Epistola CCCX June 17th 1167
Letter Pope Alexander III to Roger, Archbishop of York
Translation Hutton (1889) p. 177-8
...
Since through our dearest son Henry, the illustrious
king of the English, great help and favours are known
to have come to the Church in this extremity of need,
and as we love him with the more affection for the
constancy of his affection and hold him dearer to our
heart, so do we the more freely an^ eagerly desire all
such things as lend to the honour, the profit, and the
exaltation of himself and all that is his. Hence it is
that, at his request, we by the authority of the blessed
Peter and our own, and by the counsel of our brethren,
grant that our dearly loved son Henry, the said king's
eldest son, may be crowned in England.
Since therefore this pertaineth to your office we
command you by apostolic letter that when you shall
be requested by the father our son the king you shall
place the crown upon the head of their said son, by
the authority of the apostolic See ; and what shall be
therein done by you we decree to remain valid and
firm. You shall further show to him due subjection
and reverence in all things, saving his father's com-
mands, and shall admonish others to show the same.
The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography
James W. Alexander
Journal of British Studies
Vol. 9, No. 2 (May, 1970), pp. 1-26
...
While negotiations, recriminations, and conflict continued during
Thomas's exile, Henry Plantagenet nourished his own growing
rage, complaining with justice of general defiance and lese-majesté,
insults to the crown, and ignominies perpetrated by adversarius
metis; then on June 14, 1170, in violation of Canterbury's customary
right to crown a king, and at Henry II's command, Henry
the Young King was crowned by Roger of York, assisted by Gilbert
of London and the bishops of Salisbury and Rochester. This act
was the climax of the Becket controversy and was carried out in
defiance not only of Thomas's rights as archbishop but also of
papal prohibition explicitly forbidding the ceremony; excommunication
of the contumacious officiants followed swiftly. Persistent
efforts at reconciling the King and Thomas seemed to have
borne fruit in the autumn of 1170, and Thomas returned to Canterbury,
but not in a spirit of harmony: portavit in manibus ignem
et gladium, thought Arnulf of Lisieux. The excommunication of
the insubordinate bishops was immediately followed by the savage
murder of their archbishop.
The general issues about which the controversy swirled did
not occasion the slaying of Thomas; rather, its immediate occasion
was his refusal of the knighted thugs' demand that he absolve
Roger, Jocelin, and Gilbert. Even had Thomas wished to release
the excommunicates from the papal ban, he lacked the authority
to do so, since such an act would have violated the principle that
an inferior cannot release those whom a superior has bound. The
slayers, in the belief that they had acted as instruments of the royal
ira et malevolentia concluded the great drama without mention
of customs or of constitutions.