II. Chancellor and Archbishop

BEFORE going further, that we may understand Thomas in all through which he is to go, it is necessary to say a few words about what seems to have been, on the natural side, the key to his character, to the extraordinary sp^ed with which he rose to power, and to the effectiveness with which he used it. We shall have to speak of events that took place long after this point in his story, but it will be far easier to understand those events and why they have remained so prominent in English history, if we try to understand first this central actor in them.

The key of his character seems to have been this, that he possessed what is known as a " magnetic personality."

It is an undefinable thing, and yet unmistakeable: it is sometimes pleasant and 26 sometimes unpleasant, but it is always there in souls which make strong friends and strong enemies. Such souls as these go through life like a flame, they kindle or consume. They kindle those with whom they have sympathy, they set on fire with hatred those with whom they have not. Now it is remarkable to notice how true this is of Thomas, and how curiously it shows itself. At first, as we shall see, he attracted the friendship of men of violent passions, such as was Henry II; later, as Thomas' own soul grew in grace, that friendship turned to fury. There were times when all the world seemed against him — that world was never indifferent to him — and yet all the while those who are God's friends were his: the poor and the simple loved him to passion; men-at-arms and barons — brutal, worldly, ambitious — these loved him when he led them to battle, and turned against him in the bitterest anger and contempt when he stood out for God and the Church. There were times when his personal friends were reduced to half-a-dozen, while the rest stormed against him; and these friends were of the most strange 27 varieties — one a man of astonishing external arrogance, another a wit, another a scholar, another a passionate enthusiast, and others, apparently, simple-minded monks. It is generally so with "strong" or " magnetic" personalities; they simultaneously attract some and repel others, and both these are often of surprising varieties. In many other ways Thomas' character shows itself to be of this nature: his very face and figure illustrated it, his long sensitive hands, his wide eyes, his prominent nose and thin lips. His actions illustrated it: his complete indifference to popularity, his sternness even with those who reverenced him, his emphatic living up to his position whatever it might be, his fierce austerities, his severity in judging himself, his unruffled and persevering courtesy, his "strong crying " and tears.

Now these things are not necessarily the marks of a saint. There have been saints who have been otherwise, tender, tactful, almost soft souls of exquisite delicacy, whose strength lay rather in a hidden kind of self-control; and there have been eminent sin- 28 ners, soldiers, rulers, adventurers who have been strong after Thomas' way, unsupernatural men who neither feared nor loved God nor man. But when these powers are, as in Thomas, united with sanctity they are appallingly effective, and are almost bound to lead to some kind of martyrdom. If ever a man was raised up by God in a difficult age to do a particular kind of work it was Thomas. It was an age when only the strong could accomplish anything; and we see this by the astonishing collapse of nearly all the English prelates under the fierce self-assertion of Henry. But Thomas' ultimate strength lay not in his use of these natural gifts, but in his complete readiness to die for God's cause, instead of living for it, when the time came. So long as it was of any use he opposed strength to strength, he snarled back at Northampton like a lion among dogs, he looked straight into the passionate hawk's eyes of Henry, and gave him challenge for challenge. But when at last the hour struck when neither persuasion nor righteous wrath nor patience was of any avail, he marched, as we shall see, straight 29 to death, knowing that, like his Lord Himself, the time was gone by for using a scourge in the Temple, and rebukes and challenges — he must now submit himself to the scourge instead, and, laying aside all natural weapons in God's battle, he must take up the last and supreme supernatural weapon which never fails, the very Cross of Calvary on which he is to die.

Next we must consider shortly the other great actor in all these events.

Henry II, Thomas' new master, the first Plantagenet king, was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda. At this time he was twenty-oneyearsold — of middle height, keen-eyed, high-browed, broad-chested, strong and sinewy, eyed like a bird of prey. He was, moreover, endowed with an extraordinarily passionate temper; and would sit, at times, in a silent fury, clawing at the cushion of his chair, chewing the straw that he tore out of it, or rocking on his bed muttering and cursing. But he had, too, the extreme affectionateness that goes with strong feelings; and in a very short while Henry and Thomas were the best friends in the world. 30

Indeed Henry seems to have been a very charming companion, friendly, humorous, and devoted to a kind of rollicking mirth that showed itself in a hundred ways. For example, he would ride, all unannounced, into his Chancellor's hall, delighted at the consternation that his royalty produced; he would dismount at the dais, vault across the table, and sit himself down beside his friend to drink a cup of wine. There is a pleasant story of his solemnly questioning his Chancellor one day, as the two, riding together through the streets, saw a beggar make ready to ask an alms.

"My lord," he said, " would it not be a meritorious act to relieve this poor man?"

" No doubt, Sir," said Thomas.

"Then you shall have the merit of doing it," said the King; and seized his friend's scarlet furred cloak to throw it to the beggar. Thomas resisted; and the citizens of London had the privilege of seeing their King and the Chancellor wrestling on horseback over the question as to which should avoid doing an act of charity.

But Henry was a serious ruler as well.

His possessions were enormous. Not only was England his, but large parts of France — Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine; and these dominions were in a condition difficult to realize in our days of fatted peace and county councils. Wales, for instance, and parts of England as well, to go no further afield, were in a perpetual state of semi-war. The nobles in Stephen's reign had lived very much like petty kings, building themselves vast fortified castles, ruling their lands with almost unlimited powers, and continually ready to make an amateur kind of war upon their sovereign. All this Henry had to deal with — and since Henry, therefore Thomas. Thomas' business, therefore, became of a very secular nature. It would be he who had to do with the granting of charters to rising towns — a method of giving self-respect and loyal seriousness to those who might otherwise be content with lawlessness. But besides the ordinary work of the Chancellor, which was enormous, since he was practically the first officer of the realm, Thomas had also peculiar difficulties to contend with. It was only 32 natural that men should be violently jealous of this young man who had risen so swiftly to such enormous power, and that they should do all that was possible to obstruct him and undermine his influence in every conceivable way. And again the nobles, whose power Thomas had to repress, were not likely to love him for it; and, yet again, while Thomas' sympathies and conscience were on the side of the Church, his position made him the servant of the State, and he had to do his best to reconcile these occasionally conflicting interests.

In foreign matters, too, his task was not easy, and especially in France, where the question of frontiers between French and English dominions was perpetually causing friction. It is obvious that the fact of an English king possessing huge districts over the sea would not be likely to promote peace.

But Thomas was wonderfully successful. Not only was he a brilliant diplomatist, utterly conscientious, courteous, pleasant, and strong, but he had still that love of splendour and generosity that always calls 33 D out admiration. For example, the description of a visit which he paid to the King of France is worth giving almost in full, since it offers a picture not only of life as it then was, but of the gorgeous tastes of Thomas himself, and of the way in which he was capable of rising to a great occasion.

He was sent in 1158 to confer with Louis on this question of frontier fortresses; and he realized that in order to succeed he must make a deep impression of splendour upon all who saw him. He crossed in six ships, taking with him a retinue of two hundred men, knights, clerks, and noble boys. He had eight cars, each drawn by five horses, and guarded by a huge mastiff, with a groom in new livery at the head of each horse. These cars were laden; first, with what was called his ''chapel," that is, a complete set of altar furniture, vestments, lamps, bells; the next carried his "wardrobe," endless piles of stuffs and jewels in great caskets; the next his "private chamber," and two more his "kitchen," with great ironbound barrels of English ale. There followed twelve sumpter-horses, laden 34 with more stuffs; a groom led each, and a monkey sat on its neck. There followed strings of other beasts, carry ing coffers, plate, money, jewels, utensils, led by one horse carrying the sacred vessels of the altar. In the very front of the whole vast procession came company after company of soldiers as an advance-guard, singing as they went. Behind came the knights with their esquires and the clerks; and last of all the great, keen-faced Chancellor himself, surrounded by friends, towering a foot above his fellows on his huge horse, with its silver bit and chains, ablaze with colour and jewels.

The Frenchmen had never seen anything like it, except when royalty rode abroad. Men ran out of their houses to see the jingling, glittering pomp go by; they cried out that if the English Chancellor went with such glory, what must be the glory of the English King!

Then, too, his gifts on this journey were as magnificent as himself. Those great chests rocking in the carts and on the backs of horses were not so much tor his own use as to give pleasure to those who entertained 35 him; and out of them came furs, jewels, and splendid stuffs. The very beasts that bore them were given away. S

These years then, that went by, added, every one of them, to Thomas' reputation. At times he went with his King through the French dominions; at times he sat at home and administered English affairs. War broke out between Louis and Henry in 1159; and Thomas, at the head of seven hundred knights, rode with Henry and Malcolm of Scotland to meet the French. He fought, too, with the rest, though he was a clerk of Christ's Church, for it was not then thought impossible that a minister of peace should be also a man of war. At another time it was twelve hundred knights and four thousand men-at-arms that he maintained and led to battle. Yet he did not forget the higher duty which was his; he spoke plainly to Henry more than once when Church and State seemed in conflict, and twice upheld, though without success, the laws of marriage when the King wished to set them aside.

In domestic affairs he was more prosper- 36 cms. It is astonishing what peace he brought to England by his advice to Henry; the old days of slaughter and plunder seemed about to vanish away. Waste lands were brought under cultivation; the ruined villages began once more to take heart; the brutal castles were swept aside; the great positions in Church and State were no longer bought and sold by men whose only qualification was that of riches; old abuses of justice were done away; and by a reform of the system of taxation wealth was once more made accessible for purposes of State.

With regard to Thomas' dealings with the Church, if one thing is clear, it is this — that he was not in the least a man who pushed his Order at the expense of his loyalty. More than once he refused to listen to an ecclesiastical claim against the King, even when his old friend Theobald was behind it: he was perfectly impartial; he taxed Church-men as he taxed laymen, and, in fact, so loyal and reasonable was he, that Henry, when he made him Archbishop, seems to have thought that he was wholly on his side. There were innumerable questions to be decided between Church and State; again and again small points came up as to the appointment of this man or the other, as to the infliction or the remission of a fine, as to the punishment or acquittal of an ecclesiastic; and again and again Thomas decided the cause and advised the King, on the merits of the case, and not according to his own tastes. He yielded even to what was known as "scutage," an undoubtedly unjust form of taxation of ecclesiastics, since it was levied in place of military service, to which ecclesiastics were in no way subject. It was certainly a mistake for Thomas to yield to this, but it shows clearly enough that he was as zealous for the State now as he was for the Church afterwards. There he stood, Chancellor of England; his business was to administer the laws, and he knew and did his business. It is extremely important to remember this, in view of what happened a few years later. He was not in the least, as some have tried to pretend, a narrow-minded, selfish, obstinate ecclesiastic, determined to bow the King to his will. So then time went on, and his honours 38 fell thicker upon him every year, and his applause was in all men's mouths. He still held the great positions that Theobald had given him, his Archdeaconry of Canterbury, his churches, and his cathedral stalls; and now he was Dean of Hastings, the keeper of the Tower of London, the guardian of Berkhamstead Castle, and the Castle of Eye, with its one hundred and forty knights. There was no end to his activities; he took his duties seriously; he spent great sums upon the Tower; he was careful that his representatives should be as worthy as himself.

Yet who would have thought what God had in store for him?

It is true that his pure life still continued; that he did his duty to God as fervently as his duty to his King; it was through his advice, remembering, no doubt, his old school days, that the King endowed and finished the abbey church of Merton; but the splendour in which he lived gave no hint of another kind of splendour to which God would call him. We can see him, looking back over eight hundred years, sitting 39 in his great hall that was fully as gorgeous as the King's. Great tables run the length of it, crowded with knights and clerks; at one table sit the noble boys of his household, sent to him by their fathers to learn how gentlemen should live and act. In the middle, in a space cleared among the fresh leaves and twigs with which the floor is strewn every day, burns a huge fire, of which the smoke coils up into the dim gilded roof overhead. Servants move to and fro with the clash of dishes, bearing silver and golden plate in endless profusion. Huge heaps of food are brought smoking from the kitchen — lampreys, pikes, eels; mutton, beef, game of all kinds, wild-fowl, haunches of venison; quinces, fruits, and custards. The silver cups go round, and music, wild and braying in our ears, crashes from the gallery overhead. The tables are crowded; knights and esquires have to wait their turn; a surging company of beggars waits in the court to receive the broken food when dinner is done; and there, on the dais, beneath the grim tapestries, sits the master of all in his tall chair. There are other great figures there, 40 ecclesiastics, officers of State, Frenchmen, Italians, Norwegians, each great in his own country; but he who sits there in the midst, with his wide piercing eyes, and his thin curved nose, and his smiling tight lips, in his scarlet and jewels and furs, is the greatest of them all. He is a deacon of the Catholic Church, though you would not know it; and it seems as if he had almost forgotten it himself in his more splendid honours. Those long, beautiful hands have held a sword more often than the sacred vessels of the altar; and that strong mouth, stammering ever so slightly now and again, has talked more of the affairs of this world than of the next. He will go out presently, and all will stand as he passes out; and the great men will follow him into a parlour for the " banquet" of nuts and fruit; and the beggars will throw up their caps and shout; and this afternoon, perhaps, the King will take his arm and laugh with him.

And yet God's pleasure is still with him;

and God's voice will call him to honours greater even than these or than all that the world can give; for beneath all this splendour burns the heart of a saint. There is no man that loves our Lady more in all London — he has already written a noble hymn in her honour — and those shoulders, so broad under the scarlet and gold, are marked with the lash of the discipline.

In 1159 died Hadrian IV, the English Pope, once Nicholas Breakspear, and Alexander III reigned in his stead. It was this Pontiff that ruled Christendom for the rest of Thomas' life, and who conferred upon him, after his death, the greatest honour that any can receive. In the spring of 1161 died Theobald, and the See of Canterbury and Primacy of all England was vacant.

But at this time both the King andThomas were in France, and, owing to the difficulty of travel, as well as to his own urgent affairs, the Chancellor was unable to go back to see his old friend. He received, however, one or two affectionate and pathetic letters from the Archbishop, telling him that all the world knew that King and Chancellor " had but one heart and soul " between them, and entreating him to do all in his power to help the Church in England in her difficulties. 42

These difficulties were of all kinds, but the greatest of all consisted in the bad old custom of allowing bishoprics to remain vacant for many months, and even years, at a time. (Another was that of a particular form of taxation called "second aids," levied by the Archdeacon of Canterbury, against which Theobald now protested.) But a year passed away after Theobald's death, and even Canterbury itself had no ruler.

In the spring of 1162 revolts broke out in Wales, and Thomas was sent across to deal with them. He went to Falaise Castle, in Normandy, to take his leave of the King; and there, in a private room, with only a few persons present, Henry told him that it was his will to make him Archbishop.

Thomas laughed.

" Why, look at my dress! " he said. " Is this the kind of man, Sir, you would set over monks and Churchmen?"

Henry persisted.

" I tell you, Sir," said Thomas frankly, "that if you do this thing you will bitterly regret it. You say you love me now. Well, that love will turn to hatred."

The King shook his head, and turned to one of his nobles.

" Richard," he said, " if I lay dead, would you not do your utmost to set my son on my throne? "

"I would, Sir," said De Luci.

''Well, then, do that same utmost to set Thomas here upon the throne of Canterbury. Go with my lord, and tell the monks and the churchmen what is my will."

In May the election was held, and Thomas, persuaded at last by Cardinal Henry of Pisa to accept office, was Archbishop.

NoW if ever any man had an opportunity to indulge his ambition it was Thomas.

A chronicler so describes his condition at this time:

"Most mighty in England, Archdeacon and King's Chancellor, glorious in the eyes of all, renowned for wisdom, admirable to all for nobility of heart, terrible to his enemies and rivals, friend of the King and second in the kingdom, indeed ruler of the King and all but his master."

There was another Thomas, whose surname was Cranmer, four hundred years later, who had the same opportunity and who took it to the full. But this one did not. If he had so chosen he could without doubt have made himself tyrant, not only of the State, but of Church as well; he could have placed in his King's hands an almost unbounded opportunity of drawing the revenues and compelling the utter obedience of those who held those revenues and that obedience for God; and he himself could have shared, almost without reproach, in that tremendous power. But, as he had half prophesied to the King, that was not to be his object. He had learnt well enough how to serve Caesar; now he was to serve God. He knew well enough that to rule the Church of God, he must be a servant of the servants of God. He knew too of what spirit his master was, and of what spirit the men who were about him; he knew that no pains would be spared to make mischief, to represent him as a proud priest, to estrange him from his old friend. Henry was a true Norman. There was not that loyal co-operation with the Church of God that had accomplished so much in Saxon days. Jealousy 45 and ambition against Christ's Kingdom were among the marks of the Norman dynasty. Yet Thomas did not flinch. There were abominable injustices lying upon the Church in England, and with these injustices he could now deal for the first time unhindered.

He first began to secure himself against attack, so far as was possible, and with this object asked for and obtained a complete release of all old money obligations which he had incurred as Chancellor, and which might possibly be brought against him afterwards. This was granted, in the name of the King, by the little Prince Henry who solemnly nodded and assented in the presence of the English Court; and the King himself, as we know from his letter to the Pope asking for the Pallium, consented to the remission. Then, as soon as the formalities were over, Thomas set out, with a huge train, to Canterbury.

It was a strange journey, but nothing was so strange as a little conversation that took place on the way. The great Chancellor,

Archbishop-Elect, as he rode down through

Kent, stared upon by all in his splendour, called up to his side a certain young man named Herbert of Bosham — a swaggerer by all accounts, but extremely shrewd and extremely fond of the sound of his own voice.

" I had a dream last night," whispered the Archbishop-Elect. Then he told it him. He had dreamed that a venerable old man had come to him and given him ten talents. Herbert was silent. Presently the great man went on.

" Tell me, Herbert," he said, " if ever you see anything wrong in my conduct or words. Four eyes are better than two."

On the Saturday in Whitsun week he was made priest; and on the following morning he was consecrated and enthroned.

Early in the morning the great Cathedral was full from end to end, of knights, esquires, clerks, nobles and the common people. Fourteen bishops were there, and supreme among them, Henry of Winchester, who was to consecrate his new master. The lights burned on the high altar, in hanging silver basins before it, and before the images of the saints. 47

The monks were in their stalls, and the sacristans went to and fro about their business.

Then, quite alone, down from the chapel of St. Andrew on the north east came a single tall figure walking alone, dressed in black cloak and surplice, with the frock of a monk shewing beneath, and beneath that another vestment seen of none but God, and more honourable than them all, since it was the sign of a penitent, and tore his flesh at each movement. The figure came on, turned to the left and prostrated itself before the glittering altar, behind which, set about with seven columns, stood the white chair of Augustine; and above which, raised on a high beam, sat an image of our Lord in majesty, a gilt and crystal cross beneath, with seven shrines of relics; and on either side the splendid altars and shrines of St. Dunstan and St. Elphege. Then after a long pause, the figure rose again, passed down the choir and stood waiting....

When all was done, once more that figure, now in splendid vestments, disappeared with its attendants behind the high altar; and 48 passing by the tombs where lay the bodies of saints who had once occupied that white stone chair — St. Odo and St. Wilfrid, Lan-franc, and Theobald lately dead — the little procession came to the small square chapel at the extreme east end of the church, dedicated to the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity; and there, above the very spot where nine years later his own scarred body was to lie, for the first time in his life Thomas, so long a deacon, now at last priest and bishop, made the Body of his Lord.