From The Contemporary Review. MR. FROUDE'S "LIFE AND TIMES OF

THOMAS BECKET."

PART III.

ON one point in the present controversy I must pay, as I may best be able, a debt of personal thankfulness to my opponent. The picture which Mr. Froude has drawn of the means by which Thomas reached the office of chancellor, and still more the astounding picture of his demeanor in that office, have led me to think more deeply than I have ever done before on the important bearing of his chancellorship, and of the way by which he attained it, on his own history and on the history of England. When I look back to what I have already written on the subject, I do not think that I have misconceived anything; but the work of looking again to the authorities with a special view to Mr. Froude's misstatements has made some things come home to me more_strongly than before. The aspect of Thomas's chancellorship with regard to the general history of England I have, I hope, made clear in my last paper. I wish now to say something of the light which his chancel lorship and the circumstances of his appointment to the chancellorship throw on the character of Thomas himself.

points to have accepted the received standard of his own age. We see in him no sign of any very exalted general morality, of any anxiety to preserve consistency between one part of his life and the other. But we do see in him a strong sense of immediate duty, combined with a large amount of personal ambition. These two qualities working together made him throw himself with ardor into any position in which he found himself, and made him strive to reach the highest ideal of that position, according to the standard of his own age. In this way we can understand the change from the chancellor to the archbishop, without being driven to suppose either hypocrisy or sudden conversion. And it must be borne in mind that the change from the chancellor to the archbishop was not the only change in the life of Thomas. The change from the servant of Theobald to the servant of Henry, though less marked, was quite as real. Twice in his life Thomas was placed in altogether new positions, in the hope that he would carry the spirit of the old position into the new. Both times he disappointed the hopes of those who put him in the new place. His position is first ecclesiastical, then secular, then ecclesiastical again, without much choice on his own part. And in each case, as When, now a good many years ago, I his position changes, his ideal changes. tried to draw a portrait of Thomas in a He is zealous for different objects at difpaper which was reprinted in my "Histor- ferent times of his life; but he is always ical Essays," I spoke of him as essentially zealous for those objects which are natua man of his own age, a man who stood rally sought after by a man holding the very high in the second order of ability, position which he held at each stage. The but who showed no sign of creative gen- most zealous of archbishops had been the ius, no sign of having any thoughts or most zealous of chancellors, and the most feelings above his own age. This I hold zealous of chancellors had been, not perto be the true view of him. I have seen haps the most zealous of archdeacons, him called an "extraordinary man; " and but pretty certainly the most zealous in a sense this is true. But he was ex- among an archbishop's ecclesiastical adtraordinary rather by the extraordinary visers. Now a man of the highest order, development of ordinary qualities than by intellectually or morally, could not have the possession of extraordinary qualities. changed from one object to another in His fame is in some sort the result of an this way. Such an one would do his offiaccident, the result of his being placed in cial duty in any office in which he was a false position. That position was the placed; but he would have settled objects archbishopric; in the chancellorship he of pursuit to be followed through life. was, as far as his personal character goes, He would either keep himself clear of offithoroughly in his right place. But his ap-ces which were inconsistent with those obpointment to the thancellorship presents some remarkable points of likeness to his appointment to the archbishopric. It may be well to look a little more fully into this matter either than Mr. Froude has done or than I have myself done in earlier dealings with the same subject. Thomas then, I repeat, must be looked on as a man of the twelfth century, who seems on all

jects, or he would adapt his offices to his purposes, and not adapt his purposes to his offices. This last is what Thomas did. And it is what is constantly done by men who lack neither ability nor honesty, men who can rise to the highest level of their positions, but on whom their positions nevertheless act as fetters. Nothing is commoner than the remark that a man is

changed by office. Sometimes this is actually regent to employ a modern true in a really bad sense; but it often word in the short interregnum between simply means that office unavoidably the death of Stephen and the coming of brings with it new aims and objects and a Duke Henry from Normandy. The king new way of looking at many things. In a was young, and needed counsellors in the man of Thomas's character, a man of rest- great work of restoring order after the anless energy and passionate fervor, this ef- archy; it was also believed that there were fect of office is likely to make him throw those about him who had designs against himself with all his might into each succes- what were now understood to be the libersive office, to make him carry all the powers ties of the Church. Thomas, Theobald and claims of that office to their fullest thought, was of all men best fitted to acextent, even at the cost of marked incon-complish both these purposes.* With sistency with some earlier course of action. Theobald also acted Bishop Henry of Such a man is not unlikely to raise his Winchester, the brother of the late king, office as well as to raise himself. There who had changed sides so often in the can be no doubt that the lofty position which the king's chancellor has for ages held among state officials is largely owing to Thomas's holding of the office. His zeal and energy in the discharge of the office lifted the office itself to a higher level. After Thomas's day the chancellor distinctly appears as a greater person than he was before Thomas's day. Perhaps, as we shall presently see, the great est witness of all to the height to which the great chancellor had raised the chancellorship is to be found in the fact that the king thought it possible that he could hold chancellorship and archbishopric together.

But the career of Thomas in the chancellorship was certainly not altogether what it was designed to be by those who took the first steps towards placing him in that office. We are not indeed distinctly told that the chancellor disappointed the purposes of Theobald, as the archbishop certainly disappointed the purposes of Henry. Nor indeed did he disappoint them in the same manner or in the same degree. But he certainly did not fully carry out all that was in the minds of those who procured his appointment. That ap: pointment was one of the first acts of Henry's reign.* It was made at the recommendation of Theobald, who thus transferred his newly-appointed archdeacon from his own service to that of the king. In so doing he was supported by the advice of two men who had been the king's chief counsellors in his Norman duchy, Philip Bishop of Bayeux, and the more famous Arnulf of Lisieux. His motives seem to have been twofold. Theobald, it must be remembered, had had a great share in the government of the kingdom, whenever of late years there had been any government. He had been

This seems to be fully established by Mr. Robert

son, p. 26.

civil war. His ambition had latterly taken
an ecclesiastical turn. His papal legation
marks an era in our ecclesiastical history
as the time when—as was not wonderful
at such a time the practice of appealing
to the pope or his legate took firmer root.†
He had also been anxious to be arch-
bishop of the West-Saxons, or, failing that,
at least to be acephalous Bishop of Win-
chester. All these schemes had come to
nothing, and the grandson of the Con-
queror, who had lived through so many
storms, was passing into the more peaceful
latter end of his days. But there can be
no doubt that he was zealous for all eccle-
siastical claims, and that any recommen-
dations of his would have the support of
ecclesiastical claims in view. Thomas,
we may be sure, was designed for promo-
tion, as a man who would help the king
in bringing back peace to the kingdom,

"Eratque in ecclesia regni illius non modica trepida-
So says Roger of Pontigny (Giles i. 101, 102):
tio; tum propter suspectam regis ætatem, tum propter
collateralium ejus circa ecclesiasticæ libertatis jura no-
cavit. Cantuariensis autem antistes tam de præsenti
tam malignitatem. Nec frustra, sicut rei exitus indi-
sollicitus quam de futuro timidus, aliquod remedium
malis, quæ imminere timebantur, opponere cogitabat;
visumque est ei, si Thomam regis posset inserere con-
siliis, maximam exinde quietem et pacem Anglicana
ecclesiæ posse provenire. Sciebat enim eum magnani-
mum et prudentem; qui et zelum Dei haberet cum
scientia, et ecclesiasticam libertatem totis affectibus
æmularetur. Adscitis igitur ad se Cantuariensis an-
tistes Philippo Baiocensi et Arnulfo Lexoviensi episco-
pis, quorum conciliis rex in primordiis suis innitebatur,
cœpit de Thomæ prudentia, strenuitate et fidelitate,
atque morum laudabili et admirabili mansuetudine in-
voluntatem et suasionem archiepiscopi annuentibus,
ferre sermonem, memoratisque episcopis secundum
Thomas regiam ingressus curiam cancellarii nomen
officiumque suscepit." The double motive comes out
more strongly in the "Life" by John of Salisbury
(Giles i. 321). Thomas was designed to work upon the
king's mind, lest he should deal with England as a
victoris, qui sibi videbatur, etsi aliter esset, populum
"Ne... insolentius ageret jure
conquered country.
subegisse, cancellarium procurabat in curia ordinari,
cujus ope et opera novi regis, ne sæviret in ecclesiam,
impetum cohiberet, et concilii sui temperaret malitiam,
et reprimeret audaciam officialium, qui sub obtentu
publicæ potestatis et prætextu juris, tam ecclesiæ quam
provincialium facultates diripere conspiraverant."
↑ See Norman Conquest, vol. v., p. 314.
+ Ibid. p. 317.

but who would help him in such a way as statesman and captain was ecclesiastically to do the least wrong to what Theobald a mere deacon; the far higher and more and his counsellors looked on as the law- mysterious calling of the priesthood was ful privileges of the Church. By virtue of not profaned by him. On the other hand these recommendations, Thomas became there was the anomaly of a deacon holding chancellor. Having become chancellor, a crowd of benefices the duties of which the objects of his first patrons became sec- only a priest could perform. Thomas ondary. He threw himself, heart and soul, could never have sung a mass either in with all the fiery zeal of his nature, into Beverley minster or in the parish church the ideal of the chancellor's office, as of Saint Mary-le-Strand. that ideal was understood by Henry rather than by Theobald.

way of telling the story.* It is his portrait of Thomas as chancellor against which historical truth must cry out. Of the most important of Mr. Froude's charges, that by which Thomas's warlike exploits beyond sea were turned into the deeds of a highwayman and incendiary at home, I have already spoken. But most of the other touches in Mr. Froude's portrait are equally imaginary. In a passage which I have already quoted, Mr. Froude has said that "the only virtue which Edward Grim allows him to have preserved unsullied was his chastity." Nothing like this can be found in Grim's text, which I have also quoted; † besides chastity he counts up several other virtues. The chastity of Thomas at this time is so strongly insisted on as to make it plain that it was a somewhat unusual virtue. If we trust his biographers, he preserved it under unusual temptations, and was strict in the pun

The mere fact of Theobald's recommendation of Thomas to the chancellorThe position to which Thomas was now ship, and the motives which led him to raised was an anomalous one. The chan- make that recommendation, are stated by cellorship was a thoroughly secular office, Mr. Froude neither unfairly nor inaccuand yet it was always held by a church-rately, though the importance of the fact man. It must have left its holder very is somewhat slurred over in his hurried little time for ecclesiastical duties or thoughts. One part of its duties would be distinctly repugnant to the principles of an ecclesiastical zealot. For it was the chancellor's business to receive and look after the revenues of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, which, now that Flambard had feudalized ecclesiastical holdings, fell to the king. His only function of an ecclesiastical nature was the superintendence of the king's chapel,† a survival of the way in which the king's chapel and its clerks had grown into a school of royal officials. And, besides the formal duties of his office, an able, active chancellor was sure to find the whole business of the realm pass through his hands. Not yet officially a judge, the chancellor was one of a class of royal officials who were constantly employed in judicial commissions. But the office was always held by a churchman; few or no laymen could in those days have been found fitted for such a post, and indeed the thought of a lay chancellor does not seem as yet to have come into the head of any man. Like other churchmen in the royal service, the chancellor looked forward to a bishopric as the reward of his services; but up to this time the office, with all its power, was looked on as one which it was unworthy of a bishop either to accept or to keep. It would seem that the clerical holders of these temporal posts seldom took priest's orders till they were nominated to bishoprics. In the case of Thomas this is specially recorded and insisted on. The great

Will. Fil. Steph. 186. + Ibid.

See Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 353. William FitzStephen (186) speaks of the chancellor as likely to be a bishop or archbishop before he dies. It must be remembered that the greatest minister before Thomas, Roger Bishop of Salisbury, was first chancellor, afterwards bishop and justiciar. On his promotion to these higher offices, he resigned the lower post of chancellor to his son.

LIVING AGE, No. 1725, p. 10.

↑ LIVING AGE, No. 1769, p. 331.

The chastity of Thomas is spoken of in a marked way by all the biographers. Jo. Salis. (Giles, i. 321); Herbert, i. 11-16. Edward Grim (13) calls him, licet aliter aliqui æstimaverunt, corpore castus." This refers to the special stories mentioned by some of the other writers. William Fitz-Stephen (189) mentions the king's attempts to make him partake in his own vices: "Super quo et rex ipse diurnas ei et nocturnas tendebat insidias: sed tanquam vir timoratus et a Deo prædestinatus, munditia carnis intendens, lumbos i. 3), after using words which seem to come from two præcinctos habebat." William of Canterbury (Giles, passages of John of Salisbury (320, 321), goes on to tell of the king living at Stafford, and how his host, who a story how Thomas refused the advances of fancied that Thomas had gone to visit her, found him told by Garnier (12), with the addition of the names: sleeping on the floor in his own house. The story is

mistress

"Li secunz Reis Henris, ke d'Angleterre ert sire, Et amout une Dame, la gentchur de l'Empire; Avice d'Estafort out à nun, jo oi dire. The host of Thomas, who in William's version is simply " oppidanus," becomes "Vivien le clerc." In Roger of Pontigny (104) Thomas is made an example of confessorship in the same cause in which Thomas the Second of York was a martyr. Nearly the same story is told of the contemporary Malcolm king of Scots and of Lewis the Eighth of France. The words

Thomas and on chastity in general, in which he has two passages which might at a glance suggest what Mr. Froude attributes to Edward Grim. Speaking of a time earlier than the chancellorship, he says: †

fuit, in hoc jam uni sanctorum similis de quo Castitatis semper amator vehementissimus legitur quod, etsi superbus et vanus, castus tamen habebatur in corpore.

ishment of vices of an opposite kind, at all | another.* Herbert has several pages of events in men of his own order and follow- moralizing comment on the chastity of ing. But neither Edward Grim nor any one else speaks of it as his only virtue. Mr. Froude may perhaps not count it among virtues that Thomas was already strict in his devotions and bountiful in almsdeeds, and that he already bared his back to the discipline. Mr. Robertson, with more force, denies the merit of his alleged humility, because it is allowed that he was humble only with the humble, and repaid the proud in their own coin. But it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the statement that any of Thomas's biographers speak of chastity as his only virtue really comes, not from Edward Grim, who says nothing the least like it, but from two or three passages in a wonderful declamation of Herbert of Bosham, which, dealt with | after Mr. Froude's fashion, looked at This is more like Mr. Froude's quotation rather than read, might convey such an than anything in the writer from whom he impression. And I am bound to add that, quotes. Yet Herbert is far from assertif it be lawful in any case to look at your ing that Thomas acted on the principle author instead of reading him, it is allow-that, if he were only chaste, he might do able in the case of Herbert of Bosham. When Mr. Robertson comes to reprint him, it is to be hoped that he will put the facts in one type, and the moralizing comments in

of William Fitz-Stephen (189) that Thomas's confessor, Robert of Merton, said, "Ex quo cancellarius factus est, nulla eum polluit luxuria," surely do not mean, as Mr. Robertson (p. 51) seems to imply, that Thomas became stricter after his appointment to the chancellorship, but merely that Robert's knowledge of his habits began at that time.

W. Fil. Steph. 189. "Vir pudicus cancellarius, osor turpitudinis et impudicitiæ, quendam clericum suum magnæ prosapiæ, Ricardum de Ambli, pro eo quod cujusdam socii sui, dum longinquo aberat in transmarinis, uxorem seduxerat, et accubuerat, facta ei persuasione quod vir ejus in fata concessisset, a dono et amicitia sua projecit; et in turri Londoniæ incarceratum, et in compedibus diu afflictum, teneri fecit." This is one of those "characteristic incidents, particular things which men representative of their age indisputably did," which, as Mr. Froude says, convey a clearer idea than any general description." It illustrates the kind of estimation in which the irregular marriage or tolerated concubinage of a secular priest was then looked on. It was a relation into which a woman who altogether shrank from unfaithfulness to her husband did not scruple to enter.

William Fitz-Stephen (190) gives us the names of those who ministered the discipline. His whole account of the chancellorship, which is much the fullest, should be most carefully studied. The portrait which it draws is so utterly unlike Mr. Froude's that it seems hardly possible that he can have read this part of the Life." Yet it is from this part of William Fitz-Stephen's work that all the stories and pictures come which are to be found in every child's book.

W. Fil. Steph. 190: "Humilis erat humilibus, elatis ferus et violens; quasi innatum erat ei,

"Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." Ed. Grim, 13: 66 Corde humilis sed inter humiles, nam inter potentes potentior ipse ac sublimior apparebat." Garnier, 11:

"Mut ert humles de quer et de vis ert mult fers. As povres humles ert, as hauz de fer reguart; Agnels esteit dedeuz, de fors semlout lépart." See Robertson, p. 315.

Somewhat further on he risks a rather perilous precept: ‡ –

Cujus [castitatis] ut breviter dicatur in juvene tanta virtus est et tanta securitas, ut propter Dominum habenti hanc juveni parum est quin dicere audeam, Habes castitatem: fac quicquid vis.

what he pleased, burning and man-slaying included. And one virtue more, perhaps two, he emphatically claims for him. He was- at a time when he was not either chancellor or archdeacon- too much given to youthful vainglory; but he had his merits:

Nec tamen penitus omni virtutum gratia fuit destitutus. Castitatis amator, et dicimus, veritatis æmulus, fidem etiam quæ terrenis debetur dominis summa semper colens devotione.§ And yet more distinctly, after one of the passages already quoted:

Præterea labia mendacia et linguam semper detestabatur detrahentem.||

It is a little hard that a man who, at his worst, at least hated falsehood and the slanderous tongue, should be specially picked out, ages after his death, as the victim of the wildest slanders. It is hard that a man who loved to keep faith to his earthly lord should, simply because his zeal for his lord's service carried him beyond the decencies of his ecclesiastical calling, be painted as an unscrupulous

Mr. Robertson (p. 5) complains with reason of ishes," and adds that "his 'Liber Melorum' is (as Dr Herbert's "tedious moralizing and rhetorical flourGiles seems painfully to feel) hardly readable even by an editor, and is utterly unreadable by any one else." Yet one cannot help feeling some sympathy with Herbert when, at the end of his biography, he prays that no one will mutilate his book: "Si novit melius, corri gat. Hoc quidem placet; sed hoc oro, ne mutilet." ↑ Giles, il. 11.

Ibid.
§ Giles, ii. 12.

Ibid. 11.

and tyrannical minister," who carried fire | "Lives." To be sure Mr. Froude's eye, and slaughter and havoc through the lands which his lord had handed over to his keeping.