TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF SELBORNE.
My dear SELBORNE,
To you, the honoured Chancellor of our own day,
I dedicate this dramatic memorial of your great predecessor;—which,
altho’ not intended in its present form to meet
the exigencies of our modern theatre, has nevertheless—for
so you have assured me—won your approbation.
Ever yours_,
Tennyson.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
Henry II. (son of the Earl of Anjou).
Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England,
afterwards Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Gilbert foliot, Bishop of London.
Roger, Archbishop of York.
Bishop
of Hereford.
Hilary, Bishop of Chichester.
Jocelyn, Bishop of Salisbury.
John of Salisbury |
Herbert of Bosham | friends of Becket.
Walter map, reputed author of ‘Golias,’
Latin poems against
the priesthood.
KING LOUIS OF FRANCE.
GEOFFREY, son of Rosamund and Henry.
GRIM, a monk of Cambridge.
SIR REGINALD FITZURSE |
SIR RICHARD DE BRITO | the four knights of the
King’s
SIR WILLIAM DE TRACY | household, enemies of Becket.
SIR HUGH DE MORVILLE |
DE BROC OF SALTWOOD CASTLE.
LORD LEICESTER.
PHILIP DE ELEEMOSYNA.
TWO KNIGHT TEMPLARS.
JOHN OF OXFORD (called the Swearer).
ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE, Queen of England (divorced
from Louis of France).
ROSAMUND DE CLIFFORD.
MARGERY.
Knights, Monks, Beggars, etc.
A Castle in Normandy. Interior of the Hall.
Roofs of a City seen thro’ Windows.
HENRY and BECKET at chess.
HENRY.
So then our good Archbishop Theobald
Lies dying.
BECKET.
I am grieved to know as much.
HENRY.
But we must have a mightier man than he
For his successor.
BECKET.
Have
you thought of one?
HENRY.
A cleric lately poison’d his own mother,
And being brought before the courts of the Church,
They but degraded him. I hope they whipt him.
I would have hang’d him.
BECKET.
It
is your move.
HENRY.
Well—there.
[Moves.
The Church in the pell-mell of Stephen’s time
Hath climb’d the throne and almost clutch’d
the crown;
But by the royal customs of our realm
The Church should hold her baronies of me,
Like other lords amenable to law.
I’ll have them written down and made the law.
