Henry’s fury was titanic. From then on it was war, almost literally to the death, on Thomas and anyone who supported him. It took the king a while to organize his stroke against the archbishop, which became public at a council held at Northampton in October 1164. Once again, Henry summoned Thomas, the other bishops, and the great lords of England to meet him. His specific purpose was to prefer a hodgepodge of charges against Thomas, from the petty to ones so grave that they might carry a sentence of death. Among other things, Thomas was accused of having lined his own pockets while he was chancellor—even though he had had the foresight, when Henry appointed him archbishop, to secure a pardon for any acts he might have committed while chancellor. Initially, Thomas tried to secure a postponement of his trial on the grounds that he had not been advised of the charges in time to prepare his defense. Again, however, as at Clarendon, the king and the lay lords resorted to pressure and threats against Thomas and the bishops in an attempt to secure a favorable outcome. Perhaps what Henry wanted was for Thomas to resign and retire into a monastery or overseas, leaving the way clear for him to appoint a more accommodating prelate. What he got, however, was Thomas’s defiance.
The council’s deliberations, which were little more than a trial of Thomas, began on October 8, a Thursday. The climax was reached the following Tuesday. By this time, it had become clear to Thomas that Henry intended to destroy him. He began the day with a meeting with his suffragan bishops in which he complained of their failure to support him, appealed to the pope against a possible criminal verdict against him, and ordered the bishops to excommunicate anyone who laid violent hands on him. He then celebrated a Mass whose introit was “Princes did sit and speak against me,” after which he proceeded to the castle dressed in his most formal archiepiscopal vestments and carrying his own archiepiscopal cross. Normally, when an archbishop made a formal procession, a member of his staff carried his cross before him. For Thomas to carry the cross himself was apparently the equivalent of throwing down the gauntlet. The action caused outrage not only among the laymen present but even among at least some of the bishops. Gilbert Foliot muttered, but not so low that others could not hear, “He always was a fool.” Details of what happened thereafter are unclear, because none of the writers on whom we depend was present and all had to rely on the confused recollections of those who were. Thomas apparently spent the day in an antechamber to the room where the king was meeting with the lay barons and most of the bishops, while various emissaries attempted to negotiate some solution to the issues. Tempers flared on all sides and eventually, when confronted by the justiciar and several other barons, Thomas declared that the proceedings were illegitimate and, to shouts of “traitor” and “perjurer,” stomped out.
There was one last attempt later in the day to find a solution by which the king and the archbishop could be reconciled, a proposal by the bishops of London and Chichester for Thomas to pledge two of the Canterbury manors as surety for payment of the fines assessed against him; but Thomas indignantly rejected this. Early the next morning, Thomas left Northampton and made for the coast in stealth and disguise. His flight was probably arranged in advance, though he may have hoped that he would not have to resort to so drastic an action. Three weeks later, on November 2, with a few companions, he boarded a small boat at the port of Sandwich and sailed for the Continent, landing on the beach at Oye in Flanders. In leaving England without the king’s permission, of course, he violated clause 4 of the Constitutions of Clarendon. He also began six years of exile on the Continent. When he finally returned to England, he would live only about a month.
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