He found the king walking with Geoff through the wreckage of Verneuil, and fell in step beside them. They passed the blackened shells of houses and shops, an occasional body draped in cloth and awaiting burial. The flames had been extinguished but the wind still swept embers up into the air and they glowed in the dark like scorched fireflies. The night was hot and still. Now and then there came to them muffled wailing, muted sobs, the sounds of mourning. They walked for what seemed like hours to Willem, and in that time, Henry spoke only once, saying in a flat, tight monotone that went beyond anger, “I want this town’s walls rebuilt. Find men to see to it, Willem.”
“I will, my liege,” Willem said, and they continued on in silence.
From the twelfth-century Annals of Roger de Hoveden:
The King of France neither restored to the burghers their hostages nor preserved the peace as he had promised, but entering the town, made the burghers prisoners, carried off their property, set fire to the burgh, and then, taking to flight, carried away with him the burghers before-mentioned into France. When word was brought of this to the King of England, he pursued them with the edge of the sword, slew many of them, and took considerable numbers… But in order that these events may be kept in memory, it is as well to know that this flight of the King of France took place on the fifth day before the ides of August, being the fifth day of the week, upon the vigil of Saint Lawrence, to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who by punishing the crime of perfidy, so speedily avenged the indignity done to his Martyr.
CHAPTER TEN
August 1173
Rouen, Normandy
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, was pleased, but not surprised, to be given such a warm welcome by the king. Of all England’s clerics, he had been the most steadfast in his support of Henry and the most critical of Thomas Becket during their acrimonious clash between Church and Crown. He’d been twice excommunicated by Becket, the second time for taking part in the coronation of Henry’s son, and this ecclesiastical censure had set off Henry’s fateful rage, leading to Becket’s bloody murder upon the floor of his own cathedral. Gilbert had been absolved by Rome seven months after Becket’s death, but had been restored to his bishopric only that past May, for his hostility to the martyred archbishop was a stain upon a previously unblemished reputation. Once widely admired for his austerity, his estimable intellect, and masterly knowledge of canon law, he would now go to his grave known as the bishop who’d defied a saint, and for a proud man like Gilbert Foliot, that was not easy to accept.
It was some consolation, though, that he stood so high in the king’s favor, and he gratefully accepted a seat beside Henry upon the dais in the great hall. Sipping a cup of spiced red wine, he listened with enormous satisfaction as Henry related the flight of the French king from Verneuil. He was equally pleased to hear that Henry had sent a detachment of Norman knights and Brabancon routiers into Brittany to deal with the Breton rebels, for his desire to see the king triumph was greater than his disapproval of hired mercenaries.
Henry turned the conversation then to the bishoprics still vacant because of Hal’s appeal to Rome, and Gilbert was happy to reassure him that he could rely upon the backing of the Church. He did not doubt that His Holiness the Pope would approve the elections, pointing out that the papal legates had instructed the electors to choose men who would preserve “the peace of the realm” and reminding Henry that the only prelate to cast his lot in with the rebels was that perpetual malcontent, the Bishop of Durham.
“And the Bishop of Lisieux, may God damn his treacherous soul to Hell,” Henry said bitterly, for that was still a fresh wound.
Gilbert had never liked Arnulf of Lisieux, considering him to be a self-server and far too devious and cynical for his own good, but he was surprised, nevertheless, that Arnulf should have made such a major miscalculation, concluding that the bishop was most likely trying to keep a foot in both camps. He was even more surprised by what Henry said next, asking if it was true that he’d founded a hospital in honor of Thomas Becket, for the slain archbishop was usually a topic that Henry assiduously avoided.
“No, my liege. The hospital of Holy Trinity at Southwark was founded by Thomas himself. After his canonization, we changed the name to St Thomas the Martyr and I offered sinners a remittance of thirty days of penance if they contribute to the hospital.” Since the king had been the one to bring the subject up, Gilbert now felt free to mention a recent action of Henry’s. “I heard, my liege, that you have named Thomas’s sister Mary as Abbess of Barking.”
That was a signal honor, for abbesses of Barking were normally daughters of kings, but Henry shrugged it off, saying that he was merely righting a wrong. “I ought not to have sent Becket’s family into exile,” he admitted. “It was done in anger and was unjust to hold them to account for his transgressions.”
This was the first time that the king had confessed to making mistakes of his own in his war of wills with Becket. “It is a generous gesture, nonetheless,” Gilbert said.
Henry shrugged again. It had not escaped him that Gilbert no longer made use of the slain archbishop’s surname. Thomas had always been thin-skinned about his family’s merchant origins, preferring to call himself “Thomas of London” rather than the more pedestrian “Thomas Becket,” a sensitivity his enemies had been quick to seize upon. He’d always been “Thomas” to Henry until their falling-out; after that, he’d managed to make “Becket” sound like an epithet.
“You never liked him, did you, Gilbert?”
“No, my lord king, I did not.”
“In fact, when I chose him as archbishop, you said that I’d performed a veritable miracle, turning a worldly courtier and soldier into a man of God.”
Gilbert blinked; he’d not known that his angry sarcasm had reached Henry’s ears. “I am sorry, my lord-”
“For what? You were right.” Henry’s smile was rueful. “You can hardly be blamed for disliking him. He had a tongue like an adder, calling you ‘a hapless Judas and a rotten limb,’ calling your fellow bishops ‘priests of Bael and sons of false prophets.’”
“He was never one for forgiving his enemies,” Gilbert agreed, wondering where Henry was going with this.
“You of all men know how vengeful he could be, how prideful and stubborn. Most of those who are so certain of his sanctity never even laid eyes upon him. But you’re in a unique position to judge, Gilbert. Can you truly accept the Church’s canonization of him as a saint?”
That was a question Gilbert has often asked himself in the months after Becket’s murder. “Yes, my liege,” he said quietly. “I can.”
“Why?” Henry asked, but he sounded more curious than skeptical.
“It is true that Thomas’s life was not a holy one. But none can deny he died a martyr’s death.”
“And is that enough to confer sainthood upon him?”
“His martyrdom…and the miracles that have been reported at his tomb and elsewhere in the months since his murder.”
“Miracles can be faked, as you well know, for reasons of politics and profit. How can you be sure they are genuine?”
“I daresay some of them are not. But there have been too many to discount, my liege. You may be sure I investigated these reports with great care, for if truth be told, I did not want to believe in them. Even when Thomas cured my fever, I continued to doubt.”
Henry had heard of Gilbert’s own miracle. Eight months after Becket’s murder, he’d fallen gravely ill, lay near death until his friend and fellow bishop, Jocelin of Salisbury, prayed to Thomas for his recovery. “So what convinced you, then?”
“The manner of his death could not be dismissed out of hand. Nor could the discovery that he’d worn a hairshirt and braies under his garments, infested with vermin and lice that had burrowed into his groin, or the revelation of his confessor that he’d mortified his flesh with daily penitential whippings. I was told that his back was scarred with the marks of past scourging. Can there have been more painful proof of sanctity?”
Henry could not argue with that. “I admit I thought he was a hypocrite until I learned that he’d worn those
