Читать книгу Thomas Becket - Father John S. Hogan - Страница 21

The first thing to note about Henry II is that he was a restless man.¹ Never content to stay in one place, he had to be on the move, preferring his saddle to his throne; perhaps he saw the two as one and the same, given who was astride them both. This restlessness revealed his personality. Happiest on the back of a horse, he lived, like many a warrior, on the edge; he was a man who wanted to be in control, a man of action, a man for whom tolerance might be a sign of weakness. There is always the temptation, among Catholics in particular, to see Henry Angevin as a wicked man, a precursor to Henry VIII who sought to bring the Church under his control and was prepared to liquidate whoever he needed to — even the archbishop of Canterbury — in order to achieve that aim. That would not be the whole truth any more than is the narrative that, rough as he was, he was put upon by an ambitious and angry Catholic cleric and backed into a corner out of which he had to come fighting to preserve his kingdom and his just plans for renewal and stability.

Henry was a complicated man with a lot of baggage, a king who knew what he wanted and was prepared to make tough decisions to achieve his aims. He had had to fight for his crown, a crown he should have inherited from his mother; and once he had it, he had to fight for his rights as monarch of England and Normandy. He inherited a worldview very different from ours; he failed to understand the developments in the Church as she sought to free herself from secular control. It is no offense to Thomas Becket to accept that Henry Angevin, king of England, seen by some as the founder of the House of Plantagenet, was indeed an extraordinary man and a notable king, and to see the ungodly row between him and Thomas as a tragedy born of the character not only of the archbishop but of the king himself. Henry’s inner turbulence would foster conflicts not only with his archbishop but with his wife, his sons, and any number of unfortunate souls who dared to cross him. As a contemporary historian who knew Henry, the archdeacon Gerald of Wales, once noted in his writings, because of his personality Henry “found strife instead of safety, ruin instead of repose, ingratitude instead of constancy, and the utmost confusion instead of peace and tranquility.”²

Though he often described Thomas as a lowborn clerk, Henry’s own origins were not so exalted. He was the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, who was, in fact, illegitimate. William was born of a woman called Herleva, who was mistress to his father, Robert, Duke of Normandy. Herleva hailed from a family of leather workers in Falaise in Normandy, and it has been noted more than once that Henry’s rough ways may have been a throwback to his humble ancestry. Once, for example, as Henry was sewing a leather plaster onto his wounded finger with particular proficiency during a meeting with another bishop with whom he was in conflict, the bishop noted the skill he had inherited from his “cousins of Falaise.” To his credit, Henry roared with laughter; he was able to take a joke even at his own expense and let the bishop off the hook for his wit, to the surprise of the assembled courtiers.³

Henry was born in Le Mans in the county of Maine, in what is now France, on March 5, 1133. Maine was disputed territory, as both Normandy and Anjou claimed it. The marriage of Geoffrey of Anjou and Empress Matilda of Normandy seemed to settle the dispute, as their joint heir, Henry, would claim Maine unopposed. Henry’s earliest years were spent with his mother at her court in Normandy, but when he was about seven years old, he went to live in Anjou at his father’s court while his mother tried to stake her claim to the throne of England. When he was nine, his father sent him to Bristol in England to live with his uncle Robert of Gloucester, Matilda’s half-brother, to be educated in his household.⁴ Sending children to be educated in the household of a relative was a common medieval practice, but Henry’s presence in Bristol, an important center of opposition to Stephen, was no accident; it was a political move to consolidate support for Matilda and put Stephen on edge. In about 1143, Henry returned to Anjou to continue his education, remaining there until he was about fourteen.

Henry was a bright young man who loved reading, a passion he inherited from his father and maintained throughout his life.⁵ While he gave greater priority to hunting, reading came a close second in his affections. He was known to carry scrolls with him wherever he went and was often seen reading while astride his horse during sieges and other idle moments. He was educated by a number of reputable scholars who awakened in him an interest in many areas of learning. Adelard of Bath, for example, would dedicate his treatise On the Astrolabe to him, and it was not an empty gesture: Henry would have been inclined to read it, particularly as it dealt with a practical scientific instrument.⁶ His reading preference was, unsurprisingly, for works concerned with law and government. Linguistically, he was also proficient, developing an understanding of a number of languages, though he only spoke his native French, Latin, and occasionally a little English.⁷

Physically, Henry developed into an athletic young man. He inherited his father’s red hair and freckles and had blue-gray eyes whose natural gaze was a piercing stare. His head was large and round, propped up on a short neck. He was short and inclined to be stocky; aware of this, he was careful of what he ate as he grew older and exercised, though it did not prevent him from developing a paunch in later life.⁸ His legs were at first strong and athletic, but over the years became bowlegged thanks to his continual riding. He wore his hair closely cropped, and he dressed shabbily — he never had an interest in sartorial elegance. As a child, he could be sullen, and this attitude often recurred in adulthood, particularly when he could not get his way. His father, Geoffrey, possessed a charm that his son did not inherit; Henry was more inclined to his mother’s temperament, for good or bad, though he was not as reserved as she could be. He wore his temper very close to his skin, and he had a natural inclination for bullying.⁹ It seems he was never taught table manners as a child, or at least the lessons were not reinforced in any meaningful way, because he never possessed them as an adult; his eating habits were rough and far from those expected of a king, usually scandalizing his more exalted dinner guests.

Henry was religious in a conventional sense.¹⁰ He attended daily Mass, as was the custom for Catholic monarchs at the time, though he was often to be found conducting state business in the chapel during the liturgy. He lacked an authentic piety and was given to sacrilege in his casual approach to the sacred.¹¹ He is known to have been an oath breaker. The solemnity of taking an oath meant little to him; when required to do so, he happily agreed but really had little intention of honoring what he had promised — an attitude he refused to tolerate in others. His moral life was also problematic and did not reflect that expected of a Christian. Like many Catholics before and after him, Henry did not make faith the priority in his life; it came second to his role as king and statesman. Henry saw everything as subordinate to the state and government, and as he saw himself as the state, everything — even the Church — had to be subordinate to him. This was at the heart of his dispute with Thomas. In this clash, he encountered a man who was gradually realizing that Christ and the Christian faith took precedence over everything else, including the king and the state. Subordinating faith to politics affected both Henry’s worldview and his relationships, yet his faith was important to him. He was easily offended should anyone suggest that he was not Christian. He was, in his own view, a very Christian king; indeed, he saw himself as having an important governing role within the Church, and he was prepared to take that role very seriously.

In terms of his personality, Henry was a very complex man. While he bore no great eminence — he was a rough man by nature and in appearance — he was a brilliant statesman and seemed naturally inclined to govern, which he did with great aptitude. However, he was a flawed man whose temperament, as noted by Gerald of Wales, created problems for himself and for those around him. He tended to see relationships in terms of loyalty to him and his reign, showering his favor on those he saw as being devoted to him and coming to hate those he perceived to have betrayed him. Once he had formed an opinion of an individual, he rarely changed it. He could joust, reach agreements with, and form alliances with his enemies and those who challenged him — his relationship with Louis VII of France being a case in point. With those under his authority, he was not so generous. He was irrational and ungovernable when he fell into a fit of rage, but he could also be lovable, gentle, and friendly. In company he enjoyed, he was affable, witty, and polite. He was very accessible, even to the lowliest of his subjects. Though he is often compared with Henry VIII, the two men in fact had little in common. Both were men of great ability and could inspire admiration and loyalty, and both could be ruthless. However, Henry Angevin lacked the nihilistic qualities of Henry Tudor. He certainly lost control when he was angry and was bitter toward those he felt had offended him, but Henry VIII was more calculated and savage. While both men could be imperious, Henry VIII, a man possessed by power and lust, was so because of willfulness and perhaps even wickedness; Henry Angevin was simply a man controlled by his passions and flawed personality. For all his faults, he was admired not only by barons and lords but by bishops and even saints. Saint Ælred of Rievaulx¹² and Saint Gilbert of Sempringham,¹³ for example, both contemporaries of Henry and Thomas, held him in high regard.

There seems to have been an emotional deficit in Henry that skewed how he saw those around him. This defect can be seen in his marriage with Eleanor and his relationships with his children and, of course, Thomas. There was an irrational persistence in Henry, a rage and childishness that drove him demented at times as he reacted unreasonably to various challenging situations; as Guy notes, Henry’s greatest weakness was his temper.¹⁴ He often found it difficult to forgive when he came to hate someone, as he did Thomas in time. In his eyes, nothing could redeem the one he hated.¹⁵ Not even his wife and children escaped this bent of Henry’s. It must be noted, however, that the king was not entirely to blame for the family strife that lay ahead. If he had been married to a saint, such a wife might have quelled the unruliness in him; but he was married to a woman who was as calculating and as ruthless as he was. It is no wonder that the children resembled the parents.

As king of England and Duke of Normandy, and married to the Duchess of Aquitaine, Henry was as powerful as the king of France. After Louis and Eleanor’s annulment, he had wooed one of the most powerful women in Christendom and won her. The couple would have eight children to add to a son Henry had had with a mistress in about 1152. That son, Geoffrey, was destined to become archbishop of York in 1189, succeeding Roger de Pont L’Évêque. A second illegitimate son would be born to another mistress in about 1176, possibly Ida of Tosny, wife of the Earl of Norfolk; that son would become William, Earl of Salisbury.¹⁶ Of his legitimate children with Eleanor, three sons would be kings: Henry the Young King, Richard I (“the Lionheart”), and John. Another son, Geoffrey, became Duke of Brittany, while their three daughters married nobles: Matilda became Duchess of Savoy; young Eleanor, queen of Castile; and Joan, queen of Sicily.

Once Henry took the throne, his reign (his dispute with Thomas aside) was positive for England. While he wanted to restore the many laws, customs, and arrangements that existed under his grandfather, he initiated many new laws and customs that were to the benefit of the kingdom and the people.¹⁷ He sought to increase the power of the English royal courts, producing a more coherent system of laws and the means to implement them by appointing good administrators and making wider use of juries. He challenged not only Church courts but also the role of the barons in dispensing justice. Inheriting an abysmal financial system, Henry made it one of his first priorities to stabilize the currency and rejuvenate a poor economy while establishing financial institutions to undertake reforms and improve accounting. His reforms not only achieved these aims, but also led to a significant increase in royal revenues, assisted by new taxes and new sources of income from fines and amercements.¹⁸

Politically, he consolidated his English territories against the Scots, fortifying the north, and gradually brought Wales into submission to England. He also secured his realm on the continent, and after going to war to secure his wife’s duchy, he governed to various degrees territory stretching from the English Channel to the Mediterranean, controlling more of France that any ruler after the Carolingians. Historians often refer to his realm as the Angevin Empire. In 1171, he invaded Ireland with the assistance of the king of Leinster, and though he would have to appoint and recognize Rory O’Connor as high king of Ireland in 1175, in reality Henry was lord of Ireland. He would intervene more directly in Irish affairs from 1177 onward; though ultimately, according to Warren, his policy in Ireland was a failure — his one major failure.¹⁹ However, the troublesome Irish to one side, Henry was an emperor in all but title.

In January 1155, much of this lay in the future, mere ambition in the heart of a young king. To begin his work, Henry needed solid support and experienced, faithful servants to help him achieve his aims. In their meeting, Henry did not mince words with Thomas as he laid his plans before him. A new age was dawning for England, and he wanted the archdeacon to assume the office of royal chancellor and serve both this new and ambitious project and its master.