England under the Angevin Kings, Volume IINorgate, Kate
History
England under the Angevin Kings, Volume II
Norgate, Kate
Anjou, House of; England -- Civilization -- 1066-1485; Great Britain -- History -- Angevin period, 1154-1216
The council--an almost complete gathering of the tenants-in-chief, lay
and spiritual, throughout the realm[151]--was summoned for Tuesday
October 6.[152] The king however lingered hawking by the river-side
till late at night,[153] and it was not till next morning after Mass
that the archbishop could obtain an audience. He began by asking
leave to go and consult the Pope on his dispute with Roger of York
and divers other questions touching the interests of both Church and
state; Henry angrily bade him be silent and retire to prepare his
defence for his contempt of the royal summons in the matter of John
the marshal.[154] The trial took place next day. John himself did not
appear, being detained in the king’s service at the Michaelmas session
of the Exchequer in London;[155] the charge of failure of justice
was apparently withdrawn, but for the alleged contempt Thomas was
sentenced to a fine of five hundred pounds.[156] Indignant as he was
at the flagrant illegality of the trial, in which his own suffragans
had been compelled to sit in judgement on their primate, Thomas was yet
persuaded to submit, in the hope of avoiding further wrangling over
what seemed now to have become a mere question of money.[157] But there
were other questions to follow. Henry now demanded from the archbishop
a sum of three hundred pounds, representing the revenue due from the
honours of Eye and Berkhampstead for the time during which he had held
them since his resignation of the chancellorship.[158] Thomas remarked
that he had spent far more than that sum on the repair of the royal
palaces, and protested against the unfairness of making such a demand
without warning. Still, however, he disdained to resist for a matter
of filthy lucre, and found sureties for the required amount.[159] Next
morning Henry made a further demand for the repayment of a loan made to
Thomas in his chancellor days.[160] In those days the two friends had
virtually had but one purse as well as “one mind and one heart,” and
Thomas was deeply wounded by this evident proof that their friendship
was at an end. Once more he submitted; but this time it was no easy
matter to find sureties;[161] and then, late on the Friday evening,
there was reached the last and most overwhelming count in the long
indictment thus gradually unrolled before the eyes of the astonished
primate. He was called upon to render a complete statement of all the
revenues of vacant sees, baronies and honours of which he had had the
custody as chancellor--in short, of the whole accounts of the chancery
during his tenure of office.[162]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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