CHAPTER XIV. THE SEQUEL. In the times which we are now required to venerate as "The Ages of Faith," the murder of a prelate was nothing very uncommon. Thus in the year 1082, Walcher, a native of Lorraine, and Bishop of Durham, was murdered by his rebellious flock. In 1113, Waldric, Bishop of Laon, one of Becket's predecessors in the Chancellorship of England, was slain by the populace of his city; his head was cleft with an axe, the finger adorned by the episcopal ring was hewn off, his lifeless body was covered with wounds, stripped naked, and exposed to innumerable insults, and lay unburied, like that of a dog, until the "scholastic" of his cathedral, the famous teacher Anselm," charitably committed it to the ground, but without venturing to solemnize the burial by any religious office. In 1145, Pope Lucius II. a Will. Malmesb., c. 271, in Pa- | 4 (in Patrol. clvi.) trol., clxxix. 1250. b Anselm of Laon, a pupil of his namesake the Archbishop of Canterbury, is, perhaps, most known by his connexion with the history of Abelard. He had been alone in opposing the election of Waldric to the bishopric. See Guibert. Novig. de Vita sua, iii. e Ib., 8-10. In consequence of an erroneous reading in the old edition of Orderic - Landavensis instead of Laudunensis-Dr. Lingard (ii. 14) and others have supposed Waldric to have been Bishop of Llandaff. See n. on Orderic, in Patrol. clxxxviii. 815. was killed in attempting to dislodge the republican faction of Rome from the Capitol. In 1160, Arnold, Archbishop of Mentz, Primate of Germany, and Chancellor of the empire, was murdered by a mob, and the indignities offered to his corpse were even more revolting than those which had been inflicted on Waldric.a And in some chronicles of the time the next event which is recorded after the murder of Becket is that of an Archbishop of Tarragona. Yet these and many other such cases have long passed away from the memory of men, nor, even in their own day, did they excite any wide-spread interest or emotion. b But the shock of Becket's death thrilled at once through Latin Christendom, and to this day the murder, under whatever colouring it may be represented, remains among the most conspicuous facts in history. Throughout his contest with Henry, the eyes of all men had been fixed on him; and while, in his own country, opinions were divided as to the merits of his cause and of his conduct, the sympathy with him elsewhere (except, indeed, among the Imperialist and Antipapal party, and among the Cardinals who were won by Henry's gold) was enthusiastic and universal. Nothing was known of the question as to the immunity of criminal clerks; the assertion by which the Archbishop's partisans endeavoured to veil the real nature of the quarrel -that Henry meditated an entire usurpation of ecclesiastical power-was not only believed as a suspicion, but Chron. Mogunt. ap. Urstis. i. 571; Raumer, Gesch. der Hohenstaufen, ii. 176-7. b E. g., Diceto, 556. was supposed to have been already realised in act.a And the feeling of sympathy was powerfully aided by political enmity against Henry. Princes who had themselves been seriously embroiled with the hierarchy-who had bestowed sees in contempt of the right of election, who had seized ecclesiastical property, had driven bishops into banishment, and incurred the heavy censures of the Church—were ready to support the champion of the most extravagant hierarchical pretensions in opposition to a brother sovereign whom they dreaded and envied as the richest and strongest potentate in Europe. Nor, in accounting for the favour which Becket found among the inferior classes of his own countrymen, must we overlook the operation of similar motives. Fanciful as the theory is which would explain his whole history as a struggle between a dominant and a subjugated race, there can yet be no doubt that discontent with the government, the sense of oppression, the pains of distress, and other such causes must have disposed multitudes to 66 France against Henry is thus expressed by John of Salisbury, in a letter of 1167: "Nihil adeo impium est in Deum, in homines inhumanum, quod Franci et Latini de eo facilius non credant." (Ep. 184.) a See p. 142. So the Chronicle of Melrose says (A.D. 1164) that Thomas fled from England, "ob intolerabiles ecclesiæ a rege illatas injurias ;" and one of the continuers of Sigebert of Gemblours, 'Heinricus, supra quod dicitur Deus aut quod colitur efferatus et in superbiam elatus, .... contra jus et fas omnem dignitatem et ecclesiastica disciplinæ censuram violenter sibi usurpat." (Patrol., clx. 382.) The strength of the in 1163. prejudice which was felt in b See Louis' speech to Mapes, p. 140, n. b; and the extract given in the same note from a letter of John of Salisbury to Becket, written soon after John's going abroad U follow any one who, whether in the name of the Church or otherwise, rose up in opposition to the King. The violent end of a man who had for years been so conspicuous, and in whose behalf so much of feeling had been enlisted, could not but excite universal horror and indignation. It was described as the blackest deed since the Crucifixion-nay, as even worse than that awful crime, inasmuch as it had been perpetrated, not by Jews or heathens, but by persons professing the Christian faith. The circumstances of it were dwelt on as heightening its atrocity, and for the same purpose exaggeration and misrepresentation were largely employed. The Archbishop, it was said, had been murdered in violation of the sanctity of a church-his own cathedral, the mother Church of all England, a place hallowed by the possession of innumerable precious relics. The sword of a murderer had cut off the crown which was consecrated by the priestly unction and tonsure. The accursed act had been committed within the season dedicated to the Saviour's birth, with its message of "peace on earth;" the blood of the innocent had been shed on the morrow of those holy Innocents who glorified God by their martyrdom in infancy. As the real ground of his contest with the King had throughout been put out of sight, so now it was forgotten that the immediate cause for which he fell was but a quarrel as to the privileges of Canterbury and York, and he was represented as a Grim, 78. с b Chron. Mailros. A.D. 1171. aut occasio necis S. Thomæ," says Goussainville, n. on Pet. Bles., Ep. 22. having died in the great cause of the Church. His murder-the act of men who had of themselves undertaken their enterprise in consequence of some passionate words, and whose intention, seemingly, was nothing more than to arrest the Archbishop, until his defiant behaviour and intolerable language excited them to uncontrollable fury-was assumed to have been expressly authorized by the King with whom he had so long contended. All that was violent in his closing scene was unmentioned; the saint was believed to have meekly met. his death while engaged in devotion at the altar; © nor, it was said, could any martyrdom be found which so closely resembled the Saviour's passion.d с Immediately after the murder, miracles began. A violent storm of thunder and lightning raged, floods of rain descended, and when these cleared off, the sky was overspread by a redness-probably an aurora borealis --which was interpreted as signifying the wrath and the vengeance of heaven on account of the blood which had been shed. As the monks were watching around the bier, before the high altar, it is said that the martyr near Douay).-" Henricus rex pro interfectione D. Thomæ ab omnibus, ut apostata vilissimus, exosus habetur." A.D. 1171. (Patrol. clx.) b See, e. g., Joh. Sarisb., Ep. 304, and an anonymous letter to the Pope, in Foliot, Ep. 500. Cf. Gervas., 1417. a Helinand. (Patrol. ccxii. 1070) | (i. e., of the monastery of Anchin, attributes the murder to Henry's refusal of the pax. (See pp. 248-9.) Chron. Mailros. A.D. 1171.-"A domesticis et sceleratissimis baronibus et detestandis militibus regis. . . . sæviente regis ira, et longe magis dissimili et sceleratiore modo quam Herodis in Jesum, vel secundi in Johannem Baptistam," &c.; and the writer prays for vengeance on all concerned in the murder. Chron. Aquicinct. e See Append. XXIX. d Bened., ii. 71. Stanley, 83. f Fitzst., 304. |