Fitz Urse seemed taken aback by the archbishop’s defiance. By now all of the knights were on their feet. “The lord king commands you to absolve the bishops, both from damnation and the bond of silence!”
“I have not excommunicated the bishops. It was the Lord Pope, whose power comes from God. And if His Holiness has seen fit to vindicate me and my Church against grave injury, I am not sorry for it.”
Fitz Urse’s jaw jutted out. “The excommunications were still your doing, so you will absolve them!”
“Indeed, I will not. Only the Lord Pope can do that. Moreover, this was done with the king’s consent.”
Fitz Urse whirled toward his companions. “Have you ever heard such deceit? He accuses the king of betraying his closest friends! This is beyond endurance.”
John of Salisbury mustered up the courage to intercede at this point, realizing that there was a great and gaping chasm between what the archbishop and the king believed to have been agreed upon at Freteval. “My lord archbishop, this serves for naught. You ought to speak privately about this with your council.”
Fitz Urse, who so far had maintained a respectful distance, now took several steps toward Becket. “From whom do you hold your See?”
“The spiritualities from God and my lord the Pope. The temporalities from my lord the king.”
“You do not admit that you owe all to the king?”
“No, I do not. We must render unto the king what is the king’s, and to God what is God’s. I will spare no one who violates the laws of Christ’s Church.”
“You dare to threaten us? You mean to excommunicate us all?”
When Fitz Urse strode closer still to the bed, the archbishop rose to his full height, towering over the knight. “I do not believe that you come from the king,” he said and at that, the other men burst into loud, angry speech. For several moments, there was chaos, all speaking at once. They cursed the archbishop for breaking the peace and seeking to uncrown the young king and foment rebellion and even to make himself king. No less wrathful himself, Becket denied those charges with passion and leveled accusations of his own, reminding them that they’d once sworn fealty to him on bended knee. This enraged them all the more, and to the frightened witnesses, it seemed as if violence would erupt then and there, in the archbishop’s own bedchamber.
“You threaten me in vain.” Becket’s voice was hoarse, his dark eyes blazing. “If all the swords of England were hanging over my head, you could not turn me from God’s Justice and my obedience to the Lord Pope. You will find me ready to meet you eye to eye in the Lord’s battle. Once I ran away like a frightened priest. Never will I desert my Church again. If I am allowed to perform the duties of the priesthood in peace, I shall be glad. If not, then God’s Will be done.”
As more members of the archbishop’s household were drawn by the commotion, the knights seemed to take silent counsel, communicating by meaningful looks. Fitz Urse turned toward their audience, saying roughly, “We warn you all in the king’s name to abandon this man!” Stunned, the monks and clerks remained motionless, and he amended his order. “Guard him so that he does not flee!”
They turned, then, began to push their way toward the door. Becket strode after them, crying out, “I am quite easy to guard, for I shall not run away. You will find me here!”
Fitz Urse swung around, his hand groping for his belt, the instinctive gesture of a man accustomed to the weight of a sword at his hip. “Thomas, in the name of the king, I repudiate your fealty!” The other knights also repeated this most solemn oath of renunciation and a chill swept through the chamber. Even Becket appeared shocked.
Shouting “To arms!” the knights shoved through the doorway, seizing Becket’s steward as they exited. As they pushed him ahead of them, he looked back over his shoulder at the archbishop. “My lord, you see what they are doing to me?”
“I see,” Becket replied. “They have the force and the power of darkness.” There were loud gasps, for those clerks and monks familiar with Scriptures at once recognized that as a paraphrase of the words spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ as He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane.
As the knights clattered down the stairs to the great hall, Becket returned to his chamber and sat down upon his bed. At first, there was a deathly stillness and, then, uproar. Most of the monks and clerks began to voice their opinions. Some dismissed the knights’ threats as drink-sodden posturing, for it was evident that Fitz Urse and his companions had drunk their fill at Abbot Clarembald’s table; they’d also appeared to be utterly fatigued, not surprising in light of their nonstop journey from Bures to Canterbury. Others insisted that they’d not dare to commit violence at Christmastide. Those who knew better moved to the windows on the north side of the chamber and fumbled to unlatch the shutters so they could monitor the moves of the men outside.
“My lord, it really is quite amazing that you never will take any notice of our advice.” John of Salisbury sounded fretful and reproachful and, above all, fearful. “You always say and do what seems right to yourself alone. Was there any need for a great and good man like yourself to provoke those wicked men still more by following them to the door? Would it not have been better to have given a softer answer to men who are plotting to do you all the harm they can?”
Becket regarded his clerk and friend calmly. “We all must die, John. We should not swerve from justice for fear of death. I am more ready to meet death for God and His Church than they are to inflict it on me.”
“We are all sinners and not yet ready for death. I can see no one here who wants to die needlessly, apart from you.”
Some of the clerks were offended that John should dare to speak so disrespectfully to the archbishop. Becket merely said, “May the Lord’s Will be done.”
John would have argued further had Fitz Stephen not put a restraining hand upon his arm. As their eyes met, they shared a moment of frustrated, haunted understanding, the awareness that as clay was in the potter’s hands, so were they all in God’s Hands, and they could not save Thomas Becket unless he chose to save himself.
Just then there was a sharp cry from Edward Grim, standing watch at one of the windows. With a young man’s keen eyesight, he’d seen in the fading light what the older sentinels had not, the activity under the ancient mulberry tree. “They are arming themselves!” Hanging so far out the window that he was in danger of falling, he soon reported, “Men are pouring into the outer court! They’ve seized the gatehouse and… Jesus wept! My lord, your steward has joined them! He is helping to guard the gate!”
Through the open windows, they could hear now the shouting, the Norman battle cry of “King’s men, king’s men!” Other sounds were coming from the west, the laments of townspeople gathered outside the priory walls, crying out their fear that the archbishop and his monks were “sheep for the slaughter.” The noise was intensifying, curses and heavy pounding filling the air. Within the archbishop’s bedchamber, some of the monks and clerks fled while they still could, realizing what that new clamor meant: that quick-witted servants had barred the door to the hall and the knights were attempting to force their way back in.
“My lord, we must get to the church!” Becket’s confessor was tugging at his sleeve and others at once added their pleas to his, entreating the archbishop to flee whilst there was still time. Becket refused, insisting that he would not budge a foot from this chamber, for here he would await God’s Will. The hammering suddenly stopped and Fitz Stephen darted toward the windows in the south wall, where he soon confirmed his worst fears.
“Robert de Broc has led them around the side of the hall. They are going to try to enter by the external stairway!”