CHAP. VIII.

APPARENT RECONCILIATION.

507

restoration of the church of Canterbury, in as ample a form as it was held before his exile. The second was more brief, but raised a new question of compensation for loss and damage during the archbishop's absence from his see. Both parties mistrusted each other; Negotiations each watched the other's words with captious renewed. jealousy. Vivian, weary of those verbal chicaneries of the King, declared that he had never met with so mendacious a man in his life. Vivian might have remembered his own retractations, still more those of Becket on former occasions. He withdrew from the negotiation; and this conduct, with the refusal of a gift from Henry (a rare act of virtue), won him the approbation of Becket. But Becket himself was not yet without mistrust; he had doubts whether Vivian's report to the Pope would be in the same spirit. "If it be not, he deserves the doom of the traitor Judas."

Henry at length agreed that on the question of compensation he would abide by the sentence of the court of the French King, the judgment of the Gallican Church, and of the University of Paris. This made so favourable an impression that Becket could only evade it by declaring that he had rather come to an amicable agreement with the King than involve the affair in litigation.

peace.

At length all difficulties seemed yielding away, when Becket demanded the customary kiss of peace, as Kiss of the pledge of reconciliation. Henry peremptorily refused; he had sworn in his wrath never to grant this favour to Becket. He was inexorable; and without this guarantee Becket would not trust the faith of the King. He was reminded, he said, by the case of the Count of Flanders, that even the kiss of peace did not secure a revolted subject, Robert de Silian, who, even after this sign of amity, had been seized and cast into a dungeon. Henry's conduct, if not the effect of sudden passion or ungovernable aversion, is inexplicable. Why did he seek this in

Did

d Many difficult points arose. Becket demand not merely the actual possessions of the see, but all to which he laid claim? There were three estates held by William de Ros, Henry of Essex, and John the Marshall (the original object of dispute at Northamp

ton?), which Becket specifically required and declared that he would not give up if exiled for ever.-Epist. Giles, iii. 220; Bouquet, 400.

e

Epist. Giles, iii. 262; Bouquet, 199. 'Epist. ibid.; Radulph de Diceto.

terview, which, if he was insincere in his desire for reconciliation, could afford but short delay? and from such oaths he would hardly have refused, for any great purpose of his own, to receive absolution. On the other hand, it is quite clear that Becket reckoned on the legatine power of William of Sens, and the terror of the English prelates, who had refused to attend a council in London to reject the Interdict. He had now full confidence that he could exact his own terms and humble the King under his feet.h But the King was resolved to wage war to the utmost. Walter Ridel, Archdeacon of Canterbury, was sent to England with a royal proclamation containing the following articles :-I. Whosoever shall bring into the realm any letter from the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury is guilty of high treason. II. Whosoever, whether bishop, clerk, or layman, shall observe the Interdict, shall be ejected from all his chattels, which are confiscate to the Crown. III. All clerks absent from England shall return before the feast of St. Hilary, on

King's proclamation.

pain of forfeiture of all their revenues. IV. No appeal is to be made to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury under pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of all chattels. V. All laymen from beyond seas are to be searched, and if anything be found upon them contrary to the King's honour, they are to be imprisoned; the same with those who cross to the Continent. VI. If any clerk or monk shall land in England without passport from the King, or anything contrary to his honour, he shall be thrown into prison. VII. No clerk or monk may cross the seas without the King's passport. The same rule applied to the clergy of Wales, who were to be expelled from all schools in England. Lastly, VIII. The sheriffs were to administer an oath to all freemen throughout England, in open court, that they would obey these royal mandates, thus abjuring, it is said, all obedience to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. The bishops, however, declined the oath;

According to Pope Alexander, Henry offered that his son should give the kiss of peace in his stead.-Giles, iv. 55.

See his letter to his emissaries at Rome.-Giles, iii. 219; Bouquet, 401.

i Ricardus Dorubernensis apud Twys

den. Lord Lyttleton has another copy, in his appendix; in that a ninth article forbade the payment of Peter's Pence to Rome; it was to be collected and brought into the exchequer.

CHAP. VIII.

CORONATION OF THE KING'S SON.

509

some concealed themselves in their dioceses. Becket addressed a triumphant or gratulatory letter to his suffragans on their firmness. "We are now one, except that most hapless Judas, that rotten limb (Foliot of London), which is severed from us."k Another letter is addressed to the people of England, remonstrating on their impious abjuration of their pastor, and offering absolution to all who had sworn through compulsion and repented of their oath." The King and the Primate thus contested the realm of England.

Yet the Pope was not yet to be inflamed by Becket's passions, nor quite disposed to depart from his The Pope temporising policy. John of Oxford was at still dubious. the court in Benevento with the Archdeacons of Rouen and Seez. From that court returned the Archdeacon of Llandaff and Robert de Barre with a commission to the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers to make one more effort for the termination of the difficulties. On the one hand they were armed with powers, if the King did not accede to his own terms within forty days after his citation (he had offered a thousand marks as compensation for all losses), to pronounce an interdict against his continental dominions; on the other, Becket was exhorted to humble. himself before the King; if Henry was inflexible and declined the Pope's offered absolution from his oath, to accept the kiss of peace from the King's son. The King was urged to abolish in due time the impious and obnoxious Customs. And to these prelates was likewise entrusted authority to absolve the refractory Bishops of London and Salisbury." This, however, was not the only object of Henry's new embassy to the Pope. He had long determined on the coronation of his eldest son; it had been delayed for various reasons. He seized this opportunity of reviving a design which would be as well humiliating to Becket as also of great moment in case the person of the King should be struck by the thunder of excommunication. The coronation of the King of England was the undoubted prerogative of the Archbishops of Canterbury, which had never been invaded without sufficient cause, and Becket was the last man tamely to surrender so important a right of his see.

m

* Epist. Giles, iii, 195; Bouquet, 404. Giles, iii. 192; Bouquet, 405. a Dated February 12, 1170.

John of Oxford was to exert every means (what those means were may be conjectured rather than proved) to obtain the papal permission for the Archbishop of York to officiate at that august ceremony.

The absolution of the Bishops of London and Salisbury was an astounding blow to Becket. He tried to impede it by calling in question the power of the archbishop to pronounce it without the presence of his colleague. The archbishop disregarded his remonstrance, and Becket's sentence was annulled by the authority of the Pope. Rumours at the same time began to spread that the Pope had granted to the Archbishop of York power to proceed to the coronation. Becket's fury burst all bounds. He wrote to the Cardinal Albert and to Gratian: "In the court of Rome, now as ever, Christ is crucified and Barabbas released. The miserable and blameless exiles are condemned, the sacrilegious, the homicides, the impenitent thieves are absolved, those whom Peter himself declares that in his own chair (the world protesting against it) he would have no power to absolve. Henceforth I commit my cause to God-God alone can find a remedy. Let those appeal to Rome who triumph over the innocent and the godly, and return glorying in the ruin of the Church. For me I am ready to die." Becket's fellow exiles addressed the Cardinal Albert, denouncing in vehement language the avarice of the court of Rome, by which they were brought to support the robbers of the Church. It is no longer King Henry alone who is guilty of this six years' persecution, but the Church of Rome."

The coronation of the Prince by the Archbishop of York took place in the abbey of Westminster on the 15th of June. The assent of the clergy was given with that

CHAP. VIII.

RECONCILIATION.

511

of the laity. The Archbishop of York produced a papal brief, authorising him to perform the ceremony. An inhibitory letter, if it reached England, only came into the King's hand, and was suppressed; no one, in fact (as the production of such papal letter, as well as Becket's protest to the archbishop and to the bishops collectively and severally, was by the royal proclamation high treason or at least a misdemeanour) would dare to produce them.

The estrangement seemed now complete, the reconciliation more remote than ever. The Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers, though urged to immediate action by Becket and even by the Pope, admitted delay after delay, first for the voyage of the King to England, and secondly for his return to Normandy. Becket seemed more and more desperate, the King more and more resolute. Even after the coronation, it should seem, Becket wrote to Roger of York, to Henry of Worcester, and even to Foliot of London, to publish the Interdict in their dioceses. The latter was a virtual acknowledgment of the legality of his absolution, which in a long letter to the Bishop of Nevers he had contested:* but the Interdict still hung over the King and the realm; the fidelity of the clergy was precarious.

8

The reconciliation at last was so sudden as to take the world by surprise. The clue to this is found in Fitz-Stephen. Some one had suggested by word or by writing to the King that the Primate would be less dangerous within than without the realm." The hint flashed conviction on the King's mind. The two Kings had appointed an inter

Dr. Lingard holds this letter, printed by Lord Lyttleton, and which he admits was produced, to have been a forgery. If it was, it was a most audacious one; and a most flagrant insult to the Pope, whom Henry was even now endeavouring to propitiate through the Lombard Republics and the Emperor of the East (see Giles, iv. 10). It is remarkable, too, that though the Pope declares that this coronation, contrary to his prohibition (Giles, iv. 30), is not to be taken as a precedent, he has no word of the forgery. Nor do I find any contemporary assertion of its spuriousness. Becket, indeed, in his account of the last interview with the King, only mentions the general permission granted