Note 130 — Chapter I · ARCHBISHOP THOMAS. 1162–1164.

Draco Norm., l. ii. c. 8, vv. 453–456 (as above). Considering the abundance—one might almost say superabundance—of unquestionably authentic information which we already possess as to the origin and grounds of Henry’s quarrel with Thomas, I cannot attach so much importance as Mr. Howlett apparently does (ib. pref. pp. lxi–lxiii) to this new contribution from Stephen of Rouen. Stephen’s work is quasi-romantic in character and utterly unhistoric in style; and his view of the whole Becket controversy is simply ludicrous, for he ignores the clerical immunities and the Constitutions of Clarendon altogether, and attributes the quarrel wholly to two other causes—this affair about William, and Thomas’s supposed peculations while chancellor (ib. l. iii. c. 12, vv. 909–914, p. 741). That the domestic tragedy of which he gives such a highly-coloured account had some bearing upon the great political drama appears from the words of Richard le Breton to Thomas at his murder seven years later, “Hoc habeas pro amore domini mei Willelmi fratris regis” (Will. Fitz-Steph., Robertson, Becket, vol. iii. p. 142). But in these words there is no mention either of William’s death or of Henry’s feelings about it. Some allusion to either or both may have been in the speaker’s mind; but what he actually said implies nothing more than that he had been in William’s service, and had therefore resented the thwarting of his lord’s interests, and through them, it may be, of his own. Will. Fitz-Steph., after explaining what William’s grievance was, simply adds, “Unde Willelmus ... inconsolabiliter doluit; et omnes sui archiepiscopo inimici facti sunt.” Ibid.