Becket's Exile and Death

Becket, after long consideration, definitely refused to accept the constitutions, because he deemed them to be a code of law binding the church. Henry, exceedingly angry, called a council at Northampton, October 7, 1164, and summoned the archbishop to answer certain trumped-up charges concerning his lands and the management of the money in his possession when chancellor. After four exciting days, Becket fled from England in disguise and entered into voluntary exile, destined to last for six years. The pope, Alexander, was engaged in a conflict with the emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, who had set up an anti-pope, and did not dare excommunicate Henry, whose daughter had married the pope's ally and Frederick's enemy, Henry the Lion. Therefore Becket fought the battle almost alone. But he fought well. He refused to institute bishops chosen since his departure, excommunicated the chief advisers of the king, encouraged Louis VII of France, with whom he found refuge, to war against his vassal, the English king, and finally persuaded Alexander, victorious over the anti-pope and angered at Henry's obstinacy, to threaten England with an interdict (1170).

Henry, yielding in part, became reconciled first with Louis VII and then with Becket. The latter returned to England, but refused to abandon his aggressive policy. He excommunicated the bishops of London and Salisbury, and suspended the bishop of Durham and the archbishop of York, who had dared to crown Henry's son in his absence (1170). The bishops fled to Henry, who was in France, and told their tale. Henry in angry despair cried out, "Is there no one among all the cowards whom I have nourished who will rid me of this miserable clerk ?" Unwilling to act illegally, he summoned a council, which judged Becket guilty of death.

But the matter had already been taken out of his hands. Four knights, hearing the king's words, had sought out Becket at Canterbury and there murdered him. This act raised Becket to the place of a martyr and turned the world against Henry. With the greatest difficulty, and only after many amends, did he turn aside in 1172 the papal excommunication. Later, by the concessions of 1176 he practically annulled some of the most important of the constitutions of Clarendon. The long and deep humiliation of the king was but the preface to a period of sorrow and trouble which ended with his death.

Feudal Reaction against Henry

The struggle with the church brought matters to a head in political affairs also. The, resistance of Becket was to find its counterpart in an attempt of the feudal lords to check the rapidly growing power of the king and to recover the position they had had under Stephen.

That such a reaction should take place was natural enough. The rise of monarchy both in England and France was necessarily accompanied with attempts of the feudal lords to regain their privileges and to prevent the centralization of power in the hands of the king. The murder of Becket, which seemed to be only another act of royal despotism, deepened the anger of the English baronage, while the humiliation of the king seemed to offer a favorable opportunity for an expression of their discontent. Already aroused by the financial and judicial measures thus far taken, they were still further incensed at this time by what appeared to be, and in fact was, a further attack upon their prerogatives. Since the Conquest they had Practically controlled the office of sheriff, but now that was to be taken from them. In 1170, when Henry returned to England, he was greeted with so many complaints of the tyranny of the sheriffs that he immediately instituted an inquiry into their conduct. As a result, he deprived the majority of the barons of their positions and placed in their stead men of lower rank, who became regular officers of the crown. This inquisition of sheriffs not only reduced in importance the office itself, but it also broke down the local influence of many a wealthy lord who as sheriff had controlled his shire.

The aggrieved barons found a leader in the king's own household. His eldest son, Henry, dissatisfied with the estates and the authority allowed him by his father, and aided by his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, headed a revolt, the signal for a great uprising of all who had a grievance against the king. French lords and English barons, headed by young Henry and the king of France, formed a menacing coalition. Even the king of Scots, William the Lion, grandson of David I, joined the league, and with the bishop of Durham, lord of a powerful northern bishopric, itself an independent fief, was preparing to invade England.

Never did Henry's activity and generalship display itself to better advantage, and never did the support given by the English people stand him in better stead. The weakness of the opposition lay in its lack of unity. Henry was able to meet each movement separately, and to deal with each feudal lord or group of lords in turn. First in France, whither he returned in 1172, he checked the invasion of the Flemish, forced Louis VII to a peace, finally defeated the Bretons, became overlord of Brittany, and pacified Poitou. In 1174, as the news from England became more alarming, he resolved to cross the Channel. There the uprising had been held in check by the king's justiciars, and the Scots had been defeated by the Yorkshire levies at Alnwick on July 13, 1174, where William the Lion had been captured.

The coming of Henry had an immediate effect. On July 25, Hugh Bigot, most dangerous of the barons, surrendered ; on the 31st, Bishop Pudsey of Durham renewed his oath of fealty, and dismissing his Flemish mercenaries was let off with a fine and the confiscation of some of his castles. William the Lion was carried to Falaise in Normandy and there compelled to acknowledge himself the vassal of the English king, thus for the moment undoing the attempt of his predecessors to create an independent Scottish kingdom. Other lords came to the king at Northampton and surrendered their castles into his hand. The king dismantled these castles and in so doing brought to an end the last serious feudal uprising that was to take place in England.