Time and Chance (31 page)

Thomas Becket got hastily to his feet. “My lord king, I must protest. Philip de Brois was found innocent by the Bishop of Lincoln’s court, as you well know.”

“Only because he found twelve men willing to swear on his behalf. Why should a sworn oath matter more than the evidence?”

“Need I remind you,” Becket said gravely, “that the act of perjury imperils a man’s immortal soul? Surely few men would dare to put their salvation at risk by lying under oath.”

“And surely few men would commit robbery and rape and homicide after taking holy orders,” Henry shot back. “Ah, but they do, my lord archbishop . . . they do! And what befalls these renegades once they are caught? They are degraded. But do you truly think a man capable of unholy murder will care if he is stripped of his priestly privileges? You might as well seek to deflect a charging bull by scattering straw in its path!”

The bishops were shifting uneasily in their seats, for Henry seemed poised for an all-out assault upon the Church’s exclusive jurisdiction. Foliot stared intently at Becket, willing the other man to tread with care; there was too much at stake for bravado. But Becket chose, instead, to fling down a challenge.

“Surely you do not have it in mind to encroach upon our courts, my liege? That issue was clearly settled in King Stephen’s charter of 1136, in which it was agreed that ‘Jurisdiction over clergy shall lie in the hands of the bishops.’ ”

Foliot winced, unable to believe Becket could have been so tactless, for Henry would be the last man alive to be swayed by precedent established during Stephen’s reign, which he considered a time of “unlaw.” Glancing toward Henry, he saw it was as he feared: the king’s jaw muscles had clenched, his color deepening.

“I doubt that the boundaries are as well defined as you seem to think, my lord archbishop. Be that as it may, I am not proposing to deny the Church jurisdiction over its own. I am prepared to be reasonable. I seek only to punish the guilty, those criminous clerks who have already been judged in the Episcopal courts. Once these men have been found guilty and degraded, they are no longer men of God. I would have them then turned over to my courts for sentencing.” Henry’s voice, normally hoarse, dropped even further, coming out as a low, ominous rasp. “Surely that seems fair,” he said, in what was not so much a question as a warning.

Becket shook his head slowly. “The clergy, by reason of their orders and distinctive office, have Christ alone as king. And since they are not under secular kings, but under the King of Heaven, they should be punished by their own law. Degradation is a harsh penalty, suitable for most offenses. In addition to the shame of it, it deprives a man of his livelihood. You would impose a double penalty for the same crime, and I cannot agree to that. St Jerome spoke clearly to that very issue when he said, ‘God judges not twice for the same offense.’ ”

Henry had not expected Becket to reject his proposal out of hand, for he truly thought his reform was a moderate one. “If degradation were the ‘harsh penalty’ you think it is, it would be a deterrent to your wayward clerks and criminous priests. Clearly, that is not so. As for double punishment, it seems to me that a crime committed by a man who has taken holy orders is more despicable for that very reason, as it is a betrayal of God. Such men deserve no mercy. I am not willing to concede that priests and clerics are above the King’s Law. But that is not at issue here. We are talking of punishing men who have been found guilty in your own courts, men who can no longer claim the protective immunity of their holy vows. Where is the injustice in that?”

For the first time, Becket glanced over at the other bishops, his gaze lingering upon their tense, pale faces. When he turned back to Henry, he said, “I, too, am prepared to be reasonable, my liege. We would be willing to agree that if a cleric was tried in our courts and degraded and then subsequently committed another offense, he should be subject to the jurisdiction of your courts.”

“Would you, indeed? So you are saying that you’d not object if a former priest went on a murderous rampage and I chose to try him in my own court? How truly magnanimous of you!”

Henry’s sarcasm was so savage that a number of the bishops flinched. But Becket did not back down. “I am sorry you think so little of our concession, my liege. I can only say to you what Our Lord Christ said to the Pharisees: ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ ”

“Let’s talk, then, of what is owed to Caesar. Would you deny that you owe allegiance and loyalty to the Crown?”

“Of course not.”

“So you would be willing, then, to abide by the ancient customs of the realm?”

Becket frowned. “Just what are you asking of us, my liege?”

“You require a translation, my lord archbishop? I want to know if you are willing to swear here and now to obey the ancient customs of the realm. A simple enough question, I should think. What say you?”

“Ere I say anything, my lord king, I wish to consult with my fellow bishops.”

Henry’s eyes glittered. “I thought you listened only to the Almighty these days.”

Becket drew a sharp breath. They stared at each other, the others in the hall forgotten, the silence fraught with suspicion and all that lay unspoken between them.

 

 

 

ELEANOR QUICKENED HER STEP at the sight of her brother-in-law. “Will? Why are you not at the council?”

“We adjourned for an hour so that Becket and the other bishops could discuss Harry’s demand.”

He did not need to be more explicit, for Henry had confided in Eleanor his strategy: if they balked at allowing him to punish former clerks, he meant to fall back upon the ancient customs of the realm, just as his grandfather had done in a dispute with another contentious archbishop.

“I doubt that Becket will agree,” she said. “He seems to think that if he yields so much as an inch to Harry, it will brand him as a heretic and apostate, unworthy to wear Canterbury’s mitre.”

“You think he is sincere?”

“Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I am sorry to say that I do. He’d be easier to deal with if he were not. Zealots are always more troublesome than hypocrites, Will, for they never doubt they are in the right.” She almost added, “Rather like kings,” but she knew Will would not appreciate such subversive humor. In that, he was very much his mother’s son. She’d always been grateful that her husband had inherited Geoffrey’s irony as well as his fair coloring, although it was a pity that he’d passed along the infamous Angevin obstinacy, too. Well, whatever Harry’s faults, at least he was never boring, and that meant much to a woman wed for fifteen years to the French king.

Will was still talking about Becket, and she focused her attention upon him again. Alas, Will
was
boring these days, for his only topic of conversation seemed to be the wrong done him by the archbishop. She doubted that his marriage would have turned out for the best. His expectations were too unrealistic; Isabella de Warenne could not possibly have lived up to them. She was sorry, though, that he was so unhappy, for he was a likable lad, putting her in mind of her own half-brothers, who cared more for pleasure than politics and were blessedly free of envy or spite.

“You must not despair, Will,” she said. “If Becket cannot be coaxed or coerced into dropping his objections to your marriage, Harry will appeal to the Pope on your behalf.”

“That will not help. The Pope will not want to offend his own archbishop.”

“He’ll not want to offend the King of England, either. As long as Harry supports him against that puppet the Holy Roman Emperor has set up in Rome, it is very much in Alexander’s interest to keep Harry’s goodwill.”

“Yes, but he can delay acting upon my request for a dispensation, neither granting it nor denying it. What better way to deal with an awkward issue than by ignoring it?”

Eleanor thought that was an astute assessment of the workings of the papal court, too astute and cynical for Will. “What makes you say that, lad?”

“I asked the Bishop of Lisieux to tell me honestly what my chances were. He said I ought not to get my hopes up, that vexatious petitions have a way of getting conveniently lost in the papal archives.”

Eleanor could not help smiling, for that sounded just like Arnulf of Lisieux. A shrewd, worldly man in his late fifties, he was as noted for his political acumen as for his erudition, and since his arrival from his Norman see, he’d been advising Henry how best to outmaneuver Becket. She regretted, though, that he’d seen fit to strip Will of his optimism. Will needed hope as much as he did air and food.

“You ought to know by now that your brother is one for getting his own way,” she chided. “If anyone can pry a dispensation from the Pope, for certes it is Harry.” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than her husband appeared in the doorway of the great hall. She patted Will absently on the arm, then moved to meet Henry.

“Will says Becket and the bishops are conferring in private. Could you tell if the others seem to be siding with Becket?”

“If they do, they’ll regret it,” he said tersely. He didn’t appear to want to talk, not a good sign. He stalked down the steps and she had to hasten to keep pace with him. She had never been particularly troubled by his rages, for she came from a volatile family herself. Her father’s spectacular fits of fury had shaped her views of normal male behavior, and Louis’s mild manner had seemed neither manly nor royal to her. Her baffled and bitter comment to her sister that “I thought I’d married a king and found I’d married a monk” could well serve as the epitaph for their marriage.

So when Henry fumed and seethed and ranted, she took his tempers in stride. She’d soon realized that there was a degree of calculation to his rages, just one more weapon in his arsenal. And she agreed with him; far better that a king be feared than loved. But his anger against Becket was different. It was stoked by pain, and she could imagine no fuel more inflammable, and therefore more dangerous.

Henry had paused on the walkway, gazing up unseeingly at the cloud-flecked sky. “I swear he takes pleasure in thwarting me at every turn. How can he be so ungrateful? All that he is, he owes to me. Yet each time I hold out an olive branch to him, he spits upon it. How long does he think he can trade on our past friendship? I will never understand how I could have misjudged him so badly—never!”

Eleanor did not fully understand it, either. How could these two men have been such close friends and yet misread each other so calamitously? Her husband had utterly failed to anticipate the archbishop Becket would become. But what of Becket? Had he learned nothing in their years together? How could he not realize what a formidable and unforgiving enemy Harry would make?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

WELL?” HENRY’S EYES MOVED from face to face, then focused intently upon Thomas Becket. “You’ve had an opportunity to confer. Are you willing to swear to obey the ancient customs of the realm?”

Becket met his gaze unwaveringly. “The customs of Holy Church are fully set forth in the canons and decrees of the Fathers. It is not fitting for you, my lord king, to demand anything that goes beyond these, nor ought we to consent to any innovations. We who now stand in the place of the Fathers ought to humbly obey the old laws, not establish new ones.”

“I am not asking you to do anything of the sort,” Henry snapped. “I ask only that the customs which were observed in the times of my predecessors be also observed in my reign. In those days there were holier and better archbishops than you who consented to these customs, raising no controversy about them with their kings.”

“Whatever was done by former kings that violated the canons and whatever practices were observed out of fear of those kings ought not to be called customs, but rather abuses. Scriptures teach us that such depraved practices ought to be abolished, not extended. You say that the holy bishops of those times kept silent and did not complain. Mayhap those were days for silence. But their example does not give us the authority to assent to anything that is done against God or our order.”

Henry’s breathing had quickened. “You are saying, then, that you refuse?”

“No, my liege. We have discussed your demand and we are willing to swear to honor the customs of the realm . . . saving our order.”

“And what in hellfire does that mean?”

“That we refuse to acknowledge those customs which we believe to violate canon law.”

“Just as I thought! This is a poisonous phrase,” Henry snarled, “full of guile, and I will not accept it! You will swear without conditions and you will swear now.”

“No, my liege,” Becket said, “we will not.”

“Does this man speak for you all?” Henry whirled around on the other bishops. “My lord bishop of London, what say you?”