Becket fled to France in November 1164. He at once succeeded in obtaining from Alexander III. a formal condemnation of the constitutions. But Alexander, a fugitive from Italy and menaced by an alliance of the emperor with an antipope, was indisposed to take extreme measures against Henry; and six years elapsed before the king found himself definitely confronted with the choice between an interdict and a surrender. For the greater part of this time the archbishop resided at the Burgundian monastery of Pontigny, constantly engaged in negotiations with Alexander, whose hand he desired to force, and with Henry, from whom he hoped to extract an unconditional submission. In 1166 Becket received from the pope a commission to publish what censures he thought fit; of which he at once availed himself to excommunicate the king's principal counsellors. In 1169 he took the same step against two of the royalist bishops. In more sweeping measures, however, the pope refused to support him, until in 1170 Henry infringed the rights of Canterbury by causing Archbishop Roger of York to crown the young king. In that year the threats of the pope forced Henry to a reconciliation which took place later at Freteval on the 22nd of July. It was a hollow truce, since the subject of the constitutions was not mentioned; and Thomas returned to England with the determination of riding roughshod over the king's supporters. If he had not given a definite pledge to forgive the bishops who had taken part in the young king's coronation, he had at least raised expectations that he would overlook all past offences. But the archbishop prevailed upon the pope to suspend the bishops, and before his return published papal letters which, in announcing these sentences, spoke of the constitutions as null and void. It was only to be expected that such a step, which was virtually a declaration of war against the king, should arouse in him the strongest feelings of resentment. The archbishop's murder, perpetrated within a month of his return to England (29th December 1170), was, however, the work of over zealous courtiers and regretted by no one more than Henry.
Becket was canonized in 1172. Within a short time his shrine at Canterbury became the resort of innumerable pilgrims. Plenary indulgences were given for a visit to the shrine, and an official register was kept to record the miracles wrought by the relics of the saint. The shrine was magnificently adorned with the gold and silver and jewels offered by the pious. It was plundered by Henry VIII., to whom the memory of Becket was specially obnoxious; but the reformers were powerless to expunge the name of the saint from the Roman calendar, on which it still remains. Even to those who are in sympathy with III. 20 the principles for which he fought, the posthumous reputation of Becket must appear strangely exaggerated. It is evident that in the course of his long struggle with the state he fell more and more under the dominion of personal motives. At the last he fought not so much for an idea as for the humiliation of an opponent by whom he had been ungenerously treated. William of Newburgh appears to express the verdict of the most impartial contemporaries when he says that the bishop was zelo justitiae fervidus, utrum autem please secundum scientism novit Deus: "burning with zeal for justice, but whether altogether according to wisdom God knows."
AUTHORITIES. - Original: - The correspondence of Becket and most of the contemporary biographies are collected by J. C. Robertson in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket ('7 vols., Rolls Series, 1875-1885). See also the Vie de Saint Thomas, by Garnier de Pont Sainte Maxence (ed. Hippeau, Paris, 1859). For the chronology of the controversy see Eyton's Itinerary of Henry II. Modern: - Morris, Life and Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket (London, 1885); Lhuillier, Saint Thomas de Cantorbery (2 vols., Paris, 1891-1892); J. C. Robertson, Becket (London, 1859); F. W. Maitland, Roman Canon Law in the Church of England, c. iv.; J. A. Froude in his Short Studies, vol. iv., and Freeman in his Historical Essays (1871), give noteworthy but conflicting appreciations.
(H. W. C. D.)
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