Archbishop vowed with equal determination that not a single penny
should be collected from the Church. From that time the King and
Becket never met again as friends.
164. The Second Quarrel.
Shortly afterward, a much more serious quarrel broke out between the King and the Archbishop. Under the law made by William the Conqueror, the Church had the right to try in its own courts all offenses committed by monks and priests (S118). This privilege, in time, led to great abuses, since even in cases of the commission of the gravest crimes the Church had no direct power to inflict the penalty of death. On the contrary, the heaviest sentence it could give was imprisonment in a monastery, with degradation from the clerical office; while in less serious cases the offenders generally got off with fasting and flogging.
On this account some criminals who deserved to be hanged escaped with a comparatively slight penalty. Such a case now occurred. In one instance a priest had committed an unprovoked murder. Henry commanded him to be brought before the Kings' court; Becket interfered, and ordered the case to be tried by the bishop of the diocese. The bishop simply sentenced the murderer to lose his place for two years.
165. The Constitutions of Clarendon, 1164.
The King determined that such flagrant disregard of justice should no longer go on. He called a council of his chief men at Clarendon, near Salisbury, in Wiltshire, and laid the case before them. He demanded that in future the state or civil courts should be supreme, and that in every instance their judges should decide whether a criminal should be tried by the common law of the land or handed over to the Church courts.
He furthermore required that the clergy should be held strictly responsible to the Crown, so that in case of dispute the final appeal should be neither to the Archbishop nor to the Pope, but to himself. In this respect he went even farther than William the Conqueror had done (S118). After protracted debate the council, composed of a committee of bishops and barons, passed the measures which the King demanded. The new laws were entitled the Constitutions of Clarendon. They consisted of sixteen articles which clearly defined the powers and jurisdiction of the King's courts and the Church courts. Their great object was to secure a more uniform administration of justice for all classes of men. (See the Constitutional Summary in the Appendix, pp. viii and xxxii.)
Becket, though bitterly oppsed to the new laws, finally assented, and swore to obey them. Afterward, feeling that he had conceded too much, he retracted his oath and refused to be bound by the Constitutions. The other Church dignitaries became alarmed at the prospect, and left Becket to settle with the King as best he might. Henceforth it was a battle between the King and the Archbishop, and each resolved that he would never give up until he had won the final victory (S170).
166. The King enforces the New Laws; Becket leaves the Country.
Henry at once proceeded to put the Constitutions of Clarendon into execution without fear or favor. A champion of the Church of that day says, "Then was seen the mournful spectacle of priests and deacons who had committed murder, manslaughter, robbery, theft, and other crimes, carried in carts before the comissioners and punished as thogh they were ordinary men."[1]
[1] William of Newburgh's "Chronicle."
Furthermore, the King sems now to have resolved to ruin Becket or drive him from the kingdom. He accordingly summoned the Archbishop before a royal council at Northampton to answer to certain charges made against him. Becket answered the summons, but he refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the council, and appealed to the Pope. "Traitor!" cried a courtier, as he picked up a bunch of muddy rushes from the floor and flung them at the Archbishop's head. Becket turned and, looking him sternly in the face, said, "Were I not a churchman, I would make you repent that word." Realizing, however, that he was now in serious danger, he soon after left Northampton and fled to France.
167. Banishment versus Excommunication (1164).
Finding Becket beyond his reach, Henry next proceeded to banish the Archbishop's kinsmen and friends, without regard to age or sex, to the number of nearly four hundred. These miserable exiles, many of whom were nearly destitute, were forced to leave the country in midwinter, and excited the pity of all who saw them.
Becket indignantly retaliated. He hurled at the King's counselors the awful sentence of excommunication or expulsion from the Church (S194). It declared the King accursed of God and man, deprived of help in this world, and shut out from hope in the world to come. In this manner the quarrel went on with ever-increasing bitterness for the space of six years.
168. Prince Henry crowned; Reconciliation (1170).
Henry, who had long wished to associate his son, Prince Henry, with him in the government, had him crowned at Westminster by the Archbishop of York, the bishops of London and Salisbury taking part.
By custom, if not indeed by law, Becket alone, as Archbishop of
Canterbury, had the right to perform this ceremony.
When Becket heard of the coronation, he declared it an outrage both against Christianity and the Church. So great an outcry now arose that Henry believed it expedient to recall the absent Archbishop, especially as the King of France was urging the Pope to take up the matter. Henry accordingly went over to the Continent, met Becket, and persuaded him to return.
169. Reneral of the Quarrel; Murder of Becket (1170).
But though the Archbishop and the King had given each other the "kiss of peace," yet the reconciliation was on the surface only; underneath, the old hatred smoldered, ready to burst forth into flame. As soon as he reached England, Becket invoked the thunders of the Church against those who had officiated at the coronation of Prince Henry. He excommunicated the Archbishop of York with his assistant bishops.
The King took their part, and in an outburst of passion against Becket he exclaimed, "Will none of the cowards who eat my bread rid me of that turbulent priest?" In answer to his angry cry for relief, four knights set out without Henry's knowledge for Canterbury, and brutally murdered the Archbishop within the walls of his own cathedral.
170. Results of the Murder.
The crime sent a thrill of horror throughout the realm. The Pope proclaimed Becket a saint with the title of Saint Thomas. The mass of the English people looked upon the dead ecclesiastic as a martyr who had died in the defense of the Church, and of all those—but especially the laboring classes and the poor—around whom the Church cast its protecting power.
The great cathedral of Canterbury was hung in mourning; Becket's shrine became the most famous in England. The stone pavement, and the steps leading to it, still show by their deep-worn hollows where thousands of pilgrims coming from all parts of the kingdom, and from the Continent even, used to creep on their knees to the saint's tomb to pray for his intercession.
Henry himself was so far vanquished by the reaction in Becket's favor, that he gave up any further attempt to formally enforce the Constitutions of Clarendon (S165), by which he had hoped to establish a uniform system of administration of justice. But the attempt, though baffled, was not wholly lost; like seed buried in the soil, it sprang up and bore good fruit in later generations. However, it was not until near the close of the reign of George III (1813) that the civil courts fully and finally prevailed.
171. The King makes his Will; Civil War.
Some years after the murder, the King bequeathed England and Normandy (SS108, 159) to Prince Henry.[1] He at the same time provided for his sons Geoffrey and Richard. To John, the youngest of the brothers, he gave no territory, but requested Henry to grant him several castles, which the latter refused to do. "It is our fate," said one of the sons, "that none should love the rest; that is the only inheritance which will never be taken from us."
[1] After his coronation Prince Henry had the title of Henry III; but as he died before his father, he never properly became king in his own right.
It may be that that legacy of hatred was the