Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan

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СКАЧАТЬ with the king’s knights in hot pursuit. As providence would have it, a boat lay idle; commandeering it, the fleeing company set sail down the Thames as the king’s knights pursued them, seeking to assassinate the archbishop. They reached Dover in time to catch a boat to the continent, and Theobald and his faithful clerks sailed across the channel to Flanders, arriving on April 6, 1152. Theobald’s second exile had begun.

      This exile would prove to be short; he returned a few months later, in August. Stephen quickly repented of his rage and realized the foolishness of his actions. He had just driven the archbishop of Canterbury and papal legate into the arms of the Angevin, and with him many of his supporters in England, the hierarchy included. Stephen realized he needed to back down if he or Eustace were to have any chance of keeping the throne. Henry Angevin had gathered enough allies already, the most recent being the king of France, Louis VII, who had just formally recognized the young man as duke of Normandy, thereby depriving Stephen of those realms for good. Little did Stephen know that as Theobald was fleeing toward Flanders, ships facing toward England were already lining up in the ports of Normandy: Henry Angevin was preparing to invade. It was only the possibility of a desired marriage that distracted Henry from immediately carrying out his plans.

      Louis VII of France had just obtained an annulment from his consort, Eleanor of Aquitaine, one of the most extraordinary women of the medieval period, and Henry was very interested in a match with her. Henry was not interested so much in Eleanor’s abilities and strength, which he would come to despise in time, but in her vast fortune and estates as the only heir to her father’s duchy. She was also a direct descendant of Charlemagne; marriage to such a woman brought prestige to any royal house. Henry was nineteen, and Eleanor thirty; she was the mother of two children for the French king — both daughters, to Louis’s disappointment. She was feisty and ultimately unconquerable. She had had a number of public arguments with Louis, and the relationship was so strained that at one point even the pope had had to intervene to seek reconciliation. Louis and Eleanor were also related within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, so a marriage should never have been permitted — hence the decree of nullity.

      Henry was enamored of her, though probably not for the reasons one contracts a modern marriage. Eleanor was also taken with Henry, though again probably not out of love. In this young and ambitious duke and possible king, Eleanor saw the means of restoring the glories of her duchy, which had declined since the death of her father, William X. Her grandfather, William IX, had been an effective ruler, a man who loved life and women — he had a reputation as a lecher. He was as daring on the battlefield as he was in his affairs, but he also fostered a love of learning and literature; he was, it seems, a competent lyric poet. Eleanor’s father, William X, nicknamed “the Saint,” was not as gregarious as his father, though he had been involved in a number of campaigns, notably against Normandy. Initially a supporter of Antipope Anacletus II, he was converted by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to orthodox Catholicism. Upon his death in 1137 on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, William X left his eldest daughter and heir in the care of King Louis VI of France, who married her off to his son and heir.

      Sizing Henry up, Eleanor may have thought he could help her restore the honor of her house; in this, her wits had abandoned her.⁴ Any notions she may have harbored of being able to dominate Henry Angevin were seriously deluded, but it was an effective delusion that saw them march up the aisle together on May 18, 1152, eight weeks after the annulment had been granted and not long after two attempts by ambitious suitors to kidnap the bride and marry her themselves.

      As the couple honeymooned, King Louis fumed — not only had Henry married his former wife, and in unseemly haste, but as Duke of Normandy and a subject of the king of France, Henry had not honored the custom of seeking permission to marry from his feudal lord. In revenge, Louis attempted to scuttle Henry’s plans, backing the cause of Louis’s sister’s husband, none other than Eustace, Count of Boulogne and prince of England. Eustace had married Constance of France in 1140. Louis invited Eustace to come to Normandy and preempt Henry’s invasion of England. Eustace duly arrived and joined Louis in a campaign against the Angevin, laying siege near Dieppe. However, despite the distractions of a new wife, Henry was well able to meet the challenge and ran Eustace out of Normandy to Paris. Six weeks after he started his campaign, the young count went back to England with his tail between his legs.

      The initial pleasures of marriage honored, Henry realized the time was ripe for his invasion. His ships were waiting, and his knights were tired of twiddling their thumbs; it was time to begin his campaign. In the second week of January 1153, his fleet left Barfleur for England.⁵ The boats faced a cold winter gale, but the army of 140 knights and 3,000 infantry landed safely at Wareham and made for Malmesbury, seizing the town and laying siege to its castle. In the meantime, Henry made his way around England, arriving in Gloucester, where, on April 19, he held court for Easter and proclaimed himself by his new title, Duke of Aquitaine. He then began his campaign in the midlands — laying siege to castles, capturing them, and forcing their occupants to surrender to him — all the while looking to that moment when he could claim another, loftier title.

      Thomas was facing battles of his own in Canterbury as an uneasy peace with Roger de Pont L’Évêque seemed to make life just about bearable. However, an incident occurred that brought Thomas to Roger’s defense in the hope that some sort of reconciliation could be effected. John of Salisbury in his biography records accusations made against Roger during his time as archdeacon — that he was involved in a relationship with a young man in Theobald’s household. The young man, Walter by name, began to spread rumors of this relationship, and when Roger heard of this, he pursued proceedings in court against him. The court found in Roger’s favor, and as punishment for what were now regarded as false allegations, Walter had his eyes gouged out. Walter continued to make accusations against Roger in defiance of the court’s judgment; in responding to them again, the archdeacon allegedly persuaded a civil court to condemn Walter, and the young man was hanged.⁶

      In 1152, the case was made public, and Roger found himself in hot water. Though Roger’s enemy, Thomas knew that Roger was entitled to a fair hearing, and so he enlisted the help of colleagues, legal experts among them, to deal with the matter. Theobald heard the case and was persuaded to accept a “purgation” from Roger, in which he denied under oath that any of the charges made by Walter were true. The archdeacon then had to travel to Rome to defend himself before the pope. Following a hearing at the papal court, he was cleared of the charges. He returned to his office, and his career advanced unaffected. In future disputes with Thomas, Roger would conveniently forget what his nemesis had done to help him. Biographers have tried to confirm whether these events occurred or whether John of Salisbury invented them to settle a score with an implacable enemy of Thomas’s who had benefited from his innate magnanimity. Most are inclined to believe that Roger was accused of something and might even have been guilty of an illicit relationship, though John may have exaggerated it in some respects.⁷ As to whether Thomas’s assistance tempered relations between Roger and himself in real terms, it is doubtful.

      By the winter of 1152, Stephen and Eustace were entrenched in a siege at Wallingford, Henry’s base in Oxfordshire; the Angevin was forced to meet them in battle to relieve the castle. The barons, however, were not so keen to see bloodshed. They had much to lose in terms of their holdings in both England and Normandy; regardless of who won this battle, they would have offended one of the two rulers, Henry or Stephen, to whom they owed feudal loyalty. They feared the price they would have to pay for their perceived disloyalty. Eustace berated his barons, as he knew his only chance of wearing the crown was victory in battle, but they ignored him. Henry and Stephen would be forced to negotiate. The two agreed to talk, shouting at each other across the River Thames and trying to agree to a solution. The efforts failed, and both parties rode off, Henry to attack Stephen’s possessions at Stamford and Nottingham, and Stephen to attack Henry’s at Ipswich. Eustace sulked his way to the abbey at Bury St. Edmunds, where he demanded food and money from the monks. When they refused it, the irate count ordered the abbey to be pillaged and the church to be desecrated. On August 17, 1153, Eustace suddenly collapsed and died. He was about twenty-four years old, and while the cause СКАЧАТЬ