“This we faithfully promise you,” the Templars’ Grand Master concluded earnestly, “and may our souls be condemned to eternal damnation if henceforth the king demands of you anything contrary to your will or your order.”
Becket heard them out in silence and then announced that he would go to the chapel to pray for divine guidance. The atmosphere lightened a bit after his departure. The Bishop of Winchester ordered wine and wafers to be brought in. He no longer seemed to harbor the political ambitions that had once helped to wreak such havoc upon the kingdom. Those days when he’d dreamed of the archbishopric of Canterbury for himself, the throne at Westminster for his brother, were long gone. Now in his life’s winter, he still retained a healthy appreciation for the pleasures of fine wine and good food, and he ate with a relish that few of the others could match.
Roger had no appetite. When Gilbert Foliot took the seat beside him, he found for the Bishop of London a crooked smile. “Well, it has been an interesting afternoon. Shall we toss a coin to see who gets to give the king the bad news?”
Roger’s flippancy didn’t go over well with Foliot, who was still silently fuming at the idiocy of it all. “As soon as Becket returns, we’d best go back to the hall and get this over with whilst we can still pretend to a semblance of unity.”
The Bishop of Winchester finished one wafer, reached for another. “Just be thankful,” he said, “that the king’s termagant mother is in Normandy. If you think Harry can be a raving lunatic, you ought to have seen the Lady Maude in one of her imperial fits of fury.”
His sarcasm struck a sour note with Roger; the Lady Maude, after all, was his aunt. It was also an impolitic reminder that Winchester had been on the wrong side in the great war that had torn England asunder for nigh on two decades. He was on the verge of an equally impolitic rebuke when the door opened and Thomas Becket entered the chamber.
He had the dazed look of a man bleeding from an inner wound, so ashen that even Foliot felt a twinge of involuntary pity for his plight. Waving aside Winchester’s offer of wine, he said abruptly, “If the king will have me perjure myself, so be it. I will agree to take the oath he demands, and hope to purge the sin by future penance.”
Roger was too stunned to speak. He stared at the archbishop mutely, having no idea what to say. Judging from the silence, none of the others did either.
Becket’s sudden capitulation was greeted by Henry’s barons with surprise and jubilation. They sat upright on their benches, listening intently as the archbishop promised that he would “observe the customs of the kingdom in good faith.” Even his enemies would later remark that the man looked ill, but he spoke out firmly, loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall. Henry showed no emotion, his face impassive, grey eyes guarded. Once Becket had recanted, he said:
“You have heard the archbishop’s promise. All that remains is for the bishops to do the same, at his command.” And that was done. It was then that Henry startled them all, barons and bishops alike, by insisting that the customs should be committed to writing so as to avoid future misunderstandings.
The law, as they knew it, was oral tradition, passed down from one generation to the next. This was an innovation, one that stirred suspicion and alarm. But Henry had the momentum and the control of events, and his opponents were too demoralized by Becket’s volte-face to muster further opposition. This, too, was done as the king commanded, and the Constitutions of Clarendon were duly set down in a chirograph on January 29, the text written out three times on the same parchment and then torn so as to validate all three copies when joined together. With that, the historic and contentious Council of Clarendon drew to a close.
Roger was so troubled by his friend’s despairing state of mind that he concocted an excuse to accompany the archbishop upon the first leg of his journey back to Canterbury. Becket had been bitterly assailed by some of the other bishops, accused of abandoning them in the midst of battle. Even his own clerks turned upon him, and as they rode toward Winchester, his cross-bearer, a fiery-tempered Welshman called Alexander Llewelyn, dared to accuse Becket of forsaking his flock and betraying his conscience, saying boldly, “When the shepherd has fled, the sheep lie scattered before the wolf.”
The archbishop offered no defense, flinching away from the words as if they were weapons. When Roger urged his mount closer so they might talk, Becket said huskily, “I have indeed betrayed my God, my friends, and myself. I do judge myself unworthy to approach as a priest Him Whose Church I have vilely bartered, and I will sit silent in grief until the ‘day spring from on high hath visited me,’ so that I merit absolution by God and the Lord Pope.”
Roger was taken aback by the emotional intensity of Becket’s remorse. But he did not doubt the other man’s sincerity and realized at once what this meant. His cousin the king may have won this battle, but the war would go on.
An icy February rain was drenching Winchester, turning the streets into muddy quagmires and driving people indoors, where they huddled around reeking hearths and cursed the vile winter weather. Within the castle, though, another storm raged, a battle royal between England’s king and his consort.
“I cannot believe,” Henry exclaimed, “that you are siding with Becket in this!”
Eleanor swore in exasperation. “Jesu! I am doing no such thing. I simply said that it might have been wiser if you’d concentrated upon a few important issues, such as the matter of the criminous clerks. You have the right of that argument and few save Becket would dispute it with you.”
“I have the right of all sixteen arguments-the Constitutions of Clarendon. They are indeed the customs of the realm from my grandfather’s time. I did not pluck them from the sky or invent them out of whole cloth.”
‘No, but you did a bit of embroidering,” she insisted, with a wry humor that he did not find amusing. “Harry, I think you overreached yourself, and for certes, you’d have done better not to have demanded that written recognition-”
“Christ on the Cross, woman!” Henry was stung by her criticism, for he was very proud of the Constitutions of Clarendon and could not understand why others were so leery of change. “How can rights be properly defined if they are not set down in writing?”
“But that makes compromise so much more difficult! Why can you not see that?”
“Because I have no intention of compromising with Thomas Becket, now or ever!”
“Like it or not, you may have to, Harry. The man is still the Archbishop of Canterbury… and whose fault is that?”
“I have admitted I made a mistake with Becket and do not need you to throw that in my face! But even the worst mistakes can be undone and I mean to undo this one.”
“I suppose it is too much to ask how you intend to bring this about? Why should you share your plans with me, after all? I am merely your queen!”
“Why should I want to tell you anything at all when this is the response I get-carping and disapproval?”
A timid knock on the bedchamber door interrupted the quarrel, although not for long; both their tempers were still at full blaze. Henry took the proffered parchment, dismissed the messenger, glared at Eleanor, and broke the seal. As Eleanor watched angrily, he moved toward the nearest light, a tall candelabra. His back was to her, but she saw him stiffen, heard his gasp, a cry broken off in midbreath.
“Harry?” When he didn’t answer, she moved toward him. “Harry… what is it?”
He’d crumpled the parchment in his fist. “Christ have pity,” he said, very low. When he looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears. “My mother has written to tell me…” He swallowed painfully. “My brother is dead.”