The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-02-11
THOMAS A BECKETT.

UiSuop oI CanLerOury, on ,Cne seat OF
Theobald, Anselm, and Lanfranc, the
question was no longer one of govern
meDt or order. He was as ready to re-
sist the pope as the king in his battle
for the rights of the church. He could
never see more than one question at a
time, or more than one side of that
question. To suppose that the strife
could admit of any compromise was
impious. While he was the kings
chancellor and comrade, he was ready
to go all lengths in his service, although
he even then showed sometimes an ON
nous jealousy for the assertion of &C.
clesiastical privilege or rule. When he
became archbishop there was nothing
which he was not ready to do or suf-
fer in the new service to which he had
devoted himself.
For Thomas of Canterbury Miss Nor
gate lin England under the Augevine
Kings''), feels evidently no small admi-
ration. There is no harm and there
may be much good in an enthusiasm
which never upsets the balance of her
Judgment. That Thomas, who may
have been in his right place as chan
cellor, was wholly in the wrong place
as primate; that to him the part which
ADselm had played did not come nat
urally; that, where Anselm had moved
freely and easily, his own action was
artificial and constrained; that in him
an official sanctity took the place of
simple and spontaneous holiness, Miss
Norgate is we'll aware. She claims for
him no deep insight, no great breadth
of view, no wide. embracing charity;
but she sees that he had some real
virtues and many brilliant qualities,
and that, if he had failed in everything
else, the fact that he could win to him
self the whole heart of man like John
of Salisbury and return his love, would
tell strongly indeed in his favor. Ex-
ternally he had everything to recon-
mend him.
He was very tall and elegantly form
| ed, with an oval face, handsome aquiliue
features, lhty brow, large, lustrous,
and penetrating eyes; there was an hab-
itual look OF placid dignity in his counte-
nance, natural grace ia his every ges-
ture, and ingcained refinement in his
every word and action; the slender, Ia
pering white fingers and dainty attire of
the b1rgher's son contrasted curiously
| with the rough brown hands and careless
appearance of Henry Fitz- Empress; the
order, elegance, and iberality of the
chancellor's household contrasted no less
with the confusion and discomfort of the
kings"
This is fair picture; but the details
have been brought together at the
cost Of vast and patient reading, and
the work bestowed on the portraiture
of Beckett is only sample of the toll
and care lavished on every part of this
history. Miss Norgate insists that
the veneration paid to Thomas was in
some most important respects well de-
served.
"Like the king himself, Thomas was a
standing marvel to his contemporaries.
| The strict stood aghast at his unclerical
! mode of life; the simple were half inclin-
| ed to take him for wizard. But his
| witchery was universal and irresistible:
and after all it was only the magic of
| winning personality, vivid Imagination,
a dauntless spirit, and guileless heart.
For the chancellor's frivolity was all on
the surface of his life; it's inner depths
were pure. Amid the countless tempta-
tions Of corrupt court, no stain ever
! rested upon his personal honor. Heshared
in all the kings pursuits except the evil
ones; into them Henry tried to entrap
him night and day, but in vain. The one
thing he would not do, the one thing he
would not tolerate, was evil; the one spe-
cies of human being to whom his doors
were inexorably closed was a man of
known bad character. Coarseness, i'm
morality, dishonesty, III word or deed,
met with summary and condign punish
ment at his hands. Above all things, ly-
ing lips and deceitful tongue were an
abomination unto him. When in after
days biographer OF the martyred arch
bishop copied from the Epu tie to the
Ephesiaus the description of the spiritual
armor in which his hero was supposed to
| have clothed himself at his conservation,
be significantly omitted the first piece of
the pauoply. Thomas had no need to
put on the girdle of truth, for he had
worn it all his life"
The formation of right judgments is
the first duty of the historian, for this
judicial act implies the careful collec-
tion of facts and the true appreciation
of them. Becket's intolerance of men
of bad character should have shut the
king out from his friendship and from
his good offices; but the chancellor and
the primate confined his protest to
refusal of participation in his evil
deeds. Was this enough? This is
question which is not asked by Miss
Norgate. Yet it goes straight to the
root of the matter, and it is answered
by Dean Milman emphatically in the
negative:
Henry Ii. WAS sovereign who, with
many noble and kinRly qualities, lived,
more than even most monarchs of his age,
in direct violation of every Christian pre-
cept of justice, humanity, conjugal fidel-
| ity. He was lustful, cruel, trescherous,
arbitrary. But throughout this contest
there is no remonetrance whatever from