Free A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg Page B

it an exchange. Why don’t you like the idea?”
    “Because it will not work. Becket will make a choice. He is a man of conscience. I see that by how conscientiously he serves you as chancellor. He will choose to serve God instead of you. If you make him archbishop, you give him too much power and too hard a choice.”
    “Out. Out. Out. Both of you. You, you women! Your brains are …”
    Eleanor and I were quite accustomed to Henry’s rages. We stood our ground. Eleanor said, “I will not get out, Henry. I will stand here and stand opposed to your appointing Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury.”
    Henry walked over to Eleanor, picked her up from the waist and deposited her on his chair. She looked up, “You see, Henry, even I like your throne. It gives the best point of view by far. Can you imagine Becket not wanting to set his fancy bottom on such a fancy seat?”
    Henry had to laugh. Laughter quieted his anger. “All right, ladies,” he said, “I’ll explain. Mother sit here, in Eleanor’s chair. Eleanor, stay there. Let me explain. Now listen. All the times I have not had to go to war, I have spent my time developing the law of this land. I have made the English law firm and just and uniform throughout the island. Except for one thing. And that is the Church. Anyone who claims that he is the lowliest clerk in the tiniest church is excused from English law and is allowed to be tried by Church law. Let me give you an example. A wool merchant in London accused a boy of stealing a bale of wool. The boy said that he did not steal the wool at all; he said that the merchant had counted wrong. The merchant replied that he had not counted wrong at all and that the boy was lying. Without any further investigation, the merchant had the young man’s tongue cut out.”
    Eleanor winced. Henry continued, “He said that the boy would never lie again. The mother of the boy came to my court. She wanted a trial by jury. She could produce witnesses, she said, that would prove that the bales had not been counted correctly. I was ready to call a trial when I was visited by none other than the merchant’s bishop. ‘You cannot try the merchant in your court,’ he said. ‘Since he is a member of the clergy, he must be tried by the officers of the Church, not the officers of the king’s court.’ So the merchant was tried by a Church court and found not guilty. The Church may preach an eye for an eye, but not a tongue for a tongue.”
    “Could you not prove that the merchant was not a member of the clergy?” I asked.
    Henry laughed. A loud guffaw. “Do you know what it takes to prove that you are clergy, Mother? It takes nothing more than being able to recite six verses from the Bible by heart. They are called
neck verses
because they’ve saved many a neck. But, of course, if you are a young lad who has had his tongue cut out, you can’t recite verses.”
    Eleanor and I stayed silent. Henry paced around the room, frowning at everything. Then he stood between our two chairs and rested one hand on each. He leaned over and said, very solemnly, “You see now, ladies, why I must have Becket as Archbishop of Canterbury as well as chancellor. The country cannot have two kinds of laws. One set of laws for the king’s men and another set of laws for the Church’s men. I must combine them. What if men were different colors? Would it be right to have one set of laws for blue men and another set for red? Good grief! ladies, what can I do to convince you that I must have one set of laws in all my kingdom?” Henry was raging again.
    “You’ve convinced us, Henry,” I said. “I do not question the wisdom of your wants, I question the way. Find someone else to be Archbishop of Canterbury, someone else who will listen to you.”
    “Mother, Mother! Don’t you know Thomas? He loves splendor as much as my wife does. He is not about to quit wearing brocade. By making Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, I am saving myself the trouble of