Custom essays: King Henry II legal reform and the Murder of Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket was a chancellor for seven years (1155-1162), during which he achieved considerable political influence, and indeed supported friendly relations with Heinrich II. Becket was the tutor of the heir to the throne, Henry Young; according to chroniclers the Prince confessed that the chancellor expressed more fatherly love to him in one day than his own father in all his life (Staunton 111; Grim 342). In the conflict between Henry II and Theobald, Becket invariably took the side of the king. Thus, Becket achieved levying of land tax from property belonging to the Church. Among the clergy Becket was definitely considered the King’s man, therefore only under the pressure of Henry II the Chapter of Canterbury after the death of Theobald elected Thomas Becket a new archbishop of Canterbury. By the time of his election Becket was not even ordained a priest (Barlow 115-117).
However, these calculations were wrong; Beckett, not particularly respected in church circles, neither as a theologian nor a pious saint, was an outstanding administrator and an ambitious politician. Immediately after his election as archbishop, he resigned from his role as chancellor and devoted his life to an uncompromising advocacy of the church, pursuing a policy completely opposite to expectations of the king.
Archbishop started a series of lawsuits against individuals who illegally seized church property during the Civil War. In October 1163, at a meeting of clergy at Westminster the King announced his plans to introduce a new tribute from the church land and pass criminal investigation of clergy from the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts to secular courts. Becket lashed out against the royal initiatives. In addition, after his appointment Becket seriously changed his lifestyle: if earlier he led the ordinary life of the court nobility, after taking the gown he began to indulge in ascetic practices, prayers, charity (Grim 368-73).
On January 30, 1164 at the meeting of the nobility and clergy in Clarendon Palace, Henry II presented the so-called Constitutions of Clarendon for signing – 16 articles, substantially limiting the privileges of the Church. Thus, the third article obliged clergymen accused of criminal offenses, to come up for both secular and clerical trial. Article 4 forbade bishops and clergy to leave England without the king’s permission, and, if such permission was obtained, obliged to guarantee in writing, that during their stay abroad, they would not cause damage to the crown. Article 7 prohibited anathematization or interdiction of royal vassals and officials without the permission of the monarch. According to Article 11, bishops, abbots and clerics holding fiefs from the crown, imposed all the duties of vassals, and Article 12 passed on the king the revenues of vacant dioceses and abbeys, it determined that the vacant posts of the church could only occur with the consent of the king, and the candidates pledged to take an oath of loyalty to the monarch (Barlow 121-25).
Clergy present in Clarendon endorsed the Constitutions, but Becket, though agreed with its contents, delayed their signature. Pope Alexander III refused to recognize the constitutions, as they contradicted with the canon law (in particular, for the same crime, the clergy were to be judged twice – y secular and spiritual courts); following Pope, Thomas Becket also announced the refusal to sign the Constitutions of Clarendon. In response, on October 8, 1164 at the council in Northampton, Henry II accused the Archbishop of embezzling treasury during his chancellorship (Duggan 384-92). Becket announced his immunity from the royal council jurisdiction and fled to France, where he urged Pope to abolish the constitutions using extreme measures – anathema and interdict – against Henry II.
The situation changed only in June 1170, when by the order of Henry II, his son and heir Henry Young was crowned in York by the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury, though traditionally the English kings were crowned in the kingdom of the archbishops of Canterbury. Becket’s protest this time was supported by the Alexander III, who threatened Henry II with interdiction. July 22, 1170, Henry II who was at that time in Normandy made peace with Becket. As a sign of royal repentance Thomas Becket demanded from the King of England to publish the pope’s message condemning the Constitutions of Clarendon, and to depose three bishops who had committed York coronation. Despite the resumption of the conflict, Henry II allowed Thomas Becket to return to England (Abbott 149-58).
In December 1170, Thomas Becket returned from the exile in triumph and immediately excommunicated the three bishops. On hearing this, Henry II, who was in Normandy, according to popular legend, angrily exclaimed: “Will no one rid me of this pestilential priest?” (Staunton 205-6). Edward Grim (516), a contemporary of Becket, recorded another version: “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?” “Four knights (Reginald Fitz-Urs, Hugues de Morevil, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton) understood the King’s words as a command and immediately left for Canterbury.
According to the testimony of monk Gervase of Canterbury and chronicler Edward Grim (523-29), on December 29, 1170 the knights donned a cloak over their armors and left arms under the sycamore at the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral. Having met the archbishop, they informed him that the King called him for trial at Winchester, but Becket rejected this claim. The knights came back for the arms and already armed broke into the cathedral, where the archbishop was to lead the evening prayer. Murderers caught Becket on the steps leading up to the altar, and hit him four strokes with a sword. Only at the third stroke Archbishop Becket fell, saying that he accepted death in the name of the Lord and was giving his soul to the court of God Church.
Thus, Henry II tried using the Constitutions of Clarendon to subordinate ecclesiastical courts, and conflicted with the head of the Church, Thomas Becket, a proponent of its independence. Becket promoted the empowerment of the Church and its political and material rights, and Henry tried to subordinate the Church to the centralized royal power, and become less dependent on the Pope. In the course of this confrontation of two strong personalities and two positions, one day getting tired of years of strife, Henry II decided to get rid of Thomas Becket.
Though Henry II laid the foundation of all the judicial and administrative system of the English feudal state, he could not maintain the transformation, and soon after Henry’s death the system he laid collapsed. All his tremendous qualities as a monarch, were, however, tarnished by brutality and treachery, but these flaws were inherent in all Plantagenet. In July 1174, at the request of the Pope, Henry II was forced to publicly repent in Canterbury at the tomb of Becket.

Works Cited

Abbott, Edwin. St. Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles. BiblioBazaar, 2009. Print.
Barlow, Frank. Thomas Becket. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1986. Print.
Duggan, Anne J. “Roman, canon and common law in twelfth-century England: the council of Northampton (1164) re-examined,” Historical Research 83.221 (2010), pp. 379-408. Print.
Grim, Edward. Vita S. Thomae, Cantuariensis Archepiscopi et Martyris, in James Robertson, Materials for the Life of Thomas Becket, London: Rolls Series, 1875-1885, (7 vols.) Vol. II. Print.
Staunton, Michael. The Lives of Thomas Becket. Manchester University Press, 2001. Print.