Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan
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Название: Thomas Becket
Автор: Father John S. Hogan
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Словари
isbn: 9781681925837
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The couple would have been more concerned if they had known their son was getting into serious scrapes during his time in the country. His keenness for the hunt had led him to take risks in pursuit of his prey. One incident is recalled in the biographies. While out hawking with Richer one day, Thomas ended up in a millstream and almost drowned, much to the horror of his mentor. One account maintains that he fell off his horse as he was crossing a narrow bridge. Another version has him actually jumping into the water to save a prize hawk. According to this version, Thomas’s horse stumbled, and the hawk fell into the millstream, caught up in its cord and unable to free itself. Loath to lose the bird, he dived in after it. Though the versions differ, both are possible, given his budding unruliness. He found himself in difficulty as the stream pulled him toward a millwheel.11 He was rescued in time, but this incident reveals the dangers he willingly risked for his sports; there was a streak of recklessness in him that others would comment on later in his disputes.
Despite such incidents, Thomas loved his time in the country. Falconry would become one of his great loves, and the thrill of the chase excited him. He came to life in the camaraderie of his fellow hunters and with the chatter of the retainers. He was fit and young, and the hunt provided him with the means to relish his strength and develop his skills. He learned to wrestle and fence; he was successful and often triumphed over his opponents. He also grew to love the life of privilege — rubbing shoul ders with the nobility, sampling the treats of a life that was beyond his father’s means. The presumption of a higher status in society appealed to him. In Richer’s company and with his set, the world offered new possibilities, sweeter things, and a greater freedom.
It was not to last. Either due to their concern, or as part of their plan for his life, around 1139 Gilbert and Matilda decided to send Thomas off to Paris to continue his studies. It was the end of the halcyon days in Sussex and of the intimate relationship with his dangerous and exciting mentor. But the two would meet again, most crucially in 1164 during the crisis over the Constitutions of Clarendon;12 then, Thomas and Richer would be on opposite sides. Richer would go on to survive his former protégé by six years, long enough to see him canonized. Was he, like many others, amazed at Thomas’s stubbornness and refusal to give in to the king? Did he perhaps see himself and his own rebellious disposition at play in the archbishop? And what did Richer make of the miracles at his tomb? We shall never know.
Richer continued to live his life of rebellion and pleasure. His relationship with King Henry II was tense, and he fell afoul of the monarch on more than one occasion. In 1173, he was in revolt against Henry’s son, Henry the Young King, and though his rebellion failed, he managed to hold onto his possessions. He married Beatrix d’Estouteville, by whom he had four children. In his later years, Richer became quite religious and began to lament his wayward life. In his remorse, he turned to charitable activities and endowed priories and monasteries. He died on August 24, 1176, and was buried in the Benedictine priory of Saint Sulpice-sur-Risle near the family seat at L’Aigle. His eldest son, also Richer, inherited the titles and estates, but when his grandson, Gilbert, died without heirs in 1231, the de L’Aigle Norman estates were taken by the crown.
4
The Anarchy
On December 22, 1135, Stephen of Blois, nephew of the recently deceased King Henry I, had himself crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey; a couple of weeks later he attended the burial of Henry I at Reading Abbey.1 While he was supported by many lords and barons of England, the country held its breath: How would the other person who claimed the throne react? The idea of a woman reigning was not a comfortable one for some of those concerned with political stability; to them, Empress Matilda, though daughter of King Henry, widow of the Holy Roman emperor and now wife of the Count of Anjou, did not have what it would take to govern a tetchy and often chaotic realm like England.
Son of William the Conqueror, Henry I had been an extraordinarily competent king. Though he had had his problems, he had brought stability, peace, and security to his realms, Normandy and England, and sought to establish a strong dynasty; the White Ship tragedy, though, put an end to that. No mere autocrat, he had been intelligent and a little educated, and he had tended to avoid excess (except when it came to women and cruelty), which was a major bonus among monarchs. He had taken whatever steps were necessary to safeguard what he saw as his God-given right to rule, and anyone who had opposed him in any way had been dealt with mercilessly, regardless of who they were, as Saint Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury,2 found to his cost. Henry’s running such a tight ship had augured hope for the future, but when the heir to the throne is lost and the subjects have divided loyalties over a successor, a peaceful future is not assured.
As Henry had made a point of acknowledging his daughter as his heir, he did not expect any opposition.3 Matilda was his flesh and blood, and he may also have recognized that if pushed, she could prove herself to be her father’s daughter; but England did not know that yet. However, once he was dead and sealed in his tomb at Reading Abbey, it was up to others to decide who should occupy the throne. Stephen made a dash for it and made sure that the oil of anointing was poured over him with what some regarded as unseemly haste.4 While some forces within England saw him as a stronger candidate and were happy to see him crowned, other forces — armed forces — were gathering on the continent to press Matilda’s claim. The stage was set for civil war, for what historians would later call the Anarchy, and though it was a war between potential monarchs, it would affect the lives and destinies of countless souls, both English and Norman, including Thomas, still a young boy in school in London.
Stephen’s claim, Matilda’s supporters insisted, was infamy and treachery. He had promised to uphold her right of succession and to support her should she have trouble establishing her reign. Instead, he rushed to England, called a mass meeting of the citizens of London, and, painting a picture of dire political unrest, urged them to elect him as king. He was aware that he had to have the support of London if his campaign to claim the crown was to be successful.5 They elected him king; the city’s citizens took an oath to help him with their resources and to protect him, and they would remain his loyal subjects in the years to come.6 Following a hasty coronation, Stephen issued a charter of liberties to repay his supporters, promising them that he would respect all the laws and customs of the kingdom that had been established during the reign of their beloved and saintly King Edward the Confessor, the Anglo-Saxon who reigned from 1042 to 1066. It was a wise move because Stephen needed allies. His brother, Henry of Blois, the bishop of Winchester, tried to smooth things over by attempting to convince the barons who had made oaths supporting Matilda that these oaths could, in good conscience, be set aside for the sake of the realm. Meanwhile, Stephen was preparing a charter guaranteeing the liberties of the Church in the hope of keeping the bishops onside.
At this time, Matilda was in Anjou, occupied with family life and unable to drop everything and hurry to London to stake her claim; she did not think she needed to do so since Stephen had pledged his loyalty to her. When news of Stephen’s betrayal reached her, she was furious. She was indeed Henry’s daughter, and she was not prepared to allow her cousin to usurp what she knew was hers. Her husband, Geoffrey, was as equally put out. He was a schemer, and he had hitched his ambitions to his wife’s wagon. Why be Count of Anjou alone when you could also be consort to a monarch, an influential consort — perhaps even a king consort? Stephen could not be allowed to get in the way of his hopes. However, as revenge is a dish best served cold, the scheme to overthrow the treacherous cousin would need to be carefully planned and carried out. For the time being, there was little Matilda and Geoffrey could do, so they merely moved to claim disputed dowry castles and bided their time.7 In the meantime, Geoffrey took up his eldest son’s claim to the Duchy of Normandy and thereby put the next generation on a sound footing to drive home any successes Matilda would have in her campaign. Safe in England for now, Stephen could СКАЧАТЬ