The History of England, Volume I · David Hume
HENRY II.
He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered farther unpalatable by the mixture of unsavoury herbs: he tore his back with the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars, whom he afterwards dismissed with presents [e]: he gained the affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate: he seemed to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of seriousness and mental recollection, and secret devotion: and all men of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned itself towards a new and more dangerous object. [FN [e] Fitz-Steph. p. 25. Hist. Quad. p. 19.]
William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a living which belonged to a manor that held of the Archbishop of Canterbury: but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented, on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was violently expelled by Eynsford. The primate, making himself, as was usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued, in a summary manner, the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who complained to the king, that he who held IN CAPITE of the crown should, contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and maintained ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible sentence, without the previous consent of the sovereign [g]. Henry, who had now broken off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him, by a messenger, his orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for answer, that it belonged not to the king to inform him whom he should absolve and whom excommunicate [h]: and it was not till after many remonstrances and menaces, that Becket, though with the worst grace imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate. [FN [g] M. Paris, p. 7. Diceto, p. 536. [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 28.] Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the character of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy, determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching clerical usurpations. He was entirely master of his extensive dominions: the prudence and vigour of his administration, attended with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of his predecessors [i]: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism which divided all Europe: and he rightly judged, that if the present favourable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an entire subordination under the mitre. [FN [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 130.]
The union of the civil and ecclesiastic power serves extremely, in every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous consequences. Whether the supreme magistrate, who unites these powers, receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not material: the superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross impostures and bigoted persecutions, which, in all false religions, are the chief foundation of clerical authority. But during the progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the public, to provide, in time, sufficient barriers against so dangerous and insidious a rival. This precaution had hitherto been much neglected in England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign of the greatest abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most inflexible and intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their conflict.
Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy had inculcated the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and having again introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a commutation, or species of atonement, for the remission of those penances, the sins of the people, by these means, had become a revenue to the priests; and the king computed that, by this invention alone, they levied more money upon his subjects than flowed, by all the funds and taxes, into the royal exchequer [k] That he might ease the people of so heavy and arbitrary an imposition, Henry required that a civil officer of his appointment should be present in all ecclesiastical courts, and should, for the future, give his consent to every composition which was made with sinners for their spiritual offences. [FN [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 32.]
The ecclesiastics, in that age, had renounced all immediate subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an exemption, in criminal accusations, from a trial before courts of justice; and were gradually introducing a like exemption in civil causes: spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted on their offences; and as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the deepest dye, murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes, were daily committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics. It had been found, for instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had, since the king's accession, been perpetrated by men of that profession, who had never been called to account for these offences [l]; and holy orders were become a full protection for all enormities. A clerk in Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman's daughter, had, at this time, proceeded to murder the father: and the general indignation against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate [m]. Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the king's officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on him than degradation; and when the king demanded, that, immediately after he was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted, that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same accusation, and for the same offence [n]. [FN [l] Neubr. p. 394. [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 33. Hist. Quad. p. 32. [n] Fitz-Steph. p. 29. Hist. Quad. p. 33, 45. Hoveden, p. 492. M. Paris, p. 72. Diceto, p. 536, 537. Brompton, p. 1058. Gervase, p. 1384. Epist. St. Thom. p. 208, 209.]
Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies, which daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions. He summoned an assembly of all the prelates of England; and he put to them this concise and decisive question, Whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The bishops unanimously replied, that they were willing, SAVING THEIR OWN ORDER [o]: a device by which they thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all their pretensions. The king was sensible of the artifice, and was provoked to the highest indignation. He left the assembly, with visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to surrender the honours and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were terrified, and expected still farther effects of his resentment. Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute promise of observing the ancient customs [p]. [FN [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31. Hist. Quad. p. 34. Hoveden, p. 492. [p] Hist. Quad. p. 37. Hoveden, p. 493. Gervase, p. 1385.]
But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms: he resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs with which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical usurpations before they were fully consolidated, and could plead antiquity, as they already did a sacred authority, in their favour. The claims of the church were open and visible. After a gradual and insensible progress during many centuries, the mask had at last been taken off; and several ecclesiastical councils, by their canons which were pretended to be irrevocable and infallible, had positively defined those privileges and immunities which gave such general offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil magistrate. Henry, therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this great and important question. [MN 1164. 15th Jan. Constitutions of Clarendon.] The barons were all gained to the king's party, either by the reasons which he urged, or by his superior authority: the bishops were overawed by the general combination against them: and the following laws, commonly called the CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON, were voted without opposition by this assembly [q].
At last, Richard de Hastings, Grand Prior of the Templars in England, threw himself on his knees before him; and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any regard, either to his own safety or that of the church, not to provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the indignation of a great monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose, and who was determined to take full revenge on every one that should dare to oppose him [s]. Becket, finding himself deserted by all the world, even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he promised, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE [t], to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose [u]. The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided in France; and he required that pontiff's ratification of them: but Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled, and rejected them. There were only six articles, the least important, which, for the sake of peace, he was willing to ratify. [FN [s] Hist. Quad. p. 38. Hoveden, p. 493. [t] Fitz-Steph. p. 35. Epist. St. Thom. p. 25. [u] Fitz-Steph. p. 45. Hist. Quad. p. 39. Gervase, p. 1386.]
Becket, when he observed that he might hope for support in an opposition, expressed the deepest sorrow for his compliance; and endeavoured to engage all the other bishops in a confederacy to adhere to their common rights, and to the ecclesiastical privileges, in which he represented the interest and honour of God to be so deeply concerned. He redoubled his austerities, in order to punish himself for his criminal assent to the constitutions of Clarendon: he proportioned his discipline to the enormity of his supposed offence; and he refused to exercise any part of his archiepiscopal function, till he should receive absolution from the pope; which was readily granted him. Henry, informed of his present dispositions, resolved to take vengeance for this refractory behaviour; and he attempted to crush him, by means of that very power which Becket made such merit in supporting. He applied to the pope, that he should grant the commission of legate in his dominions to the Archbishop of York; but Alexander, as politic as he, though he granted the commission, annexed a clause, that it should not empower the legate to execute any act of prejudice of the Archbishop of Canterbury [w]; and the king, finding how fruitless such an authority would prove, sent back the commission by the same messenger that brought it [x]. [FN [w] Epist. St. Thom. p. 13, 14. [x] Hoveden, p.493. Gervase, p. 1388.]
The primate, however, who found himself still exposed to the king's indignation, endeavoured twice to escape secretly from the kingdom, but was as often detained by contrary winds; and Henry hastened to make him feel the effects of an obstinacy which he deemed so criminal. He instigated John, mareschal of the exchequer, to sue Becket in the archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham; and to appeal thence to the king's court for justice [y]. On the day appointed for trying the cause, the primate sent four knights to represent certain irregularities in John's appeal; and at the same time to excuse himself, on account of sickness, for not appearing personally that day in the court. This slight offence (if it even deserve the name) was represented as a grievous contempt; the four knights were menaced and with difficulty escaped being sent to prison, as offering falsehoods to the court [z]. And Henry, being determined to prosecute Becket to the utmost, summoned, at Northampton, a great council, which he purposed to make the instrument of his vengeance against the inflexible prelate. [FN [y] Hoveden, p. 494. M. Paris, p. 72. Diceto, p. 537. [z] See note [R], at the end of the volume.]
The king had raised Becket from a low station to the highest offices, had honoured him with his countenance and friendship, had trusted to his assistance in forwarding his favourite project against the clergy; and when he found him become of a sudden his most rigid opponent, while every one beside complied with his will, rage at the disappointment, and indignation against such signal ingratitude, transported him beyond all bounds of moderation; and there seems to have entered more of passion than of justice, or even of policy, in this violent prosecution [a]. The barons, notwithstanding, in the great council, voted whatever sentence he was pleased to dictate to them; and the bishops themselves, who undoubtedly bore a secret favour to Becket, and regarded him as the champion of their privileges, concurred with the rest in the design of oppressing their primate. In vain did Becket urge that his court was proceeding with the utmost regularity and justice in trying the maresehal's cause; which, however, he said, would appear, from the sheriff's testimony, to be entirely unjust and iniquitous: that he himself had discovered no contempt of the king's court; but, on the contrary, by sending four knights to excuse his absence, had virtually acknowledged its authority: that he also, in consequence of the king's summons, personally appeared at present in the great council, ready to justify his cause against the mareschal, and to submit his conduct to their inquiry and jurisdiction: that even should it be found that he had been guilty of non-appearance, the laws had affixed a very slight penalty to that offence: and that, as he was an inhabitant of Kent, where his archiepiscopal palace was seated, he was by law entitled to some greater indulgence than usual in the rate of his fine [b].
Notwithstanding these pleas, he was condemned as guilty of a contempt of the king's court, and as wanting in the fealty which he had sworn to his sovereign; all his goods and chattels were confiscated [c]; and that this triumph over the church might be carried to the utmost, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, the prelate who had been so powerful in the former reign, was, in spite of his remonstrances, obliged, by order of the court, to pronounce the sentence against him [d]. The primate submitted to the decree; and all the prelates, except Folliot, Bishop of London, who paid court to the king by this singularity, became sureties for him [e]. It is remarkable that seven Norman barons voted in this council; and we may conclude, with some probability, that a like practice had prevailed in many of the great councils summoned since the Conquest. For the contemporary historian, who has given us a full account of these transactions, does not mention this circumstance as anywise singular [f]; and Becket, in all his subsequent remonstrances with regard to the severe treatment which he had met with, never founds any objection on an irregularity which to us appears very palpable and flagrant. So little precision was there at that time in the government and constitution! [FN [a] Neubr. p. 394. [b] Fitz-Steph. p. 37, 42. [c] Hist. Quad. p. 47 Hoveden, p. 494. Gervase, p. 1389. [d] Fitz-Steph. p. 37. [e] Ibid. [f] Ibid. p. 36.]
The king was not content with this sentence, however violent and oppressive. Next day, he demanded of Becket the sum of three hundred pounds, which the primate had levied upon the honours of Eye and Berkham, while in his possession. Becket, after premising that he was not obliged to answer to this suit, because it was not contained in his summons; after remarking that he had expended more than that sum in the repair of those castles, and of the royal palace at London; expressed however his resolution, that money should not be any ground of quarrel between him and his sovereign; he agreed to pay the sum; and immediately gave surety for it [g]. In the subsequent meeting, the king demanded five hundred marks, which, he affirmed, he had lent Becket during the war at Toulouse [h]; and another sum in the same amount for which that prince had been surety for him to a Jew. Immediately after these two claims, he preferred a third of still greater importance: he required him to give in the accounts of his administration while chancellor, and to pay the balance due from the revenues of all the prelacies, abbeys, and baronies, which had, during that time, been subjected to his management [i]. Becket observed, that, as this demand was totally unexpected, he had not come prepared to answer it; but he required a delay, and promised in that case to give satisfaction. The king insisted upon sureties; and Becket desired leave to consult his suffragans in a case of such importance [k]. [FN [g] Ibid. p. 38. [h] Hist. Quad. p. 47. [i] Hoveden, p. 494. Diceto, p. 537. [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]
It is apparent, from the known character of Henry, and from the usual vigilance of his government, that, when he promoted Becket to the see of Canterbury, he was on good grounds, well pleased with his administration in the former high office with which he had entrusted him; and that, even if that prelate had dissipated money beyond the income of his place, the king was satisfied that his expenses were not blameable, and had in the main been calculated for his service [l]. Two years had since elapsed; no demand had, during that time, been made upon him; it was not till the quarrel arose concerning ecclesiastical privileges that the claim was started, and the primate was, of a sudden, required to produce accounts of such intricacy and extent before a tribunal which had showed a determined resolution to ruin and oppress him. To find sureties that he should answer so boundless and uncertain a claim, which in the king's estimation amounted to forty-four thousand marks [m], was impracticable; and Becket's suffragans were extremely at a loss what counsel to give him in such a critical emergency. By the advice of the Bishop of Winchester, he offered two thousand marks as a general satisfaction for all demands: but this offer was rejected by the king [n]. Some prelates exhorted him to resign his see, on condition of receiving an acquittal: others were of opinion that he ought to submit himself entirely to the kings mercy [o]: but the primate, thus pushed to the utmost, had too much courage to sink under oppression: he determined to brave all his enemies, to trust to the sacredness of his character for protection, to involve his cause with that of God and religion, and to stand the utmost efforts of royal indignation. [FN [l] Hoveden, p. 495. [m] Epist. St. Thom. p. 315. [n] Fitz-Steph. p. 38. [o] Ibid. p. 39. Gervase, p. 1390.]
After a few days spent in deliberation, Becket went to church and said mass, where he had previously ordered that the introit to the communion service should begin with these words, PRINCES SAT, AND SPAKE AGAINST ME; the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St. Stephen, whom the primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble, in his sufferings for the sake of righteousness. He went thence to court, arrayed in his sacred vestments: as soon as he arrived within the palace gate, he took the cross into his own hands, bore it aloft as his protection, and marched, in that posture, into the royal apartments [p]. The king, who was in an inner room, was astonished at this parade, by which the primate seemed to menace him and his court with the sentence of excommunication; and he sent some of the prelates to remonstrate with him on account of such audacious behaviour. These prelates complained to Becket, that, by subscribing himself to the constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced them to imitate his example; and that now, when it was too late, he pretended to shake off all subordination to the civil power, and appeared desirous of involving them in the guilt which must attend any violation of those laws, established by their consent, and ratified by their subscriptions [q].
Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the constitutions of Clarendon, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE; but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for the rights of their order, which, being connected with the cause of God and his church, could never be relinquished by their oaths and engagements: that if he and they had erred in resigning the ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement they could now make was to retract their consent, which, in such a case, could never be obligatory, and to follow the pope's authority, who had solemnly annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them from all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a determined resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he could expect no justice; and he plainly saw, that he was the destined victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of all spiritual immunities; that he strictly inhibited them who were his suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving their sanction to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see under the protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against any penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon him: and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul, and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition [r].
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