1154.]

DEATH OF STEPHEN.

269

their liege lord, to the Duke of Normandy, saving only their allegiance to King Stephen during his life."* Stephen's son Eustace had died during the negotiations. The troublesome reign of Stephen was soon after brought to a close. He died on the 25th October, 1154. His constant and heroic queen had died three years before him.

Henry II. crowned-Establishment of order-Parentage of Becket-Becket chancellor-Character of Henry-Becket ambassador to France-Malcolm of Scotland-Invasion of Wales-Description of the Welsh-Wars on the Continent-Becket archbishop of Canterbury-Character of Becket.

AFTER the long troubles of the reign of Stephen, it was not without hope of a quiet future that the people of England saw a young man enter upon

Arms of Henry II.

the kingly office with an undisputed title. In those days when history, for the great mass of the community, was little more than imperfect tradition, it would still be handed down to the Anglo-Saxon people that for nearly two hundred years, since the days of King Ethelred, the succession to the throne had been ever doubtful. The Danish power had snatched the crown from the race of Alfred for a third of a century. It was restored to the ancient line for a short period; and then came another conquest, which had extinguished all chance of any other than a foreign rule, till time should confound the distinctions of birth and language. But of three successors of the Conqueror who had ruled England for sixty-seven years, no one had worn the crown by a clear hereditary right. At last one had arisen whose claim none could dare to controvert. The daughter of Henry I., indeed, was alive, and had the same title to the throne which she had so strenuously asserted in the reign of Stephen. But the convention with that king established the right of her son Henry II., beyond the possibility of any new contention. Henry was in Normandy when Stephen died; and it was six weeks after that death before he arrived in England. He was crowned at Westminster, on the 19th of December, 1154, the first king of the Plantagenet race, which ruled England for more than three centuries.

1154.]

ESTABLISHMENT OF ORDER.

271

At the time of his accession Henry II. was twenty-one years of age. His reign extended over thirty-five years. It was a memorable period, in which, although the government was essentially despotic, there was a decided advance in the equal administration of justice, and in the subjection of a cruel and turbulent aristocracy to the consolidated power of an energetic and intellectual king. The personal character of Henry gives a distinctive colour to the events of his reign, and especially in his great contest to maintain the supremacy of the civil power over the ecclesiastical. The brilliant morning of his life, compared with its dark and stormy evening, lends, also, a dramatic interest to this portion of our history. There is a remarkable unity in the whole story; and in following it out in its exhibition of individual passions and aspirations, we shall best evolve the characteristics of the age.

Planta genista.

To repair the evils of the reign of Stephen required in the new government the rare union of vigour and moderation. Though a young man of strong passions, Henry held over them the control of a firm will and a commanding intellect. He went steadily to his great work of substituting law and order for violence and confusion. He expelled the foreign mercenaries by whom the people had been grievously plundered. He demolished the castles which had been the hiding-places of privileged robbers. He recovered those lands of the crown which had been improvidently alienated by Stephen. He abolished the private mints which had been as numerous as the castles, and claimed the exclusive sovereign right of issuing a new coinage. Much of this counter revolution required to be effected by military force; but the arduous labour appears to have been carried through with little injustice and less cruelty. He had an able grand-justiciary in the Earl of Leicester; and the counsels of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury,

RIRE

in British Museum.

were those of conciliation and peace. In Silver Penny of Henry II. From a specimen his own person he attended vigilantly to

the administration of justice. "He did not sit still in his palace, as most other kings do, but going over the provinces examined into the actions of his subjects, chiefly forming his judgment of those whom he had appointed the judges of others."* The chancellor of Henry, who became the most influential of his advisers, was Thomas-à-Becket.

Gilbert Becket was a citizen of London in the reign of Henry I. His son Thomas was born there in 1119. Romantic as are the vicissitudes of the career of this extraordinary man, there is also a romance attached to the lives of his father and mother, which monkish legend has embodied and sober history has not rejected.† Gilbert Becket was in the Holy Land after the

Peter of Blois.

Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Chancellors," is indignant with Turner and Thierry telling the story of "Gilbert," which he calls "deluding their readers." He should have included Macintosh amongst the deluders. Are all Lord Campbell's stories "evidence?" May we ask where Lord Campbell finds that "racing, hunting, and hawking were amusements forbidden to the Saxons?" The Forest Laws limited the chase to certain classes, whether

272

PARENTAGE OF BECKET.

[1154.

first Crusade, when the pilgrim might journey to Jerusalem without restraint. But Gilbert in his wanderings fell into the hands of a Saracen, and was held by him in long captivity. The misbeliever took a pleasure in the society of the Englishman; and the Emir's daughter bore towards him a tenderer regard. Gilbert by her aid escaped, and returned to London. A few years after, in that commercial city, to whose quays ships came from the East laden with silks and spices and frankincense, a lady was wandering through its streets and markets, who could utter no intelligible words but "London" and "Gilbert;" and so she moved on, a desolate stranger, with those sounds of fond remembrance only on her lips. Gilbert and the beautiful

oriental at last met. She became Becket's wife, and the mother of his famous son. The story is found in Brompton, one of our early chroniclers. The character of Thomas-à-Becket is not inconsistent with the belief that he came of parents from whom he might derive that union of enthusiastic impulse which belonged to a Syrian mother, and of unbending obstinacy which was the characteristic of an Anglo-Saxon father.

Thomas-à-Becket received his early education at the Abbey of Merton. In the schools of London he was trained in that intellectual gladiatorship which was as remarkable as the military sports of the citizens. The disputations of these schools have been amusingly described by Fitz-Stephen. On festival days the scholars assembled in the churches, and there contended, with logical precision or rhetorical sophistry. Like many modern orators, they were "deemed clever according to their fluency of speech." They wrangled about mood and tense; assailed each other with bitter epigram and Socratic wit; and spared not even great personages in their scoffs and sarcasms. To complete his accomplishments young Becket went to Paris, and there he acquired, what was as important to his advancement as

Norman or Saxon; but the citizens of London had their especial privilege of hunting-grounds, and, therefore, Becket need not have earned the good graces of a Norman baron to be allowed to hunt, as Lord Campbell intimates.