The Conquering Family (6 page)

He was rough and ready in everything. It is a fact that he appeared at his coronation in a doublet and short Angevin cloak (which earned him in some chronicles the name of Curtmantle) made of rich brocade and that he fairly blazed with jewels. This was one occasion when a man had to appear at his best. Ordinarily he wore garments of costly materials which did not fit him because he refused to waste time with his tailors. He invariably looked like a king of the vagabonds or a squire who had been handed the used clothes of his master and who found them tight in the waist and cramping in shoulder. He considered it enough tribute to his high station if he wore on his person some insignia of royalty. When he desisted from his sauntering at meals to help himself to wine, his nails might show need of attention, but there would be rings of great value on his fingers, and the flagon from which he drank would be rimmed with rubies and emeralds.

In an age of mad passions and deep superstitions, Henry was as full of common sense as a modern titan of industry. A story may be told to show how level was the head he carried on his great, muscular shoulders. When he returned from his one journey to Ireland, he stopped at St. David’s in Wales. An old woman approached him to beg for some favor. He did not grant it, and the beldame burst into a loud denunciation of him.

“Avenge us, Lech-laver!” she screeched, waving her skinny arms above her head. “Avenge us this day!”

The knights in Henry’s train turned pale in superstitious dread. Lech-laver had figured in a prophecy by Merlin. A king of England, returning from the conquest of Ireland, would meet his death on a rock of that name. A small stream ran by close at hand, and stretching across it was a rock of the most curious conformation. Clearly it did not owe its position to nature and it probably had been placed there by the Druids. A native, questioned by the uneasy knights, mumbled that this rock was called Lech-laver.

In this day men were so full of superstition that they stared in dread if a shadow fell unexpectedly across the sky, fearing it might mean the end of the world. If a monk in some isolated monastery had a dream involving a king, any king, the abbot would send out mounted messengers to carry the story so that the ruler in question would be in a position to guard against what it portended. There were words which meant death if uttered by human lips, and men would die on the rack rather than speak them. Everyone had heard of Merlin’s prophecy and believed in
it implicitly, and so it was no wonder that Henry’s followers looked at the curiously shaped rock and begged him to ride away as fast as his horse could gallop.

Henry laughed. He walked to the end of Lech-laver, mounted it, and crossed the stream to the other side. Then he retraced his steps without any haste. He was cool, amused, a little contemptuous. With an eye on the old woman, who had ceased her screeching and had watched him with fascinated fear, he said to his men:

“Who will now have any faith in that liar Merlin?”

Here, truly, was a man. How fortunate for England that the power fell into his hands at this time when the need was so great for the restoration of order after the anarchy. How much more fortunate it would have been if he had been content to rule the country, if he had not been consumed by an ambition which kept him away from the island for so much of his time. It has been estimated that of the thirty-five years of his reign only thirteen of them were spent in England. For the rest he was following a star which blazed directly above him and so blinded him that he found it hard to see anything else.

A final word about his character: one writer of the day says, “When at peace, there was a great sweetness in his eyes.”

The first thing the young King did was to summon back the ministers of his grandfather, Henry I, who had been so recklessly discarded by the simple Stephen. Roger of Salisbury was dead, but his nephew Nigel, now Bishop of Ely, was appointed to the post of treasurer, which he had formerly filled. Robert de Lacey was made justiciar. They were old men but wise in the ways of the wise old King, and Henry showed good judgment in bringing them out of obscurity. At the head of his Council was the Archbishop of Canterbury, gentle and pious old Theobald.

They held their first meeting on Christmas Day, 1154, in a small room of the chancellery. The eyes of Eleanor, his French wife, had been red that morning, and the ladies she had brought with her from the south sat around her in another small room in a dismal circle, extending their feet toward a tub of steaming water. To them Christmas was a day of sunshine and gentle winds softening the peal of the bells; and to see the snow piled up on the sills and to hear a blustering wind about the roofs was just cause for melancholy. The yule log had been dragged into the White-Hall and was blazing there, and the royal officers of minor degree were already gathered about it and in a sufficiendy convivial mood to fill the palace with a hint of revelry.

Henry, one thumb tucked in his belt of blue leather and gold plate,
his other hand tossing a walnut in the air, stalked about the room in complete unawareness of the season. It was not a large apartment and it was not comfortable, for the only heat was supplied by a charcoal brazier in the center. The old men clustered around this while their sovereign paced vigorously about. Already he had seen to it that his own armorial bearings were cut into the gray stone of the wall. He had changed the leopards to lions in the insignia of the kings of England and had added a third, some say in honor of Eleanor.

As he strutted, he talked briskly, making it clear to his newly appointed ministers that in dealing with conditions he would not be swayed by weak scruples. The only thing to come out of this Christmas Day conference, however, was another appointment. Theobald sang the praises of the Archdeacon of Canterbury, whose name was Thomas and who was the son of a prosperous merchant of London of Norman descent named Gilbert Becket. Theobald had come to lean on this man in everything and was so insistent on his worth that Henry finally gave in. By the body of God, let him see this prodigy!

The man who entered the room shortly thereafter was verging on his middle years and the most compelling personality Henry had ever encountered. He was very tall, some say over six feet, and of slender build. His nose was long and beautifully modeled, and his eyes were so dark and so intense that the young King fell under their fascination at once.

Henry, it is clear, took an instant liking to Thomas à Becket, realizing that here was a man of unusual parts who would perhaps prove to be the blade of fine steel he had been seeking. The King stood in front of the newcomer, both hands tucked in his belt now, his protuberant gray eyes sparkling excitedly, the jeweled tuft of his hat bobbing as he nodded his head. Then he smiled. After the interval enjoined by deference, Thomas à Becket smiled back. One of the great friendships of history had been born.

Henry had full faith in his own judgment, no matter how quickly it might have been formed and on what slight evidence. He was certain he had found the man he wanted for chancellor. He even considered sending for the Great Seal of England, which was always placed in the possession of the chancellor, and thus settling the matter there and then. But his native caution asserted itself and he went no further, even though his mind was made up. He would take this archdeacon into the offices which clustered around the
Curia Regis
in a lesser capacity. Later, he was confident, the higher appointment could be made. This was the way it was done.

The post did not have then the importance it was later to carry. It came sixth, in fact, in the list of royal offices. The chief justiciar was ranked at the top, followed by the constable, the marshal, the steward, the chamberlain, and then the chancellor. Becket’s great ability was to
raise the post to something approaching the stature of later centuries when it combined home ministership with control of foreign affairs. He was to prove himself the first of the clerical statesmen who played such important roles in history: Wolsey, Richelieu, Mazarin, to name the most obvious.

The young King walked to one of the windows. From here he could look into the main courtyard, where the snow had already been trodden down to the hardness of masonry by all the feet bringing people to see the King, even on Christmas Day. It was filled with men of all stations, skipping and jigging and threshing their arms about and blowing on their fingers. He recognized Godobert the white-tawyer and frowned; the fellow would be here about some costly leather articles for the Queen and, although he was not parsimonious, such trivialities annoyed him. Then he saw the stolid and well-muffled figure of William Cade standing behind the fashioner of fine leather. So Cade had come to see him, after all, about the loan he wanted!

Across the road a sound of chanting rose from the great minster. Henry could see a stretch of the road which ran north and east through the village of Charing to Ludgate. It was black with people coming from and going to London, on foot, on horseback, on runners behind horses. He began to envision many such roads, leading to Rouen, Rennes, Bordeaux, Dublin on the Liffey, all of them black with people coming to see him.

The first task facing Henry and his small circle of advisers, now increased by one, was to take from the barons the dictatorial powers they had assumed during the lawless years. This was done in four steps.

The first, and most urgent, was getting rid of the mercenaries. This was accomplished with such dispatch and thoroughness that even William of Ypres, who had been made Earl of Kent by Stephen and believed himself comfortably settled, was bundled out with the rest. He was reported to have wept bitterly when he had himself admitted to a Norman monastery.

Second, new sheriffs were appointed to control the administration of justice and collect taxes.

Third, the clause in the Treaty of Wallingford which provided for the demolition of unlicensed castles was carried out, quickly and relentlessly. Practically all of the eleven hundred were torn down during the early years of the reign.

Fourth, all grants and concessions made during the previous reign were revoked. His handling of this situation showed the real mettle of the young
Henry. A good share of the grants had been made by his mother during the period when she was competing with Stephen for the support of the baronage. They had been to men who had fought for her, whose aid had been given, moreover, in placing him on the throne. To take away from them the rewards of their loyalty would seem to be a rank injustice. But Henry, young though he was both in years and experience, knew there was a broader view than this. If he revoked Stephen’s grants and left those of his mother in force, he would be keeping the schism alive and laying up cause for further strife. He knew, moreover, that Matilda’s largesse had been lavish and that the holders of her bounty had no reasonable claims to the lands and honors she had showered about her. It required the sternest of resolution for Matilda’s son to tell his friends they must disgorge; but he did, and so saved the country from trouble later on.

Despite the sharp medicine of Bloody Christmas in the reign of Henry I, the moneyers had been up to their tricks again and, in addition, the holders of money had fallen more than ever into filing and debasing coins. The anarchy had added to the monetary confusion, and there were many coinages in the country when Henry ascended the throne: Stephen’s own, which had been rudely made with his name spelled wrong, Stiefne or Stefne; Matilda’s, which had been of better design; the coins he had issued himself during his campaigns in England and which were called Duke’s Money; and various others by Eustace, Robert of Gloucester, and a mysterious unknown who had put out an issue in the name of Pereric.

One of Henry’s first acts was to call in all old money and replace it with a new penny issue. According to one historian, he assumed the loss himself, but this seems highly unlikely in view of the great amount involved and the far from healthy condition of the royal finances, as well as the obvious fact that it would have been a stimulant to future clipping and sawing and filing. Although the financial transactions of the day bristle with references to pounds, marks, and shillings, they did not exist. They were “coins of account,” having established values and being used as terms in settling the price of goods and in making calculations. The only money in existence in England was the penny. Soon after this period the need for coins of larger value was felt, and several were turned out at the mint in the Tower of London. The first was a gold penny with a value equaling that of twenty of the established pennies, but it was such a thin and inconvenient coin that the London merchants complained, and it was soon thereafter withdrawn. Next in order came groats, florins, nobles, and rose nobles, all of which continued in circulation through several reigns. The first pound was made in 1487 and was called a sovereign because the King who ordered the minting, Henry VII, one of the least kingly of rulers (Francis Hackett calls him “one of those elderly potentates who bring with him a whiff of the backstairs”), elected to have himself shown on the obverse side seated in state and holding his scepter, orb, and cross.
No attempt was made to produce an English mark, but it continued in use for centuries as a term for one hundred pennies. It was Henry VII also who decided to give the shilling, the
scilling
of Saxon days, an existence of its own after nearly a thousand years of use. The first shilling was minted in 1504.

All coin issues during the days under consideration, therefore, were pennies. The issue which Henry put out to replace the dross of the anarchy was hastily conceived and rudely executed (he did not care about such matters), but it was an honest penny. Most issues had been good for several years only, but this first one to carry the name and the bust of Matilda’s son remained in exclusive use for twenty-three years. The young King saw to it that it continued honest. He cut down the number of licensed mints to fifty and had a continuous inspection made of their output. In 1180 he put out a second issue, a much more artistic one this time. This minting was so sound that no more coins were struck for sixty years. It was so strictly backed up during his lifetime, and his likeness continued even after his death to strike such terror to wrongdoers, that Richard and John, who followed him, both of whom were vain and jealous men, were content with it and issued no money of their own.