Henry the Second 10

Henry the Second 10

The same system of trial by sworn witnesses was also gradually extended

to the local courts. By the new-fashioned royal system the legal men of

hundreds and townships, the knights and freeholders, were ordered to

search out the criminals of their district, and "present" them for trial

at the Shire Court,--something after the fashion of the "grand jury" of

to-day, save that in early times the jurors had themselves to bear

witness, to declare what they knew of the prisoner's character, to say if

stolen goods had been divided in a certain barn, to testify to a coat by

a patch on the shoulder. By a slow series of changes which wholly

reversed their duties, the "legal men" of the juries of "presentment" and

of "recognition" were gradually transformed into the "jury" of to-day;

and even now curious traces survive in our courts of the work done by the

ancestors of the modern jury. In criminal cases in Scotland the oath

still administered by the clerk to jurymen carries us back to an ancient

time: "You fifteen swear by Almighty God, and as you shall answer to God

at the great day of judgment, you will truth say and no truth conceal, in

so far as you are to pass on this assize."

 

The provincial administration was set in working order. New sheriffs took

up again the administration of the shires, and judges from the King's

Court travelled, as they had done in the time of Henry I., through the

land. The worst fears of the baronage were justified. They were disabled

by one blow after another. Their political humiliation was complete. The

heirs of the great lords who had followed the Conqueror, and who with

their vast estates in Normandy and in England had inherited the arrogant

pretensions of their fathers, found themselves of little account in the

national councils. The mercenary forces were no longer at their disposal.

The sources of wealth which they had found in plunder and in private

coinage were cut off. Their rights of jurisdiction were curtailed. A

final blow was struck at their military power by the adoption of scutage.

In the Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry opened his military reforms by

introducing a system new to England in the formation of his army. Every

two knights bound to service were ordered to furnish in their place one

knight who should remain with the king's army as long as he required. It

was the first step towards getting rid of the cumbrous machinery of the

feudal array, and securing an efficient and manageable force which should

be absolutely at the king's control. In the war of Toulouse in 1159 the

problem was for the first time raised as to the obligation of feudal

vassals to foreign service, and Henry gladly seized the opportunity to

carry out his plan yet more fully. The chief vassals who were unwilling

to join the army were allowed to pay a fixed tax or "scutage" instead of

giving their personal service. Henry, the chroniclers tell us, careful of

his people's prosperity, was anxious not to annoy the knights throughout

the country, nor the men of the rising towns, nor the body of yeomen, by

dragging them to foreign war against their will; at the same time he

himself profited greatly by the change. The new system broke up the old

feudal array, and set the king at the head of something like a standing

army paid by the taxes of the barons.

 

Henry had, indeed, won a signal victory over feudalism. But feudalism had

no roots on English soil; it was forced to borrow Brabançons, and to work

by means alien to the whole feudal tradition and system, and Henry had

easily overthrown the baronage by the help of the Church. But in the

process the ecclesiastical party had learned to know its strength, and the

king had to meet a more formidable resistance to his will when, instead of

a lawless baronage, he was confronted by the Church with its mighty

organization, always vigilant and menacing. The clergy had from the first

looked with a very jealous eye on his projects. A sharp quarrel as to the

jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts had early arisen between Henry

and Archbishop Theobald, but the matter had been compromised for a time.

Thomas had taken office pledged to defend ecclesiastical interests, and he

was so far true to his pledge, that while he was chancellor he put an end

to the abuse of keeping bishoprics and abbeys vacant. He had, however, as

was said at the time, "put off the deacon" to put on the chancellor; and

in an ecclesiastical trial which took place soon after Henry's crowning,

he appears as an energetic exponent of the king's legal views. A dispute

had raged for years as to the jurisdiction of the bishops of Chichester

over the abbots of Battle. On Henry's accession Bishop Hilary of

Chichester vigorously renewed the struggle, and a great trial was held

in May 1157 to decide the matter. Hilary failing after much discussion to

effect a compromise, emphatically and solemnly declared in words such as

Henry was to hear a few years later from another mouth, that there were

two powers, secular and spiritual, and that the secular authority could

not interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction, or depose any bishop or

ecclesiastic without leave from Rome. "True enough, he cannot be

'deposed,'" cried the young king, "but by a shove like this he may be

clean thrust out!" and he suited the action to the words. A laugh ran

round the assembly at the king's jest; but Hilary, taking no notice of

the hint, went on to urge that no layman, not even the king, could by the

law of Rome confer ecclesiastical dignity or exemptions without the Pope's

leave and confirmation. "What next!" broke in Henry angrily, "you think

with your practised cunning to set yourself up against the authority of

my kingly prerogative granted me by God Himself! I command you by the

allegiance you have sworn to keep within proper bounds language against my

crown and dignity!" A general clamour rose against the prelate, and the

chancellor, louder than the rest, talked of the bishop's oath of fealty to

the king, and warned him to take heed to himself. Hilary, seeing himself

thus beset, obsequiously declared that he had no wish to take aught from

the kingly honour and dignity, which he had always bent every effort to

magnify and increase; but Henry bluntly retorted that it was plain to all

that his honour and dignity would be speedily removed far from him by the

fair and deceitful talk of those who would annul his just prerogatives.

The bishop could not find a single friend. Chancellor and justiciar and

constable rivalled one another in taunts and sharp phrases. When he went

on to urge the revision of the Conqueror's charter to Battle by the

archbishop, and to appeal to ecclesiastical custom, Henry's wrath rose

again. "A wonderful and marvellous thing truly is this we hear, that the

charters, forsooth, of my kingly predecessors, confirmed by the

prerogative of the Crown of England, and witnessed by the magnates, should

be deemed beyond our powers by you, my lord bishop. God forbid, God

forbid, that in my kingdom what is decreed by me at the instance of

reason, and with the advice of my archbishops, bishops, and barons,

should be liable to the censure of you and such as you!" He broke short

discussion by declaring that the question belonged to him alone to settle.

The chancellor, in a long argument, crushed the already humbled bishop,

and raised the king's anger to its utmost pitch by drawing attention to

the fact that Hilary had appealed to Rome to the contempt of the royal

dignity. The king, his countenance changed with fury, turned passionately

to the bishop, who tremblingly swore, while Archbishop Theobald crossed

himself in amazement at the audacious perjury, that it was the abbot who

had got the bull of which Thomas complained. Theobald entreated that the

matter might be settled according to Canon law, but this the king promptly

refused. Finally Hilary was forced to complete submission, and the

archbishop prayed that he might be pardoned for any imprudent words he had

used against the king's majesty. Henry was ever ready to yield everything

in form when once he had got his own way. "Not only," he answered, "do I

now give him the kiss of peace, but if his sins were a hundredfold, I

would forgive them all for your prayers and for the love I bear him;" and

bishop and abbot and justiciar, all by the king's orders, joined in the

kiss of peace.

 

But no kiss of peace given at Henry's orders could turn away the rising

wrath of the Church. A general feeling of danger was in the air, and both

sides, in preparing for the inevitable future, chose the same man to

fight their battle,--Thomas, the disciple and secretary of Theobald,

Thomas, the minister of the king's reforms. The young king had turned

with passionate affection to his brilliant chancellor. In hall, in

church, in council-chamber, on horseback, he was never separated from his

friend. Thomas, like his master, was always ready for hunting, or for

hawking, or for a game of chess. He was willing, too, to save the king

the cost and burden of entertainment and display. He was careful to

magnify his office. He held a splendid court, where Henry's son and a

train of young nobles were brought up to knightly accomplishments. He was

dressed in scarlet and furs, and his clothes were woven with gold. His

table was covered with gold and silver plate, and his servants had orders

to buy the most costly provisions in the shops for cooked meat, which

were then the glory of the city. His household was the talk of London.

The king himself, curious to see how things went on, would sometimes come

on horseback to watch the chancellor sitting at meat, or, bow in hand,

would turn in on his way from hunting, and, vaulting over the table,

would sit down and eat with him. Henry lavished gifts on him, so that

according to one of his chroniclers, "when he might have had all

the churches and castles of the kingdom if he chose since there was none

to deny him, yet the greatness of his soul conquered his ambition; he

magnanimously disdained to take the poorer benefices, and required only

the great things--the provostship of Beverley, the deanery at Hastings,

the Tower of London with the service of the soldiers belonging to it, the

castle of Eye with 140 soldiers, and that of Berkhampstead." or was the

king's favour misplaced, for Thomas was an excellent servant. Business

was rapidly despatched by him; and Henry found himself relieved of the

most irksome part of his work. The chancellor surrounded himself by

able men, looking even as far as Gaul for poor Englishmen who were

distinguished for their talent; fifty-two clerks were employed under him

in the Chancery. As he grew more and more important to his master,

unlimited powers were put in his hand. There are even entries in the Pipe

Roll of pardons issued by him, the first instance of such a right ever

used by any save king or queen. It was said that those who had the king's

favour might count it as a vain thing, unless they had also the friendship

of the chancellor. "The king's dominions, which reach from the Arctic

Ocean to the Pyrenees, he put into your power, and in this alone was any

man thought happy, that he should find favour in your eyes," runs a letter

written afterwards to Thomas.

 

To complete the king's schemes, however, one dignity yet remained

to be conferred on Thomas. He was eager, in view of his proposed

reconstruction of Church and State, to adopt the Imperial system of a

chancellor-archbishop. The difficulties in the way were great, for ancient

custom limited the technical supremacy of the king's will in the choice

of the Primate. No archbishop since the Conquest had been chosen for other

reasons than those of piety and learning; no secular primate had been

appointed since Stigand, and before Stigand there had never been one at

all; no deacon had ever been chosen for this high office; and never had a

king's officer been made archbishop, however common it may have been to

put chancellor or treasurer in less important sees. Amid the anxiety and

questioning which followed the death of Theobald in 1161, Thomas himself

clearly saw the parting of the ways: "Whoever is made archbishop," he

said, "must quickly give offence to God or to the king." Henry alone knew

no hesitation. Fresh from his triumphs abroad, master of his great empire,

clear and decided in his projects for the ordering of his dominions, eager