In the midst of these wars and negotiations, these invasions and these treaties. King Henry relied on all sides upon the advice and the support of Thomas Becket, or à Becket, chancellor of England, the son of Gilbert à Becket, a merchant of the city of London, of Norman origin. {151} A romantic story attaches to the birth of Thomas Becket. It is related that the busy passers-by in the streets of London, had, to their great surprise, observed one day a woman wearing Oriental costume who was wandering about repeating the name of Gilbert. To questions put to her she gave no answer, and she knew no other English words than "Gilbert" and "London." The people around her had begun to murmur, when she was recognized by a servant who had accompanied Gilbert Becket to the crusades. Both had been made prisoners and had succeeded in escaping: but the daughter of the Emir who had held them captive had conceived a passion for Gilbert; she had followed his traces to the shore and had found means of going to England, and then to London, without any other guide to the whereabouts of him she loved than this name of Gilbert, at that time a very common one. Becket consulted his confessor; the Saracen princess was baptized under the name of Matilda, and Gilbert married her. Her husband made a great fortune and his son Thomas, a handsome and intelligent youth, had been brought up with great care, then sent into France and Italy to finish his education. He had been taken notice of from his childhood by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, who took him into his house as soon as he had completed his studies and employed him in the most delicate diplomatic affairs, when at the accession of King Henry II. he himself fulfilled the functions of prime minister. The king took a liking to the young archdeacon, and in 1156 appointed him chancellor, at the same time confiding to him the education of his eldest son. He also made him constable of the Tower, with the custody of considerable domains. The ecclesiastical benefices often vacant, which the chancellor was in no haste to fill up, caused to flow into the treasury the rich revenues of the bishoprics and abbeys. {152} Gilbert Becket was dead, and his son had inherited a great fortune. He was forty years of age, elegant in his person magnificent in his attire, skilled in all bodily exercises, and at the same time learned, courageous, enterprising, and able. The king, who saw only through his eyes, kept him incessantly at his side, and could not endure his absence. Becket kept a splendid retinue, remarkable, even at that period of magnificent extravagance. His house was filled with knights and daughters of great lords who designed to secure by this means the favor of the king, and to bring up their children in the manners of the court. His sumptuously furnished table was open to all comers, and when a diplomatic mission led the chancellor abroad, the retinue which accompanied him was so magnificent and so numerous that the