The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [163]
“The King asked to be taken to the very place where the Archbishop had been struck down,” went on Amaria, “and when they took him there, he lay on the stones and wept bitterly . . . so that his tears could fall where Thomas Becket’s blood had fallen. Then the Bishop went into the pulpit and told everyone why the King had come. He said that King Henry was praying for the salvation of his soul. He wanted it known that he did not order the death of the martyr but feared the murderers had misunderstood some words he had imprudently uttered and for that reason he sought chastisement and would bare his back to receive the discipline of the rod. That the King should act so! Nobody could believe their eyes, but it is true, my lady.”
“I understand him well. He knew this was the only way for him to escape from the burden which the death of this man had attached to him. He was guilt-ridden . . . and impatient of it. So he took this step . . . drastic as it is and unprecedented. What king has ever humbled himself so before? But it does not surprise me. He feels that the stigma of Becket’s death is impeding his progress. Therefore he will take any step, however demeaning, to get this obstacle out of his way. And what was the King’s reply to the Bishop?”
“That what the Bishop had said was what he had commanded him to, and he hoped his humble penance would be acceptable to God and the dead Archbishop. He said he had paid for lights to be set up at the tomb of the martyr and to be kept burning there. He had ordered that a hospital be built in honor of God and the blessed martyr. The Bishop then said that he would help with the building of the hospital and grant indulgences to all those who contributed to it. He himself should be joining in the King’s penance, for he had said when the body of the martyr lay on the stones of the cathedral that it should be thrown into a dunghill or hung on a gibbet. Greatly he regretted that and repented of it.”
“The old hypocrite!” I cried. “He certainly should have bared his back to the rod. What else did you glean, Amaria?”
“That the King went into the crypt, removed his top garments and knelt by the tomb, and each of the monks in the convent took a whip and struck the King three blows saying, ‘As thy Redeemer was scourged for the sin of man, so be thou scourged for thy own sin.’ The King then prayed to Thomas Becket and went around the cathedral stopping at the shrine to say prayers and ask forgiveness for his sins. He stayed there all day and the next night.”
“He would do it thoroughly,” I said.
“The next day he heard Mass and drank holy water which contained a drop of Thomas’s blood which they had saved while he lay bleeding on the stones. Then the King left Canterbury.”
I could imagine him. The tiresome business had had to be enacted; he had had to humble himself; but he had not really done that. He would never humble himself. Any who thought he would must be mistaken. He had had to perform this unpleasant task, so with his usual energy he had performed it . . . thoroughly and efficiently. From now on the matter of Becket’s murder was over for him.
Amaria, free to go where she liked, was often in the town; she talked to the guards; she was a mine of information. Naturally curious and interested in people, she quickly understood that one of the hardest things I had to bear was being cut off from events. I believed she had an affection for me and was eager to please me, so she made this gleaning of information her greatest task and pleasure.
Soon after she had so graphically described Henry’s penance, she came in with the news that the Scottish King, who had been making trouble, had been captured and made a prisoner at Alnwick. It had happened while Henry was doing his penance.
After his ordeal he had retired to bed. He spent a day there. He must have been feeling very weak to do that. I expected the monks had laid on rather hard with their whips. It must have been an opportunity too good to be