The Plantagenet Prelude

Milk and butter and cheeses were obtainable in Milk Street, and meat was for sale in Saint Martin le Grand near Saint Paul’s Cross. There was Bread Street where the smell of fresh baked bread filled the air. Goldsmiths and silversmiths, clothiers and grocers, they all had their places in these lively streets.

At this time some forty thousand people lived in the city and its environs. People were attracted to the city because of its immense activities and the gayer lives that could be enjoyed there compared with the quiet of the country. There were many churches, built by the Normans, and the sound of bells was a constant one. It was a bustling, teeming city situated on a river full of craft plying their way up and down; and the stream of the Walbrook divided the East Cheap from the West.

Everywhere were beggars – some pitiful to behold – and into these streets came the Emir’s daughter, certain because of her faith in the Christian God that she would be led to find Gilbert.

She went through the streets calling Gilbert and many took pity on her and gave her a night’s shelter; and each day she was sure that she would find the man she had come to seek.

Gilbert had reached London some months earlier. He had resumed his business and as before kept open house for visiting friends. One of these, a Norman knight named Richer de L’Aigle, a man of some culture, owned an estate in the country.

Richer always enjoyed his visits to London, largely because it meant a pleasant evening or two spent with his old friend Gilbert Becket. They would talk into the night and discuss many subjects before Gilbert lighted his old friend to bed with a waxen candle.

Richer had heard of Gilbert’s adventures in the Emir’s palace and was always interested to talk about them.

Gilbert’s servant Richard, who had been at his master’s side through all that had happened, had also many a tale to tell of those adventures to his fellow-servants.

When Gilbert was telling Richer more details of how he had made the escape which would have seemed impossible, he added that he believed only Divine help had brought them home.

‘During that perilous journey,’ he said, ‘I made a vow that if I could reach home safely once more I would pay another visit to the Holy Land within ten years.’

‘So you will be going again. Do not expect the same luck next time.’

‘I shall wait for God to show me His will,’ said Gilbert solemnly, ‘and whatever it may be I shall accept it.’

‘Still, perhaps it is tempting Providence when you consider you have done it once and come safely through. Think of all those who are lost on the way.’

They were talking thus when Richard burst in upon them.

‘Master,’ he stammered, ‘I have seen...I have seen...’

‘Come, Richard, what have you seen?’ asked Gilbert.

‘A ghost it appears,’ put in Richer.

‘No, master. I have seen the Emir’s daughter.’

‘What?’ cried Gilbert.

‘I had heard that a strange woman was in the street. She was calling “Gilbert”. Just “Gilbert” again and again. I went to look at her. An apprentice told me she was close by and there she was.’

‘The Emir’s daughter, Richard. You are mistaken.’

‘Nay, master, I was not, for she saw me and she cried aloud with joy, for she knew me. She remembered me in her father’s palace.’

Gilbert had risen to his feet. ‘You must take me to her.’

‘She is here, master. She followed me.’

Gilbert hurried from the room and there standing in his doorway was Mahault. When she saw him she gave a cry of joy and fell on her knees before him.

He lifted her; he looked into her face and he spoke to her in her own tongue which she had not heard for so long.

‘You came...so far.’

‘God guided me,’ she said simply.

‘So...you hoped to find me.’

‘I knew I should, if it were His will and it is.’

Richer de L’Aigle looked on at the scene with amazement as Gilbert called for his servants to prepare hot food. She must be hungry, he said, and she was footsore and weary.

She laughed and wept with happiness. A miracle had brought her across terrifying land and sea to Gilbert.

He considered her. She was beautiful, young and ardent.

She loved the Christian faith almost as much as she loved Gilbert. She was a living example of a soul that was saved.

He could not keep her in his house. That was something the proprieties would not allow and Gilbert did not know what he could do with her. There was a good and sober widow who lived close by and for whom he had been able to do some favour. He went to her, told her of his predicament and asked if she would take the strange young woman under her care until something could be settled. This she agreed to do, and Gilbert conducted her to the widow’s house where he told her she must wait awhile.

Gilbert had friends in the Church and he decided to ask the advice of some of its members as to what he could do.

There was in London at the time a gathering of the bishops presided over by the Bishop of London, and since the Emir’s daughter was an infidel and would be so until she was baptised, the answer to his predicament could well come from the Church.

Before the bishops, Gilbert related his adventure, and the Bishop of Chichester rose suddenly and spoke as though he were in a dream. He said: ‘It is the hand of God and not of man which has brought this woman from so far a country. She will bear a son whose labours and sanctity will turn to the profit of the Church and the glory of God.’

These were strange words, for Gilbert had not mentioned the thought of marrying her – although it had entered his head. They sounded like a prophecy. Gilbert was then filled with a desire to marry the Emir’s daughter and have a son by her.

‘It would be necessary,’ said the Bishop of London, ‘for her to be baptised. If she agrees to this then you should marry her.’

Gilbert went to Mahault and told her this. Her eyes sparkled with happiness. Most joyfully would she be baptised. She had come to England for this – and to marry Gilbert.

So they were married and very soon she became pregnant. She was certain that she would bear a son who was destined for greatness.

Thus before Thomas was born he had made his impact on the world.

The daughter of the Emir, now baptised as Mahault, was the most devout of Christians. She was the happiest of women for God had shown her a miracle. She had asked and had been given. She was the wife of Gilbert, a fact which would have seemed impossible while she was in her father’s palace. Here it was the most natural thing in the world. Surely a miracle.

And when very soon after the marriage she was pregnant, she was certain that she was going to have a son. The Bishop of Chichester had prophesied this. God had brought her through great difficulties; she had made a journey which many would have said was impossible; she had come to a strange country knowing only two words:

‘London’ and ‘Gilbert’. The first was easy to find; and God had brought her to the second.

She began to have visions. Her son was going to be a great man. It was to bear this son that God had brought her here. She dreamed of him; always she saw him in those dreams surrounded by a soft light. He would be a Christian and his life would be dedicated to God. It seemed likely that he would be a man of the Church and the highest office in the Church was that of an archbishop.

‘I know my son will be an archbishop,’ she said.

Gilbert was uneasy. He was no longer a man who could go where he would. He had a wife and soon he would have a child.

She sensed his fears and asked him what ailed him. He told her then that he had made a vow to God that if he arrived home safely, he would visit the Holy Land again and he feared that now he had such responsibilities he would be unable to keep his promise to God.