Henry's Woe

Henry's woe Alex Conradie Canterbury is a city steeped in history and dominated by the oldest Christian sites in England. Here, St. Augustine of Canterbury founded the first Saxon cathedral & an abbey in the late 6th century. Sent by Pope Gregory the Great to evangelise the heathen Angles & Saxons, St. Augustine was instructed to remain flexible in his teachings with consideration for local custom. A practical man, Pope Gregory knew that it was fruitless to expect all errors to vanish from obstinate minds at a stroke; "whoever wishes to climb lofty heights, climbs step by step". However, by the 9th century, the idea of a total Christian society had taken hold. By the 12th century, the Church's influence had grown such that clerics could not be brought to trial in royal courts for secular offences such as peculation, treason and even murder. Particularly during the reign of Henry I, there was a growing sense of antagonism between king and senior clerics, given the progressive encroachment by the Church on royal legal territory. The dispute between two friends Henry II, king of England, and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, had the makings of a Shakespearean tragedy. Strain in their friendship showed as Henry matured and adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards opponents, becoming adept at realpolitik. The older Becket remained an obstinate and often hysterical man with an actor's passion for noisy drama. As archbishop, Becket was disinterested in promoting pastoral work, neither demonstrated any enthusiasm for creating a godly clergy. His ascetic tendencies denied comprehension of Christ's grace. Rather disappointing for a would-be saint.

In 1163, Henry was told that murder, theft & violent robbery by clerics had been rife since his coronation. Becket's guardianship of the clerical courts was appalling; their verdicts were intolerable to a king dedicated to stamping out lawlessness. Perfectly well disposed to the Church in general, Henry attempted to bring clerics within the jurisdiction of the royal courts in the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164). In the ensuing conflict, Becket held the position that "Christian kings ought to submit their administration to ecclesiastics, not impose it upon them". Most English bishops disapproved of Becket's attitude & tactics. Even his allies thought his posturing and intransigence excessive. In a lapse to his more explosive youth, Henry rhetorically exclaimed during the crisis "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?". Taking Henry's outburst as a royal command, four knights set upon a course of confused blunders to Canterbury Cathedral. Becket was isolated politically. Martyrdom was a spectacular and theatrical way out of an impasse of his own making. Becket himself forced the knights to decide between killing him or returning to court as fools. Having stood in the north east transept with its many exits, I'd agree with one of his eulogists, "the archbishop might easily have turned aside & saved himself by flight, time and place offered an opportunity to escape without discovery". Four anxious men could not easily have located someone hiding in the darkness of the crypt. Even today, the cathedral's crypt is spooky. As we walked from the derelict side chapels into the dimly lit interior, a voice unexpectedly boomed from the darkness. Both Anje & I felt that forewarning visitors of an invitation to prayer with either "This is not God" or at very least "This is not the ghost of Thomas Becket" would avoid triggering the flight response unnecessarily.

From beyond the grave, Becket's drama unfolded with Henry's private guilt & public prostration. Fellow senior clergy viewed Becket's rapid canonisation with cynicism, but his final melodramatic master stroke ensured that the pilgrimage to his shrine was popular until the Dissolution of Henry VIII. Strangely, the city of Canterbury does not possess a single medieval manuscript of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. A decade or so after Becket's murder, Henry was still haunted by the unintended assassination and dedicated the intimate chapel in Dover Keep (above) to Becket. The danger presented by Becket-style gestures was a tendency to incite clerical insistence on church rights more than clerics personally thought prudent. In 2005, The BBC History Magazine branded Becket as the 12th century's worst British villain and the "founder of gesture politics". His disservice to Christianity is palpable. Recently, 12 states and 13 special interest groups brought a landmark case against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They claimed that the US government had a legal duty, under the Clean Air Act of 1970, to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. In turn, the EPA argued that the 1970 Act did not provide powers to impose limits, because CO 2 was not deemed a pollutant. In an incredulous interpretation of law, the Supreme Court's majority opinion ruled that CO2 & other greenhouse gases are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act (1970). Was the spirit of the 1970 law written with global warming in mind? Water vapour is a major contributor to the green house effect. Both CO2 & H2O are products of biological respiration. Classification as pollutants seems incomprehensible.

Though the US Congress has been slow to legislate in favour of anthropogenic global warming evidence, the legislature needs to function within the intended confines of democratic compromise. Within a functioning democracy, compromise ensures moderate & balanced solutions. Courts cannot govern; it is not their function. Also, the Supreme Court cannot substitute itself for a failed Executive, as much as I disapprove of Bush's presidency. Usurping legislative power "on the grounds that there is no other way to be rid of an acknowledged evil" is inexcusable and a moral fallacy that the end justifies the means. The masses are not impervious to rational argument. The danger presented by special interest groups is that they unleash commotion for their cause, while only representing a small fraction of the electorate. "Enlightened", elite groups of Nietzsche supermen should never be empowered to force decisions on behalf of the electorate in the supposed public interest. Whether global warming is largely anthropogenic or not, meet the new sultans of spin.