Henry II. was the most powerful sovereign of Western Europe, since he was not only King of England, but had inherited in France Anjou and Touraine from his father, and Normandy and Maine from his mother. By his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, he gained seven other provinces as her dower. The dominions of Louis were not half so great as his, even in France. And Henry was not only a powerful sovereign by his great territorial possessions, but also for his tact and ability. He saw the genius of Becket and made him his chancellor, loading him with honors and perquisites and Church benefices.
The power of Becket as chancellor was very great, since he was prime minister, and the civil administration of the kingdom was chiefly intrusted to him, embracing nearly all the functions now performed by the various members of the Cabinet. As chancellor he rendered great services. He effected a decided improvement in the state of the country; it was freed from robbers and bandits, and brought under dominion of the law. He depressed the power of the feudal nobles; he appointed the most deserving people to office; he repaired the royal palaces, increased the royal revenues, and promoted agricultural industry. He seems to have pursued a peace policy. But he was headstrong and grasping. His style of life when chancellor was for that age magnificent: Wolsey, in after times, scarcely excelled him. His dress was as rich as barbaric taste could make it,--for the more barbarous the age, the more gorgeous is the attire of great dignitaries. "The hospitalities of the chancellor were unbounded. He kept seven hundred horsemen completely armed. The harnesses of his horses were embossed with gold and silver. The most powerful nobles sent their sons to serve in his household as pages; and nobles and knights waited in his antechamber. There never passed a day when he did not make rich presents." His expenditure was enormous. He rivalled the King in magnificence. His sideboard was loaded with vessels of gold and silver. He was doubtless ostentatious, but his hospitality was free, and his person was as accessible as a primitive bishop. He is accused of being light and frivolous; but this I doubt. He had too many cares and duties for frivolity. He doubtless unbent. All men loaded down with labors must unbend somewhere. It was nothing against him that he told good stories at the royal table, or at his own, surrounded by earls and barons. These relaxations preserved in him elasticity of mind, without which the greatest genius soon becomes a hack, a plodding piece of mechanism, a stupid lump of learned dulness. But he was stained by no vices or excesses. He was a man of indefatigable activity, and all his labors were in the service of the Crown, to which, as chancellor, he was devoted, body and soul.
Is it strange that such a man should have been offered the See of Canterbury on the death of Theobald? He had been devoted to his royal master and friend; he enjoyed rich livings, and was Archdeacon of Canterbury; he had shown no opposition to the royal will. Moreover Henry wanted an able man for that exalted post, in order to carry out his schemes of making himself independent of priestly influence and papal interference.
So Becket was made archbishop and primate of the English Church at the age of forty-four, the clergy of the province acquiescing,--perhaps with secret complaints, for he was not even priest; merely deacon, and the minister of an unscrupulous king. He was ordained priest only just before receiving the primacy, and for that purpose.
Nothing in England could exceed the dignity of the See of Canterbury. Even the archbishopric of York was subordinate.
Becket as metropolitan of the English Church was second in rank only to the King himself. He could depose any ecclesiastic in the realm. He had the exclusive privilege of crowning the king. His decisions were final, except an appeal to Rome. No one dared disobey his mandates, for the law of clerical obedience was one of the fundamental ideas of the age. Through his clergy, over whom his power was absolute, he controlled the people. His law courts had cognizance of questions which the royal courts could not interfere with. No ecclesiastical dignitary in Europe was his superior, except the Pope.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had been a great personage under the Saxon kings. Dunstan ruled England as the prime minister of Edward the Martyr, but his influence would have been nearly as great had he been merely primate of the Church. Nor was the power of the archbishop reduced by the Norman kings. William the Conqueror might have made the spiritual authority subordinate to the temporal, if he had followed his inclinations. But he dared not quarrel with the Pope,--the great Hildebrand, by whose favor he was unmolested in the conquest of the Saxons. He was on very intimate terms of friendship with Lanfranc, whom he made Archbishop of Canterbury,--an able, ambitious Italian, who was devoted to the See of Rome and his spiritual monarch. The influence of Hildebrand and Lanfranc combined was too great to be resisted. Nor did he attempt resistance; he acquiesced in the necessity of making a king of Canterbury. His mind was so deeply absorbed with his conquest and other state matters that he did not seem to comprehend the difficulties which might arise under his successors, in yielding so much power to the primate. Moreover Lanfranc, in the quiet enjoyment of his ecclesiastical privileges, gave his powerful assistance in imposing the Norman yoke. He filled the great sees with Norman prelates. He does not seem to have had much sympathy with the Saxons, or their bishops, who were not so refined or intellectual as the bishops of France. The Normans were a superior race to the Saxons in executive ability and military enthusiasm.