‘Go … refresh yourselves … leave me with my grief,’ said the King. He called to his servants. ‘Bring me sackcloth. I shall change my robes. This for me is a day of mourning.’
Thomas … dead! Old friend and now enemy, dead! So many memories came crowding into his mind. The jokes they had shared when Thomas had been his Chancellor and best friend. ‘Do not make me your Archbishop,’ he had said, ‘for that will be the end of our friendship.’ Was that a premonition? For how right he had been and what bitter enemies they had become. What had he said to those four knights that they should have taken their swords and stormed the Cathedral? What part had he played in this?
Solemnly he took off his royal robes and wrapped himself in a cloak of sack-cloth.
‘Leave me,’ he said. ‘Leave me to my grief.’
He went into his bedchamber and buried his head in his hands.
‘I did not want this,’ he murmured again and again.
He dropped his hands and stared before him, not seeing the tapestried walls but the past … and the future.
Thomas was too well known a figure for his death to go unnoticed. Unnoticed! There was no hope of that! There would be an uproar. It would spread throughout Christendom. Thomas would be as tiresome in death as he had been in life. He would become a martyr. Henry was not afraid of any general, but he was terrified of martyrs.
What had he said to those knights? He remembered well the occasion when they had been present. He had heard that Thomas had threatened to excommunicate all those who had been concerned in young Henry’s coronation and as none had been concerned more than he himself that meant him also; and one of the bishops – it must have been Roger of York – had said that while Thomas Becket lived he would never have a peaceful kingdom. And then a sudden rage had possessed the King. He had cursed them all. He had maintained them and they were false varlets. He could hear his own voice now shouting to those cringing men, ‘You have left me long exposed to the insolence of this low-born cleric and have not attempted to relieve me of him.’
They had taken those words to heart, those four knights; they had interpreted them as a command to murder. It must be so, for they had made their way to Canterbury and there slain Thomas in his Cathedral.
‘That this should have happened!’ he cried; and he was thinking: They are going to blame me. The whole world is going to blame me. Those four knights dealt the blows but I shall be named the murderer.
What could he do? He could see the Pope and the whole world rising against him. They were going to make a martyr and a saint of Thomas and the more reverence they showered on him the stronger would be the odium poured on the one they would blame for his murder.
He needed time to think. His actions now were of the utmost importance. He had come a long way in the last twenty years, when, as son of Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England, and the Count of Anjou, he had had a not very steady grasp on the crown of the Dukes of Normandy. He had married the richest heiress in Europe and had taken the crown of England and there was not a man who could stand against him. The King of France feared him; he had defied the Pope; he had had his way and it had brought him great power.
But now he was in danger, and all through Thomas à Becket. The Church would sing the Archbishop’s praises, for Thomas had been slain in the battle between Church and State which had been raging for years and would doubtless go on. And Thomas would be a saint and a martyr.
‘You always tried to get the better of me, Thomas,’ he muttered and a grim smile appeared on his lips. ‘And I always fought you … often in jest and latterly in earnest and you have to learn that I always win.’
And now in death you play this trick on me!
A great deal depended on what he did now. First of course he must insist that the knights had misconstrued his words. He must show everyone that no one mourned the death of Thomas à Becket more deeply than the King.
He would shut himself into his chamber; he would let it be known that so stunned was he by the news that he must be alone to mourn. He would not come down to eat; he would take only what was necessary to keep him alive – he had never been a great trencherman so that was no difficulty – he would wear nothing but his robe of sack-cloth and all must understand that he wished to be left to prayer and meditation.
Fortunately the position of Pope Alexander was not very secure and the Papal Court was at Tusculum. Alexander had to be careful whom he offended and he would not wish to arouse the enmity of the King of England.
First Henry would send the messengers back to Canterbury with the news that the King’s one-time Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury was to be given burial worthy of his rank.
How to approach the Pope needed a great deal of consideration. It was no use pleading complete innocence. No one would accept that. That there had been friction between himself and Thomas was a well-known fact. Yet there must be no delay in writing to Alexander before others got in with their accusations.
He took up his pen and wrote:
‘To Alexander by the Grace of God Supreme Pontiff, Henry, King of the English, Duke of the Normans and Aquitainians and Count of the Angevins sends greetings and due devotion.’
There was no harm in reminding Alexander of the power he held over so many territories.
‘Out of reverence for the Roman Church and love for you … I granted peace and the full restitution of his possessions, according to your order, to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, and allowed him to cross over to England with a fitting revenue.
‘He, however, brought not peace and joy but the sword, and made accusations against me and my crown. Not being able to bear such effrontery from the man, those he had excommunicated, and others, rushed in upon him and, what I cannot say without sorrow, killed him.
‘Wherefore I am gravely concerned, as God is my witness, for I fear that the anger I had formerly conceived against him may be accounted as the cause for this evil deed. And because in this deed I fear more for my reputation than my conscience, I beg Your Serenity to encourage me with your advice in this matter.’
He despatched messengers to Tusculum and waited.
How quickly life could change. He had just been congratulating himself on having control of his subjects, of having rid himself of Eleanor; he had been delightedly planning a little domestic peace with Rosamund, and Thomas à Becket must be murdered! Why could not Thomas have died of some flux, some bodily disorder? No, he could not do that, though it seemed he was ailing. He had to die in the most spectacular fashion from the sword thrusts of the King’s knights.
Trust Thomas to plague him to the end.
He thought of Eleanor who would very soon hear the news, for he was sure it would be ringing across the length and breadth of Europe. He could picture her sly smile, for she would know how discomfited he would be. In her malice she would doubtless feed the rumours with tales of his quarrels with Thomas, for at one time he had confided in her a great deal. She had never liked Thomas. In the days of the great friendship between the King and his Chancellor when Eleanor herself was still a little enamoured of her husband, she had been jealous of Thomas because she had known that the King preferred his conversation to that of anyone else.
‘A curse on the Queen,’ cried the King.
He must not give way to anger now. He needed all his wits about him. He thought of all his vassals, those who unwillingly accepted him as their suzerain. They would be ready to whisper against him, the man who must surely be cursed because he was guilty of shedding the martyr’s blood.
He stayed in his room most of those days. He was not seen at the table. His servants and knights spoke in whispers. ‘The King is deeply affected by the death of Thomas à Becket,’ they said.
When messengers arrived they were summoned immediately to his presence.