For Becket was a very extraordinary man. In whatever he did he acted on Solomon’s maxim and did it with his might; and, as he passed through each of the phases of character that mark these three schools, his career may be divided accordingly. In the first phase he was a secular Churchman. He had been trained in the house of his father, a London merchant of Norman blood; he had been schooled in accounts by Master Octonummi; he had learned accomplishments in the hall of Richer de l’Aigle; and then had entered Archbishop Theobald’s family as secretary. There, no doubt, he got his knowledge of civil and canon law, and learned the business of a diplomatist. Although Theobald was an ecclesiastical politician of the second stamp, he did not as yet impress that character on Becket. John of Salisbury, who also was Theobald’s secretary, took some such impression from him, and shows it in a constant criticism of Becket from the point of view natural to the Churchman pure and simple. Still Becket learned that side of life during these experiences. With this training he was qualified not only to conduct the negotiations that secured the crown to Henry II., but, when he was made Chancellor, as he was at the king’s accession, he was able to manage and extend the duties of his office, magnifying it as no other Chancellor had done before. The Chancellor was a sort of secretary of state for all departments; he was not so powerful in himself, or in his constitutional position, as the Justiciar, but he had nearly as much real power through his hold on the king, whose letters he wrote, whose accounts he kept, all whose formal business he recorded, and all whose irksome duties he took off his hands. We find Becket, then, in this relation to Henry, who had no great love of public pomp, and was willing enough that the Chancellor should share the expense. Becket at this time appears to us as a very splendid officer, with a great retinue of knights and a great revenue from his churches; an indefatigable letter-writer, an efficient judge, a cunning financier; as yet not a great Churchman in politics, for the plan of taxing the bishops by scutage was set on foot by him, in opposition to the archbishop, his old patron. [Sidenote: Henry’s confidence in him. ] [Sidenote: Becket becomes archbishop. ]