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
The threats of Randolf de Broc obliged them to bury him in haste the
next morning; and they were strictly forbidden to place his coffin among
those of the former archbishops--a command which they obeyed, from the
dread that otherwise his remains might be insulted. They had not long to
fear. Europe rang with horror at the crime, and admiration, rather
than compassion, for the victim. No one was more shocked than the King
himself, who was at Bure, in Normandy, when the news reached him. For
three days he remained shut; up in his room, taking no food, and seeing
no one, in an agony of grief and dismay at the consequence of his hasty
words, and dwelling on those days of early friendship which he had
passed with the murdered Becket. Not till these first paroxysms of grief
were over was he even able to think of the danger he was in; and he then
sent off an embassy to explain to the Pope how far he was from intending
the bloody deed, and to entreat forgiveness.
He was at a loss how to treat the murderers. He could not punish what
his own words had been supposed to authorize, and he dared not let them
escape, lest he should be supposed to be their defender. He therefore
let them reap the benefit of the liberties for which Becket had died:
their crime was done on the person of a clerk; therefore it was left to
the censures of the Church.
They had, in the meantime, fled to Morville’s Castle, in Cumberland,
where they found themselves regarded with universal execration; their
servants shrank from their presence, and, in the exaggerations of
tradition, it was said that the very dogs would not approach them.
Overwhelmed with remorse, they set out for Italy, and dreaded and
avoided, as if they bore a mark like the first “murderer and vagabond,”
they threw themselves at the feet of the Pope, and entreated to know
what they should do to obtain mercy. He ordered them to go on pilgrimage
to Jerusalem; and they all went except Tracy, who, lingering behind, was
seized with a dreadful illness, and died at Cosenza. The others all died
within three years, with deep marks of penitence, and were buried before
the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Henry obtained pardon from the Pope on giving up all attempts at
subjecting the Church to the law of the State, and on giving a large sum
of money to maintain 200 knights for three years in the Holy Land. He
also largely endowed Mary and Agnes Becket, the Archbishop’s sisters,
with possessions in his newly-conquered domain in Ireland; and one of
them became the ancestress of the noble family of Butler, Earls of
Ormonde.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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