Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward IIYonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
History
Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II
Yonge, Charlotte M. (Charlotte Mary)
Great Britain -- History -- Anecdotes
He began to make up his mind that, since the King had given up the point
at issue, he ought to allow no regard for his personal safety to keep
him away from his flock; but just at this point the quarrel became
further complicated. Henry, in dread of excommunication, resolved
to have his son Henry crowned, to reign jointly with him, and the
difficulty arose that no one could lawfully perform the coronation but
the primate. Letters prohibiting the bishops from taking part in the
coronation were sent by Becket, but, in the meantime, Gilbert Folliot
had been appealing to Rome against his own excommunication. The Pope,
who had been shuffling throughout, would not absolve him himself, but
gave him letters to the Archbishops of Rouen and Nevers, and they
granted him absolution; on which he returned triumphant to England, and
joined with Roger of York and Hilary of Chichester in setting the
crown on the head of young Henry. It was a measure which every person
concerned in it had bitterly to rue--king, prince, bishops, every one,
except Margaret, young Henry’s wife, who steadily avoided receiving the
crown from any one but her old tutor and friend, the primate.
Pope and Archbishop both agreed that this contempt of prohibition must
be visited by excommunication; and as Alexander had about this time
effectually humbled the pride of the Emperor Frederick, Henry thought it
time to submit, at least in appearance, lest his realm should be laid
under an interdict. At Freitval, therefore, he met the Archbishop in
the autumn of 1170, and all was arranged. He consented to the
excommunication of those concerned in the coronation; he held Becket’s
stirrup; he did everything but give the kiss of peace, but that he
constantly avoided. Even when they went to church together at Tours,
when, in the course of the communion service, Henry must have received
the kiss from the Archbishop, he contrived to change the service to the
mass for the dead, in which the kiss did not occur. The last time the
King and Archbishop met was at Chaumont, near Blois, and here they had a
return of old feelings, talked cheerfully and in a friendly manner, and
Henry was so much touched by his remembrance of his happiest and best
days, when his noble Chancellor was his friend and counsellor, that
he exclaimed, “Why will you not do as I wish you? I would put all my
affairs into your hands.”
But Becket told his clerks that he recollected, “All these things will I
give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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