The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [134]
Henry was not present on this occasion. His feelings fluctuated; he swayed between love and pity for his old friend and hatred and the desire for revenge. He could not face him, so he sent the Earl of Leicester to sentence him. What the sentence would have been it was never discovered because it was never given. Becket told the Earl so sternly and with such conviction that he was committing a sin by attempting to sentence his spiritual father that Leicester refrained from doing so. And Becket left the hall, carrying his own cross.
The next day news was brought to Henry that the Archbishop had disappeared.
Henry fell into a rage. He shouted that the traitor had escaped him. He would go to France, where they would make a saint of him. It would be easy for him to work against the King there and he must be stopped.
He commanded that all ports be watched.
It was some time afterward that we heard what actually happened. Being aware that the King’s men would be waiting for him at the port of Dover, Thomas, disguised as a monk, had turned northwards and gone to Grantham and from there to Lincoln. There were many who regarded him as a saint and were ready to shelter him. So he was traveling in England for some days, and from Lincoln he sailed down to Boston, and then turned back to Kent. With him was Roger de Brai, who would serve him with his life, and two lay brothers, Robert de Cave and Scailman. It was a hazardous journey and they knew that one false step could lead them to disaster. Becket would be called a traitor now, and the fate of traitors was death.
They took their lives in their hands every time they rested for a night but in due course they came to the little village of Eastry, close to Sandwich, and they stayed there for a while in the house of a priest until a boat could be found and the weather was clement enough to give them a safe crossing.
In due course they set sail and were fortunate enough to pass safely over the sea and to land on the sands of Oie, not far from Gravelines.
I wondered what Thomas Becket’s thoughts were when he went ashore from his little boat. Did he think of that other time when he had come to this spot with splendor and pomp, come on a mission from the King to ask for the hand of Louis’s daughter for Prince Henry? Then he had been the King’s beloved friend; now he was his bitter enemy.
The Fair Rosamund
HENRY’S REACTION WAS WHAT I should have expected. When he finally realized that Becket had escaped him and landed in Flanders and was doubtless on his way to take advantage of Louis’s offer of protection, he was overcome with rage.
This time he did not attempt to suppress it. He raved and ranted, tore at his hair, screamed abuse, lay on the floor, kicked the furniture and, seizing handfuls of rushes, gnawed them.
I stood watching him dispassionately. Everyone else made haste to get out of the way when these moods took him.
He was aware of my analytical gaze. It angered him. He would have liked me to be terrified. I just thought he was behaving like a spoiled child.
At length he grew calmer. He stood up and, after kicking viciously at the legs of the table sat down heavily and stared into space.
“He’ll go to Louis,” I said. He nodded.
“And Louis,” I went on, “will make much of him.”
“Oh yes, indeed he will. He’ll do anything to make trouble for me. He will be laughing at this. These two good men of the Church will put their pious heads together. I can see that. I must write to Louis without delay. I must tell him my side of the story. I shall demand that Becket be sent back to me. What right has Louis to keep a subject of mine?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “If he is there and Louis allows him to stay, he will,” I said.
“Oh yes, yes, he’ll be there . . . with his tales of the wickedness of the King of England.”
“I daresay he will tell what actually happened.”
Henry sent for writing materials. I saw what