The Magnificent Century (22 page)

Henry found himself now under constant pressure to aid not only the immediate family of the Queen but her mother’s brothers and sisters as well. There were, unfortunately, a great many of them. Thomas of Savoy had brought a succession of brilliant sons and beautiful daughters into the world while lacking the means to provide for them. They came flocking and honking into England like a sord of hungry mallards. Boniface, the eleventh child, must have been a special favorite with his niece Eleanor, because she manifested a great desire to help him. Boniface, bold and handsome in a dark and masterful way, was full of ambition; but what prospects were there for an eleventh child in a state as lacking in prosperity as the mountainous slopes of Savoy? Intended by nature to be a soldier, he had found it necessary to go into the Church, where sinecures were always available for the younger sons of ruling families. When a very young man he had been made Bishop of Bellay. This, however, did not content him.

The chance to provide for Boniface came soon enough through the death of Edmund Rich. Although he had acted as archbishop with some of the spiritual conviction of Anselm and at times with flashes of political insight and courage, Edmund had been an unhappy man. His duties had involved him in continuous conflict; with the Pope over the exactions of the Vatican, with Henry because of the latter’s weakness and his wrongdoing, even with the monks of his own chapter at Canterbury because of the easy and voluptuous ways into which they had fallen. He lacked the stern fiber of that resolute man, Robert Grosseteste, and finally he reached the stage where he could fight no longer. The last straw was a letter from Gregory IX, the most demanding of pontiffs, instructing him to find three hundred livings for Italian incumbents. At this the gentle and unworldly scholar, who had been drafted into the leadership of the Church against his will, threw his hands in the air. This was in the summer of 1240 and the archbishop had reached his seventieth year.

Edmund did not resign. Over his shoulders, wasted by a lifetime of fasting and deprivation, he slipped the robe of the Cistercians. Crossing the Channel, he made his way to the Cistercian monastery at Fontigny where Thomas à Becket and Stephen Langton had found refuge when kept out of England. He said simply, “I have come to lay down my bones among you.” He continued to live there as one of the brothers until the heat of summer became so great that
he was advised to go to the priory of Soissy where the weather would be more moderate, On departing he said, “I will return on the feast of St. Edmund.” He had spoken truer than he knew. The feast of St. Edmund falls on November 20. On the sixteenth day of that month he died at Soissy, and it was four days later that his body was brought to Pontigny for burial.

With the saintly Edmund gone, it occurred to Eleanor at once that the chance had come to do something for her favorite uncle. She began to urge his appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury.

It would have been difficult to conceive of a less likely candidate for that exalted post. Boniface was a man of the world, hard and covetous and completely lacking in spiritual qualities. He spoke no word of the language and shared with the rest of his family a sense of superiority over the English. He was already unpopular with the people of the country. The year after Eleanor’s marriage to Henry he had visited England and had been entertained with such magnificence that the King had been compelled to demand a gift of twenty thousand marks from the Jews, with the threat that they would be expelled from the kingdom if they refused. It had been believed at the time that part of this money had vanished into the empty, capacious pockets of the visitor.

By this time Henry’s affection for his young wife had reached the fatuous stage and he could deny her nothing. With reluctance and inward misgivings (it is hoped) he sent the
congé d’élite
, the official permission for an election, to the monks of the Canterbury chapter, accompanied by a demand that they choose Boniface of Bellay.

The monks had often shown themselves obstructive and set in their convictions, but they were not at this time in a position to oppose the King. Before leaving Canterbury, Edmund Rich had placed the chapter under the ban of the Church. Henry’s peremptory instructions in favor of Boniface were accompanied by a promise to do what he could to get the ban lifted. The unhappy monks proceeded, therefore, in a long procession, two abreast, into their handsome chapter house and, seating themselves on the bench around the circular wall, cast their votes for the foreigner. The favored uncle of the Queen thus became the second man in the kingdom.

It was a long time before he could get his appointment confirmed at Rome. Gregory died early in 1241, worn out by his struggles with the German Emperor. The latter had defeated the armies of the
Pope and had seized ships carrying cardinals to the general council of the Church which Gregory had called just before his death. He continued to hold the cardinals as his prisoners, and as a result there were only ten members of the Sacred College in Rome when the need for an election arose. He agreed to allow his prisoners to attend the conclave, but with one condition, that they would return to his custody if they did not elect his own candidate, Cardinal Ottobuoni.

The imperial candidate stood no chance whatever of election. The fact that Frederick favored him was enough to destroy his chances. There had been at no time, however, any sentiment in his favor. The favored candidate was an Englishman, Robert de Somercote, who had been created cardinal deacon of San Adriano in 1234.

Cardinal Somercote had been a protégé of Stephen Langton and, perhaps through the influence of the latter, had been made chaplain to the King. He was noticed favorably by Gregory while serving in that capacity, and a summons to Rome put him in the way of rapid preferment. He is said to have been much the same type of man as Adrian IV, who had been Nicholas Brakespeare of Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, the only Englishman to become Pope. Somercote was a strong and reserved man, firm in his judgments and of proven discretion. On one occasion when the imperial armies were marching on Rome he was the only member of the cardinalate with the courage to remain by the side of the old Pontiff. It was believed that Gregory had thought him worthy of the succession. If the votes of the conclave had been cast for the Englishman, he would undoubtedly have pursued the vigorous policy of Gregory, which also had been the course followed by Adrian IV during his brief years of dramatic incumbency a century before. It was found when the ballots were cast, however, that the reluctance of the cardinals to elect an alien had not been overcome. Only nine votes had been registered, and of these six had gone to a compromise candidate, the oldest member of the College, Godfrey Castiglione of Milan.

When the smoke rose from the burning ballots in the Palace of the Sun and the news was conveyed to the outside world, there was another startling piece of information with it. Cardinal Somercote was dead. The first version of what had happened was that he had died before the election, that he had been poisoned by his opponents who feared his strength and had gone to this extreme to get him out of the way. Later it was said that he was poisoned after the balloting
because a new election had been decided upon and the opposition, convinced he would win if this were done, had chosen to remove him from their path. The truth was never ascertained, but it was generally believed that Somercote had not died a natural death. This was probably the closest that England ever came to having another pope.

Godfrey was confirmed in the post on October 25 and took the name of Celestine IV. Then, adding intensity to a situation already charged, Celestine died on the tenth of November, his death being followed immediately by that of his closest supporter, the cardinal bishop of Ostia. The sixteen-day Pope had been of such advanced years that the strain to which he had been subjected might have exhausted his small store of strength. Such an explanation was not accepted in the inflamed state of Roman opinion. The poisoners were still at work! Panic swept the city. All the remaining members of the Sacred College fled for their lives and went into hiding.

For two years thereafter it was found impossible to appoint a successor. A few of the cardinals, the bolder spirits, returned to Rome, but the majority remained in hiding. Frederick, the German Emperor, railed at them as cowards and sons of Belial. Month after month passed and still nothing was done. The Emperor finally sent troops to seize the estates of all the cardinals who had not returned to their duties.

Finally in June 1243 a small conclave was held at Anagni and Sinibaldo Fiesco was elected, a member of the noble Genoese family of Lavagna, who assumed the name of Innocent IV. He was a man of great ambition and grim resolution, which caused him to oppose the Emperor as bitterly as his predecessors. “Christ established not only a pontifical but a royal sovereignty,” he declared, “and committed to blessed Peter and his successors the empire both of earth and heaven.” The clash which followed immediately resulted in the new Pontiff fleeing from Rome and establishing himself in French territory at Lyons.

It was to Lyons, therefore, that Boniface had to go for confirmation. He had not thought it necessary in the meantime to remain in the country over which he was to exercise spiritual sway. In his absence Henry sequestrated the revenues of Canterbury and cut severely into the possessions of the see, selling off timber and livestock and diverting the funds into the royal coffers. When the
King went campaigning in Poitou (if it could be called that), he left Walter de Gray, the Archbishop of York, in charge of home affairs. The latter managed the vacant sees with such a firm hand that he was able to send Henry at Bordeaux, in addition to large sums of money, ten thousand measures of corn, five thousand of oats, and five thousand sides of bacon. If he had realized this, Boniface might have returned earlier. As it was, he preferred to remain as commander of the papal guard, to which the new Pontiff had appointed him. He was so interested in the politics of the Vatican, in fact, that he did not arrive in England for his enthronement until four years later.

It did not take long for the people of England to realize that Boniface of Savoy was the strangest primate the country had ever seen. After a succession of old men which stretched back into the mists of the past, sometimes men of great ability and inspired qualities of leadership, always of some degree of saintliness, it was disturbing to see the leadership of the Church in the hands of a worldling in his thirties, a soldier, moreover, contemptuous and grasping. The only thing which could be counted even slightly in Boniface’s favor was his prepossessing appearance. He soon became known throughout England as the Handsome Archbishop.

Boniface was as able in his way as any primate of the past. Having one objective only, to make a fortune for himself, he proceeded to employ his very considerable abilities to that end. Realizing that he could not accumulate wealth until he had put the affairs of the see on a better basis, he reduced his staff, made economies in all departments, sold off what was left of the timber. As a quick means of personal aggrandizement he persuaded the Pope, with whom he remained a great favorite, to grant him the first fruits on all vacancies in the province of Canterbury. He proceeded to fill the vacancies, allowing the new incumbents one sixth of the income and keeping five sixths for himself. His pockets filled quickly.

It then entered his head that what Robert Grosseteste had done for the spiritual improvement of the Church could be carried on with an eye to personal profit. He began to make visitations, and when he detected proofs of slackness (his sharp eye found them everywhere) he imposed fines on the delinquents, keeping the money for himself. Sometimes he agreed to forgo visitation when a sufficient inducement was offered.

Finally he came to London, expecting figuratively to find gold coins hanging in the clerestory of St. Paul’s like hops on a string, and silver in enticing piles in the churches whose modest spires rose everywhere above the tenements of the old town. He took possession, without permission, of the town house of the Bishop of Chichester and then turned his guards loose on London to exercise a concession the King had given him (and which he had no shadow of right to give), that of purveyance. The armed Poitevins visited markets and shops and took whatever they wanted without making payment London, incredulous that such things could be happening, did nothing at first. Soon, however, rumblings were heard in the Shambles and in Barking. Wherever men gathered there was talk of what must be done. The anger of London, sometimes slow to rouse, was always hard to appease.

Ecclesiastical London had decided to resist visitation. When Boniface came to St. Paul’s, his guards in chain mail at his heels (and all of them from Savoy), he was greeted by a strange silence. No organ sounded, no processional of cathedral officers in ceremonial robes, no censers swinging, no chanting of plainsong. St Paul’s, in fact, was as empty as a cavern under the sea. Finally the dean, old Henry of Cornhill, came doddering up to explain that there had been some mistake. Boniface excommunicated old Henry in a towering rage. Then, not being content with such an insignificant reprisal, he sent his men scurrying in all directions for candles and proceeded to dash them out on the paving stones while he cast into outer darkness everyone connected with the see of London.

The Handsome Archbishop now decided to visit St. Bartholomew’s and sent a command for everything to be in readiness at the appointed hour. He must have been aware as he made his way through the crowded streets that he walked in an atmosphere charged with menace. If he had understood the mettle of London he would have known that the scowls on the faces he passed were not mere idle resentment, and his ear would have told him that the trained bands were marching before him, behind him, in parallel streets. The great city was getting ready to act.

As soon as he appeared at the entrance of St. Bartholomew’s the bells began to ring, the boom of the organ rose from the interior of the church; it was plain that a service had just begun. Boniface saw at once that it had been timed to prevent him from making his
inspection. He was white with rage when the aged sub-prior, who did not seem aware of what was going on, came up to receive him.