The Cunning of the Dove Read online

  Old Archbishop Eadsige had played his part worthily; his influence had done much to bring about the peaceful accession of King Edward. But he was rather too much the Bishop of the men of Kent, living beside his minster instead of coming to the Council wherever it might be held. For a long time he had been ailing, and a few years ago his successor had been chosen; the Council appointed a coadjutor, who would step into his shoes when he was dead. But the Archbishop, after the manner of permanent invalids, took such good care of his health that it seemed he might live for ever; Bishop Siward died before him, and the Archbishop hung on until the autumn of 1050.

  The vacancy of Canterbury had been considered at the Christmas crownwearing, but such a great position must not be filled in a hurry. A decision was postponed until the next meeting of the Council, at mid-Lent. In the meantime great men jockeyed for an advantage in the race, and as might have been expected Earl Godwin tried to steal a march on his rivals.

  There was no formal crownwearing at this mid-Lent Council. But it was important as the chief business meeting of the year, just before the opening of the campaigning season; the Earls would decide whether armies should be raised against the Welsh or the Scots, and discuss the latest news about the plans of the northern Vikings. In 1051 this Council met in London, because the King was already occupied with plans for his new buildings at Westminster; all the great Earls were there.

  As was the custom at these meetings, the really important discussion took place during dinner. The King sat as usual at the high table on the dais, with Earl Godwin on his right and Earl Siward on his left; it was a long table, and there were many other great men at it. Earl Leofric sat beyond Siward, and beyond Godwin his sons Harold and Tostig (Sweyn had the grace to keep away). I stood behind the King’s chair, where I could hear the discussion so clearly that sometimes I found it hard not to add my own views to those of the rulers of the English.

  When everyone had eaten enough and it was time for serious business I could see the great men brace themselves to discuss the burning question of Canterbury. Then suddenly a chamberlain called for silence, and there entered a procession of monks; it was a solemn procession, with incense and a crossbearer, not a mere deputation. The magnates muttered among themselves that here was the King wasting time again, introducing religious exercises into the ordinary work of the world; but I could see that the King had not expected the interruption.

  It turned out to be a procession of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, who are much too fond of visiting the courts of Kings instead of staying at home and obeying their vow of stability. They came to announce that they had held a canonical election, and had chosen as their next Archbishop one Aelfric, a monk of their community. Would the King be so good as to invest him with ring and staff, and thus put him in possession of the lands belonging to his See?

  The King was taken aback. As everyone knows, the theory is that Bishops ought to be chosen by the monks of their minsters; once a monk told me that this is ordained in the Gospel, though when I asked him for the reference he could not find the passage. But everyone knows that Bishops are in fact appointed by the King; it would be impossible to govern the English if the most powerful figures in the Church were chosen by monks who know nothing of the world. Here was a dilemma. Either the King must defy canon law, or the first subject of his realm would have been chosen, from among themselves, by a small chance-gathered community living in a remote corner of Kent.

  Earl Godwin was the first to speak. ‘I came here expecting a long discussion, but these holy men have saved us the trouble. Canterbury has been filled. We may as well proceed to the next business. What measures shall we take this summer to protect the west country from the Vikings of Dublin?’ His voice, as usual, was quiet, and as usual he smiled; but his smile was remarkably smug.

  Harold and Tostig glanced first at one another, and then at their father. They also seemed pleased, and Tostig smothered a giggle.

  Siward glared round the company, pulling down his bushy eyebrows. Suddenly he barked at the prior of Christ Church: ‘This Aelfric, is he a man of good birth?’

  ‘Oh yes, my lord,’ the monk answered happily. ‘We would not elect a churl to the throne of St. Augustine. He is descended from the noblest house among the South Saxons.’

  ‘That would be the house of Wulfnoth Child. So he is your cousin, is he, Godwin?’ asked Siward with a frown.

  ‘Permit me to congratulate you on this further honour to your noble kindred,’ added Leofric with a beaming smile.

  ‘He is your cousin, Godwin?’ said the King, suddenly alert. ‘Then I am afraid we must quash the election. Please don’t think that I impute improper influence, but you must see, Godwin, that to the authorities in Rome this hole-and-corner election will look very odd. The monk elected is your kinsman. You happen to be the greatest Earl in England. Furthermore, you happen to be Earl in Kent among other provinces, and it happens that your family estates are mingled with those of Christ Church. An enemy might proclaim that you had bought the Archbishopric; and we must admit that such an enemy would be believed. It’s a disappointment, I know. Console yourself with the reflection that Aelfric, if he is really a devout monk, will be glad to escape such a great responsibility in the secular world.’

  Godwin still smiled, meeting the mocking smiles of the other Earls. In Council he never lost his temper, never wasted energy by struggling to win a lost fight. What he saw now convinced him that the time had come to give way. He shrugged his shoulders, speaking in a casual tone.

  ‘It’s hard luck if the most suitable candidate must lose the Archbishopric just because he happens to be my cousin. But, as you say, lord King, no one in Rome would believe in the honesty of the election. Very well. Let it be recorded that Aelfric has refused consecration. Who else have we who would make a good Archbishop?’

  ‘Robert of London, of course. He’s the best Bishop in England,’ said the King defiantly.

  ‘We can’t have a foreigner,’ Siward objected.

  ‘Why not? Wasn’t St. Augustine a foreigner, and Theodore after him? Robert has been baptised, ordained, and consecrated. Although he was born in Normandy, as Bishop of London he is already my subject. Siward, you understand the Northumbrians. I understand the Church. Let us each stick to what he understands, and the English will be well governed.’ The King glared stubbornly.

  ‘I was baptised when Canute commanded it, you know, and since then I have gone regularly to Mass. Nowadays I am not a heathen pirate. All the same, I see what you mean. I won’t stand out if the others favour Robert.’

  Siward could not be browbeaten, but he did not take religion seriously enough to quarrel over a Bishopric.

  The others were at it hammer and tongs; some praising Robert, some objecting that a Norman would not be able to rule English clerks. There might yet have been a quarrel if Leofric had not interjected: ‘If we promote Robert that will leave London vacant. We must decide who steps into his shoes.’

  He glanced slyly at Godwin, who at once cleared his throat to speak: ‘The Abbot of Abingdon is a good man of business. He is English on both sides of his family, as it happens; and, I may add, no kin of mine. I have thought for some time that he is worthy of a Bishopric.’

  You could see the bargain struck, in sidelong glances and suppressed shrugs; though no one put it into words.

  Presently the Council rose; but in the afternoon all the Earls rode hunting with the King, and the discussion continued until supper-time. By then all had been arranged, and the evening meeting of the Council was devoted to lesser matters; notably an arrangement with Dover and some other towns of the south coast whereby they should always have ships ready for the King’s service, to take the place of the disbanded regular navy. In return the burgesses of these towns were granted various privileges, though it seemed to me that they got the worst of the bargain.

  While he prepared for bed the King explained the day’s events to his Lady.

  ‘The only man I blame is
that foolish prior of Christ Church. Of course your father would have liked to make his cousin Archbishop. Who wouldn’t? It’s natural. But he hadn’t yet gone so far as to mention his name. The premature election forced his hand, before he had time to talk us round. He may have been quite right. It’s possible that Aelfric is really the best man for the post. But the monks chose him because he is your father’s cousin, and for no other reason; and that I can’t allow. I have vetoed an irregular election. I hope I myself have not chosen an Archbishop for unworthy reasons of personal friendship. Robert is my friend, and I am glad to promote him. All the same, I think that wasn’t why I chose him.’

  ‘I’m glad you don’t blame father, and I’m glad he gave way gracefully when he saw the Council was against him. I spoke to my brothers for a minute before they went home, and I can assure you that there will be no hard feelings. Tostig declares that you were guided by justice, and justice is all he cares about. Harold was a little stuffy, but even he admits that it’s for the King to choose his Archbishop.’

  ‘I can hear Harold saying it. He always stands up for the rights of the King against his Council. That’s not the way most Earls talk. It’s more like an atheling who hopes that one day he himself will be King.’

  ‘Harold a King? After all the Cerdingas, and the house of Canute, have been wiped out by some pestilence, I suppose?’ answered the Lady with a laugh. ‘Seriously, it’s a very good thing that my brothers can’t claim kinship with any royal house; otherwise it might be suspected Earls with all that vigour and ambition are aiming at the throne.’

  ‘That’s the great argument for a hereditary Kingship,’ said the King ponderously; he seldom gave a frivolous answer to a frivolous remark. ‘So long as the crown goes by descent the King can trust great men. Silly courtiers sometimes remind me of what Macbeth did to King Duncan. I always answer that the English are not Scots. I need not be jealous of your father, because the Cerdingas have ruled here for five hundred years and the English like to be ruled by the children of Kings. Even Sweyn the father of Canute was a King in his own land before the English accepted him. In England no one can start a new dynasty.’

  I did not care for the tone of this speech, and I think it made the Lady uncomfortable also. The King must in fact be a little jealous of Earl Godwin, or he would not so strenuously deny it.

  Archbishop Robert was as competent as most Normans. He soon left for Rome, to fetch his pallium, the emblem of his metropolitan authority. He travelled swiftly, and was back in England by the end of July. As soon as he had taken possession of his minster he travelled on to Wessex to call on the King, who was hunting on Cotswold.

  The court was stopping in a small hunting lodge, and the great Earls were all in their governments; for July was in those days the height of the pirate season, when shire-levies must stand ready to defend the coasts at short notice. With the King was the Lady, and his clerks under the supervision of Regenbald the Norman, who had recently been granted the high-sounding foreign title of Chancellor; otherwise there was no one at court except servants and a small bodyguard. For supper the King and the Lady sat side by side at the board, as though they were ordinary folk.

  Suddenly the main door was thrown open and the Archbishop of Canterbury was announced, to the great inconvenience of the cooks and the household staff. Nowadays, at the end of my life, I have grown accustomed to this Norman habit of hurtling from place to place, riding all day and then working hard by candlelight. But at that time we kept to the dignified English custom; great men travelled no more than twenty miles in the day, and gave long notice before they visited the King’s court.

  The King, delighted to see Archbishop Robert, commanded him to sit beside the Lady. I was thankful to be on duty as cupbearer; with a clear conscience I might continue to stand behind my lord, while other servants worked hard to prepare supper and lodgings for the Archbishop and his suite.

  Archbishop Robert would not begin a description of the wonders of Rome and the papal curia, which was what the King wanted to hear. Instead, in the Norman manner, he plunged straight into business.

  ‘My lord, in one matter the Pope has overruled you. Therefore you must set a good example by obeying his authority. I got my pallium without any trouble, but the Pope has directly forbidden me to consecrate the Bishop-elect of London. You will have to find someone else to follow me in that See.’

  ‘Dear me, how very tiresome. Rome doesn’t often interfere in little things like that. I wonder what went wrong? Still, I must obey the successor of St. Peter, if the Pope is really in earnest. Now whom did I choose for London? Of course, I didn’t choose him. That’s why I can’t remember. It was part of a deal with Earl Godwin. The man he recommended is Abbot of Abingdon, and that’s all I know about him. But if he were openly scandalous someone would have told me. I can’t even recall his name.’

  ‘I don’t know his Christian name,’ said the Archbishop with a sneer. ‘Everyone, even the monks of Abingdon, calls him by the nickname of Spearhavoc. That shows what kind of man he is. Not scandalous, perhaps; just a lay warrior who has been pushed on in the Church by his influential kindred.’

  ‘Was this known in Rome before you arrived? Are the failings of the Abbot of Abingdon common gossip throughout Christendom?’ asked the Lady, in careful but accurate French.

  ‘The Pope asked for my opinion of the new Bishop, and I gave it to him frankly. That was in the course of my duty, as head of the Church in England.’

  ‘The trouble is’, said the King, ‘that this fellow, this Spearhavoc, already holds the land of the Bishopric. I gave him possession just after Easter, never thinking that Rome might object. He holds St. Paul’s minster also, and it will be an awkward business getting him out of it.’

  ‘Very often God’s business is awkward business,’ answered the Archbishop. ‘But you swore to do it, when they made you King of the English. You must appoint a worthy Bishop, and I shall consecrate him. Then every true clerk in Christendom will help us to dislodge this worldly Abbot.’

  ‘Whom shall we appoint? It must be someone I know personally, for fear of another mistake. Have you any suggestions? No? Then what about my chaplain, William?’

  ‘Another foreigner? My brothers won’t like it,’ said the Lady.

  ‘Nor your father either, my dear,’ the King answered stubbornly. ‘But we want the best man. William is a Norman, certainly, but that is in his favour. Norman clerks make good Bishops.’

  ‘Then that is settled,’ the Archbishop said hastily, for fear that the King might still change his mind. ‘One of my clerks shall draw up the appointment this evening, and I shall consecrate him next Sunday. It’s time there was a proper Bishop in London.’

  ‘This will disappoint my father-in-law,’ said the King doubtfully. ‘I’m sorry. Spearhavoc’s promotion was the price I offered for his agreement to your nomination, my dear Robert, and it may seem to him that I have broken my word.’

  ‘It’s a great pity that you had anything to do with it, my lord,’ snapped the Archbishop. ‘A lay ruler has no right to interfere in religious appointments. At present Rome submits to this invasion of her rights, but change is in the air. We ought to get back to canonical election, as it was in the days of the primitive church.’

  ‘Aelfric?’ whispered the Lady under her breath, smiling.

  That silenced even Archbishop Robert. He was a stout upholder of ‘the plenitude of papal power’, in those days a new phrase and a novel doctrine; but he could hardly insist on unfettered canonical election when he owed his own advancement to a royal veto.

  At last the King could ask questions about Rome, and about the Norman court at Rouen which Robert had visited on his journey. For the rest of supper he listened to traveller’s tales with all the enjoyment of the stay-at-home.

  When supper was ended the King as usual retired to his chamber, and the Archbishop also was shown to his apartment. Half an hour later, as the King was getting into bed, I heard a knock on the door. Outside
was a housecarle, holding the Archbishop of Canterbury by the elbow.

  ‘I saw this man creeping along the passage. He claims to be one of the King’s friends, but he doesn’t know the password. Shall I send him in, or shall I hit him a clout with my axe?’

  Since Robert could not speak English he was in fact in considerable danger. But to all the household I was known as the King’s favourite attendant, and even housecarles would take orders from me, in private; though of course in public their prickly honour would have been slighted. I rescued the Archbishop from the sentry, and brought him into the chamber.

  ‘Is the Lady here?’ he asked.

  ‘No, we are quite private,’ answered the King. ‘You need not bother about Edgar. He knows all my secrets, and he never tells them.’

  ‘It would have been better if we were quite alone. But Kings are never alone, as I know. There is something I must tell you immediately, and it would be prudent to keep it secret from the Lady. Your talk of a bargain with Earl Godwin has decided me to open your eyes. You cannot continue to work with that man. He procured the murder of your brother Alfred.’

  ‘Now that’s not true,’ the King said angrily. ‘I’ve heard the story dozens of times, and it’s mere malicious tittle-tattle. Alfred was killed by the followers of Harold Harefoot, Godwin’s enemy; and he was killed at Ely, which then was garrisoned by Harefoot’s men.’

  ‘I didn’t say Godwin killed him. I said he procured his death. In Rouen I heard the full story. It was told me by the only companion of Alfred who escaped. This man said that the atheling met Godwin in Sussex, and agreed to go in his company to visit the Lady at Winchester. But at Guildford Godwin’s housecarles treacherously attacked the atheling’s Norman escort. Godwin himself bound Alfred, and delivered him to Harefoot.’