Ranulf shrugged. “Becket believes a principle is at stake and, to him, principles are obviously more important than people. This is not the first time he has intervened when a cleric ran afoul of the law. There was a clerk in London who stole a silver chalice from a church, a priest in Salisbury accused of murder, and then there was that canon of Bedford who was charged with slaying a knight.”
“I heard much talk of that case whilst we were at Woodstock,” Hywel observed, “more than I wanted to hear, in truth. The canon was tried in the Bishop of Lincoln’s court, was he not?”
“Yes, and acquitted by compurgation, when he found twelve respected men willing to swear on his behalf that he was innocent. But that did not satisfy the slain knight’s family, for compurgation is not a judgment based upon the evidence, and they appealed to the Sheriff of Bedford, Simon Fitz Peter. He agreed with them, and during an inquest at Dunsta ble, he tried to reopen the case. Philip de Brois, the accused canon, refused to plead and was verbally abusive to Fitz Peter, who promptly lodged an indignant complaint with the king. Harry was enraged and wanted de Brois charged with contempt of court and murder. But Becket refused to allow it, instead heard the case in his own court. He ruled that de Brois could not be retried for murder as he’d been cleared by the compurgation, and found the canon guilty of the contempt charge, depriving him of his church prebend for two years.”
“Somehow I doubt that the king thought the loss of income was a sufficient punishment.”
“No, he did not,” Ranulf acknowledged, with a wry smile at the memory of his nephew’s blazing fury. “The bishops realized that their defense of exclusive Church jurisdiction puts them in the awkward position of appearing to defend murderers and rapists, too. So Becket attempted to resolve the dilemma by inflicting harsher penalties than usual upon these particular accused. The Worcestershire clerk is still awaiting trial. But Becket ordered that the Salisbury priest charged with murder be confined for life to a monastery, and the punishment for the theft of the chalice was branding.”
Hywel blinked in surprise. “Canon law does not authorize such punishment, though.”
“No, it does not. In his attempt to placate the king and public opinion, Becket miscalculated. Harry was even more wroth with him after that, for he saw these acts as a usurpation of royal authority.”
Hywel shook his head slowly. “You’re right. I am sorry I asked.”
“My lord Ranulf?”
Startled, Ranulf got hastily to his feet, then gallantly kissed Cristyn’s hand while disregarding Hywel’s mocking smile. Cristyn acted as if her stepson were invisible, turning all of her considerable charms upon Ranulf. She asked solicitously about Rhiannon, offered her congratulations upon learning of the pregnancy, and made him promise to let her know when the baby was born so she could send a christening gift. Ranulf was puzzled, for he’d never gotten more than grudging courtesy from her before, and when she lured him away from Hywel, he followed willingly; curiosity had always been his besetting sin.
“I was wondering . . .” Cristyn smiled at Ranulf as if they were intimate friends and he found himself appreciating how adroitly she wielded the weapons God had given her. She did not let him forget for a moment that she was a beautiful, desirable woman, but one beyond reach, for she herself would never forget that she was the wife of Owain Gwynedd. Passing strange, he thought, that she could have birthed two sons so lacking in subtlety as Rhodri and Davydd. “What were you wondering, my lady?”
“I am somewhat shy of admitting it.” Her dimple deepened. “My lord husband does not like me to pay heed to gossip. But I heard an intriguing rumor from Cadwaladr’s English wife. She says that the Archbishop of Canterbury has forbidden the English king’s brother to wed the de Warenne heiress. Can this be true?”
“I am sorry to say that it is,” Ranulf confirmed. “I had a letter from my niece, the Countess of Chester, just a fortnight ago. Will is sorely distraught, for he had his heart set upon wedding Isabella and, in truth, I think he craves the lady as much as her lands. But unless the king can persuade Lord Thomas to withdraw his objections, the marriage is not likely to be. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Church in England, and his voice echoes loudest with His Holiness, the Pope.”
“Why does Becket oppose the marriage?”
“It offends the laws of consanguinity, for Will and Isabella are distant cousins, as was her late husband.”
Cristyn’s dark eyes shone with silent laughter. “Is that all? Owain and I are first cousins, for his mother and my father were sister and brother. But he did not let a minor matter like that deter him from taking me to wife. Poor Gwilym,” she said, making use of the Welsh equivalent for William. “I suppose he’d not dare to defy the archbishop? I confess that I was not much taken with this Thomas Becket at Woodstock. Is this why the English king is so wroth with him?”
“He is greatly vexed by the archbishop’s opposition to the marriage, for dispensations have been granted for those far more closely related than Will and Isabella. But this is just one more grievance amongst many.”
“You know the king so well,” she said admiringly, “from the skin out!” Ranulf wasn’t sure how to respond, for he still had not figured out what she wanted from him, sure only that she had more in mind than an exchange of court gossip. “Well, I am his uncle,” he said finally.
“Yes, but there is a closeness between you that goes deeper than blood. I saw that as soon as I saw you together at Woodstock,” she murmured and Ranulf suddenly understood her intent. She had revised her opinion of him after Woodstock, decided that he was worth cultivating on the off chance that she might be able to win him over to her side.
In light of his long-standing friendship with Hywel, Ranulf supposed he ought to be flattered that she thought it was still worth the effort. Their eyes met and he caught a glimmer—ever so briefly—of the steel beneath the silk. His gaze shifted from her face, across the hall to where Hywel was watching them, monitoring Cristyn’s maternal maneuverings with sardonic amusement, and he wished that his nephew had been blessed, too, with the ability to laugh at his foes. Mayhap then this looming confrontation between Harry and Thomas Becket would not seem so ominous, so fraught with peril.
FROM THE DAIS, Henry had an unobstructed view of Westminster’s great hall. The men seated upon rows of benches were princes of the Church and lords of the realm, the most powerful men in his domains. On this mild October morning, they had gathered in answer to his summons, ostensibly to heal a rift between Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Roger de Pont l’Eveque, Archbishop of York. But Henry had a more ambitious agenda in mind. Now that the preliminary ceremonies were done, he held up his hand, waiting for silence.
“I would speak now of a serious matter, a grievous threat to the King’s Peace.” A murmur swept the hall, a rustling of leaves before the wind, and Henry rose to his feet. “I have been England’s king for nigh on nine years,” he said. “Do any of you know how many murders have been committed by clerics in that time? My lord archbishop?”
Thomas Becket had been given a seat of honor upon the dais. At Henry’s unexpected query, he shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
“More than one hundred murders . . . committed by men of God, most of whom were never called to account for their crimes.”
“We all answer to the Almighty for our sins, my liege.”
Henry smiled, very thinly. “I naturally defer to you, my lord archbishop, in spiritual matters. But my concern is not with the immortal souls of these criminous clerks. Whether they be damned or saved at God’s Throne does not interest me much. I seek to keep the peace in my domains and to provide justice to my subjects. And royal justice is perverted when men can rape and murder and then plead their clergy to escape the punishment they deserve.”
Gilbert Foliot tried and failed to catch Becket’s eye. He feared that Henry was about to bring up the case of that wretched Worcestershire cleric, an embarrassment to them all. If worse
came to worst and the king demanded that they yield jurisdiction to the royal court, he hoped Becket would have the sense to temporize, offer to put the matter before the Pope. Sometimes a principle could be best defended by making a strategic retreat; the trick was to give up ground they could afford to lose.
But Henry now chose to drag another skeleton out of the Church’s closet. “I daresay you all remember the scandalous case of the Archdeacon Osbert, accused of poisoning the Archbishop of York. Out of the great respect I held for Archbishop Theobald, may God assoil him, I reluctantly agreed that the man should be tried in a Church court. What was the result? A formal judgment was never reached, thwarted by the man’s appeal to Rome. If Holy Church cannot provide justice to a murdered archbishop, what hope is there for victims of lesser rank? You need only ask the kinsmen of the knight slain by Philip de Brois.”
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.