CHAPTER V. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLES.— We have seen that Archbishop Theobald and his episcopal advisers, in introducing Becket to the Court of Henry, aimed at securing the interest of the Church by means of the influence which they expected him to ✓ acquire over the King; and some of the biographers tell us that he always kept this object in view. They represent him, during his Chancellorship, as doing all that in prudence he could do to check the tendency to aggression and encroachment; as continually averting measures which were intended against the Church, and as becoming an unwilling instrument in such measures of this kind as he could not prevent, in order that by getting the execution of them into his own hands he might render them less oppressive to his brethren than they would otherwise have been. But, however this may be, it is certain that he showed no outward sign of unwillingness to take part in the King's proceedings— nay, that he was generally regarded as the instigator of them. In the war of Toulouse, especially, he was supposed to have advised the imposition of a peculiarly Roger, 101-2; Anon. Lambeth., 79; Garnier, 53*. Multa solet, simulat quod sit et ipse furens; -Joh. Sarisb., Enthetic., 1437, seqq. heavy tax on the clergy; and so secret was the fact of his having been really adverse to it, that Foliot afterwards charged him with having "plunged a sword into the bowels of his mother the Church" by the exaction,a and Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter, was not aware of the real state of the matter until informed of it by John of Salisbury in 1166. In another case, where the abbot of Battle, in reliance on a charter of William the Conqueror, denied the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Chichester, the Chancellor, in delivering the judgment of a great assembly, before which the question was tried, had strongly asserted the royal prerogative in such matters against the Bishop's references to the authority of the Pope. He had been noted, according to John of Salisbury, as a "despiser of the clergy," and such, on the whole, was the character which he had established, that Foliot, at his election to the archbishopric, objected to him as "a persecutor and destroyer of holy Church;" while the Bishop of Win chester had only been able to reply by expressing a hope that the wolf would be turned into a shepherd of Christ's sheep-the persecuting Saul into a Paul.a In procuring the Chancellor's elevation to the primacy, Henry, no doubt, supposed that he should continue to find him a ready instrument of his will, especially in matters relating to the Church." Becket is said, indeed, as we have seen, to have declared that, if the promotion should take place, his friendship with the King would be changed into hostility; but it is certain that, whether from the manner in which the words were spoken, or from whatever other reason, Henry did not believe them, and went on without any apprehension to carry through the promotion of his favourite. His surprise, therefore, was great at receiving from the new Archbishop a request that he would provide himself with another Chancellor. What was the motive of this? The office of Chancellor was not regarded as incompatible with that of a bishop, either on account of its nature or on account of the labour attached to it. Bishops and archbishops had held it before, and were to hold it in later times, and the same conjunction of offices was customary in other countries, a Garnier, 57*. b Grim, 13; Fitzst., 202. C., ii. 5) that the interval was longer, and Robert of Gloucester “E quida k'l senist [servist?] partut ses represents him as keeping the volentez."-Garnier, 55*. The precise time of this is uncertain, but it was very soon after the consecration (see Rog. Wendover, ii. 293; Foss, i. 202; Pauli, 33); although Buss infers from William of Canterbury (S. T. Chancellorship, and continuing to enjoy the royal favour, until "Lute and lute the contek aros for porě manes rizte," in the matter of the taillage or Danegelt, which will be mentioned hereafter (15-7). -the Archbishops of Mentz and Cologne being at that very time, as Henry was aware, Chancellors of Germany and Italy respectively. The chancellorship must, indeed, from a regard to decency, have been less splendid and martial in the hands of the Archbishop than it had been in those of the Archdeacon ; but there was nothing in its proper duties which might not very well be reconciled with his new functions. And, at least, if the offices were incom patible, the time for declaring them so was ill-chosen, unless it were intended to bear a peculiar significance.! On the one hand, Becket might have stated his conviction before the King had taken the irrevocable step of raising him to the primacy; or, on the other hand, he might have waited until he should be able to say from sufficient experience that one man could not perform, or ought not to combine, the two duties. The resignation was, in truth, nothing less than a declaration of what M. Michelet styles "the incurable duality of the middle ages, distracted between religion and the State." b The Archbishop could no longer serve the King as his officer: he must take up a position of his own. Henry could not a Diceto, 534. (This and other passages are printed by Dr. Giles from a MS. in the British Museum, without being aware that they are from Diceto.) Alexander III. desired a bishop of Soissons to resign the chancellorship of France, on the ground that it was incompatible with the care of his diocese (Ep. 882, Patrol. cc.); but this was in 1171, after Becket's death. с b Hist. de France, iii. 167. c Dr. Lingard's remark here is hardly in keeping with his usual care to abstain from the more vulgar sort of fallacies: "A more certain path would certainly have offered itself to ambition. By continuing to flatter the King's wishes, and by uniting in himself the offices of Chancellor and Archbishop, he might, in all proba but feel that he was deceived. Not a word had the Chancellor breathed as to retiring from his service until by the King's earnest exertion he had been seated on the throne of Canterbury; and then all at once the "duality" was proclaimed. Becket was no longer the servant of the Crown, but purely the representative of the Church; he was independent of the King; he might become his antagonist, and this seemed very like a preparation for coming out as such. While, however, he was so eager to divest himself of the Chancellorship, he was in no hurry to give up another preferment which to many eyes appeared less reconcilable with his new dignity-the archdeaconry of his own diocese; nor was it until after much delay, and much urgency on the King's part, that he was persuaded to resign it. The panegyrical biographers in general omit this passage of the story, and the apologists of our own day appear to find it somewhat of a difficulty. "This," says Dr. Giles, "is another point of which modern historians have availed themselves to malign his character; but the account of it is so meagre that it may be difficult to ascribe to the affair its true character." But why, we may ask, is the account so meagre ? ? And if the reason of this be that the eulogists of Becket thought it well to suppress all notice of the affair, we cannot quite agree with Dr. Giles in inferring that therefore the Archbishop's behaviour was " a a Life and Letters of Becket, i. bility, have ruled without control | thing! |