had to be raised at phenomenal levels and so he sold Berwick and Roxburgh to King William I of Scotland for 10,000 silver marks. He had also to agree tenuous truces with warlords, princes and kings of Europe. The whole of Europe was seemingly fighting for influence and lands and the Pope sent emissaries throughout Europe pleading with princes and kings to stop fighting each other and turn their efforts towards the certain evil that threatened Christendom: Saladin. Richard responded to the Pope’s call to ‘Take the Cross’, the expression used to go on the Crusade. He and Philip of France, although engaged in open conflict with each other, resolved to ‘Take the Cross’ together.

  Richard led his army to within twelve miles of Jerusalem, b
ut that was as close as he ever came to victory. As did so many enemies in war, Richard became increasingly friendly with the man he was fighting, Saladin. They met and discussed ways in which Jerusalem might be partitioned. Nevertheless the Crusade was doomed, largely because of the disunity among its leaders. Richard was forced to set out for home, hurried by news that his own kingdom was in a state of near anarchy. It was on this journey back to England that he was kidnapped. Richard had sailed from Acre on 9 October 1192 but he was shipwrecked, and he tried to head home by land. This meant going through the region of Vienna controlled by Duke Leopold of Austria, a man with whom Richard had quarrelled during the Crusade. Leopold captured Richard in December and kept him prisoner until the following February. He then sold him to the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI, who demanded 150,000 marks ransom. To get some idea of the enormous sum this ransom represented, it was considered to be almost twice the normal annual revenue of the English estate. There is ever skulduggery in medieval lore. King Philip of France and Richard’s brother John offered the Holy Roman Emperor the same amount of ransom if he gave them Richard rather than set him free for England. However, the Emperor honoured his agreement with Richard and the King returned home on 13 March 1194. The ransom had all but impoverished his people, but they cheered him and his fame.

  John made little secret of his treachery and attempted to raise another rebellion. However, war had now started against Philip of France and Richard crossed the Channel to defend his possessions. He was never to return to England. It may have been the case that sensitive and State appointments still had to be approved by the King and, accordingly, delegations would be sent from England to find the King at some camp or siege to get his instruction. For day-to-day administration of his realm, Richard relied on good and faithful servants. One such person was the Archbishop of Canterbury and Chief Justice, Hubert Walter, the man who had been in charge of raising the ransom for Richard’s release. He had been a student at Bologna and a judicial and administrative clerk in the household of Henry II (whose system of law and government required the King’s authority, but not necessarily always his presence). He now had a reputation as a clear-sighted and loyal servant of the absent King. Hubert Walter’s career in the household of Henry II was a sensitive training ground for the task he took on: the assurance that what we would call central government would work in medieval England. It is in Walter’s administration that we find the role of the coroner emerging as a public servant whose office would survive any interludes of maladministration down the centuries.