1937-05-04 — Page 10

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 1937.

THESE MEN GAVE US FREEDOM-by GUY RAMSEY

Last week "Twelve Good Man And True" convicted a Chi- nése of murder, and the Chief Justice sentenced him to death. Those twelve men did not lightly roach their decision-they wore there to protect the liberty of the subject who was on trial. . This is the story of the man who made it possible for us to enjoy. liborty in the Court-a man who became a martyr so that Britons could be judged by their fellow-men.

T

had broken. Stephen, a knight fors-

the

thought with Froisanrt that "to rob

HAT sheet of printed within two generations, the Iron rule paper, sealed with a worn, was on the throne, and printed stamp, sum- land was a paradise for men who moning you to appear be- and pill is a good life." fore His Majesty's Judge and Justices as a juryman;

That Government form whose delivery causes a mild with a sprig of broom in his casque: oath of annoyance, a vague Henry Plantagenet, Count of Anjou; a violent, ruthless Frenchman, with wonder whether a friendly a driving energy and an ungovern- sanguine, doctor could not get you out able temper; a strong,

restless man who saw with Latin of the duty;

fogle all the perils that beset him.

That unimpressive slip which terminates so pom- pously "Whereof fail not, as you will answer the contrary at your peril"-

STEPH

puppets

TEPHEN dled and there ascended the throne a man

the

The perils were twofold: the rendul system by which the Kings of France had been reduced to the

of the baronage; and Church, by which the Crown became merely the instrument of the bishops. An alien king in a strange land.

that his decided Henry

detence H 15, to

the ambition of the nobles against document dyed in the blood of und the uvarice of the Church lay in

martyr and hallowed by the the common

They, by sheer repentance of a King: an instrument weight of could check the over which all England was at swollen arrogance of the aristo- intellectual war; o privilege which rad

he could cracy; by their support common men counted the greatest hold at bay the ever-encroaching blessing of their progressive and inroads of the Church. enlightened nge,

the

seeing

eye.

HE Jury-the trying of a THE

cuse before "twelve good men and 'true" selected at random from the civic centre-dates back into the

the shifting, eddying "kingdoms

Old courts of the Shire and the Lect and the Manor, fallen into disuse in the anarchy of Stephen's reign, were revived. The old, half- forgotten custom of the Jury disinterred from history: men should present to a judge a suspected

criminal.

was who

TWELVE GOOD MEN AND

Henry, with a stroke of the royal must shed no blood, could not en-

the force the penalty of death.

thot the Saxons strove to build on pen, confirmed the rights of the shores of England. Alfred has courts. He sent through the kingdom of his own choosing to been praised for their establishment; men

11 man

TRUE

Teuton

tribes, preferring their administer the King's Justice on the

whether E test Bloodstained myths and trackless King's highway. They travelled on

THE forests to the enlightened agnosticism cireults-the word is still in use.

were, or were not, a priest The only test employed between and level roads of Rome, have been

he hold. He became his secretary. disputants,

the only test of the lay in the fact whether or no two revered for their creation.

Falsely: for equal justice had little innocence or gullt of a criminal, was could read: If he could, he was

With the coronalion priest-none but "learned clerks" was marked out for promotion. part in the brutality of primeval by ordeal: ordeal by battle, when a pould read.

庭

of Henry.

would not yield. Disputes, quarrels, the King in Council and left for The King, in a fury discussions, appeals to Rome where Canterbury. the only Engilshuman ever to hold of impatience, flung out words which still ring in our cars to-day: Is 'thero the office sat on the Paphl throne.

Test cases of a murderer

whe none of the dastards eating my bread escaped with the sentence of prayers will rid me of this furbulent priest?"

There was the clank of armoured to be recited-were balanced by those where priests, falsely accused, feet on the stone floor; the scrape were subjected to the full rigour of of steel in a metal scabbard; the clop

of hoof-beats on a cobbled rond. a rigorous law.

Clarendon. n At the Council of

In Canterbury there was the sound compromise was reached. The Pope of Vespers, devoutly sung in the abandoned Becket's claims in the twilight of winter. Four shapes

through the his own international hurtled

dusk. They dimculties. But Beckel's submission loomed gigantle. In the fat Kentish- did not win him favour with the lands, then suddenly were dwarfed King's party. At Northampton, he in the shadow of the Cathedral, was called a traitor.

throes of

the

court

Becket marched into bearing his cross before him in bla own hands. "Traitor," cried one of the King's men. "Traitor!" Becket turned on him. "If I were a knight,

LINK of bridles, tramp. of mail-shod fect, shouts

my sword should answer you? He echoing in the stent voulling of rose to fanatic courage and appealed God's house. A yell of "Traitor." from the King direct to Rome. A atern rebuke. The Archbishop's From England to Paris, from Paris voice soaring again into his devotions. to Rome spread the discussion. Again that scrape of steel in #1 metal Becket hurled excommunications sheath.

from abroad. He agreed to submit His back to the oltar, Becket faced to the King's decisions, but insisted the knights. "Sacrllege." One that the phrase "Saving the Honour thrust forward and clutched him by of my Order" should be added to the arm. The priest who the form of the submission-which santched a cloak from a King Gamed absolutely nullifed it..

hod

into human wrath and thrust him aside. Then the superhuman inger of the fanatle seized upon him. He the opened his mouth to launch thunderbolt of excommunication.

THE French King, always There was an upraised arm, the glint

excuse glad of an

to of steel in the altar candles,, a shout.

groan.

thwart his cousin of England, with-

drew his support. The Pope proved Four men strode heavily from the a broken reed. But Becket refused cathedral; their armoured feet sound- to be daunted. Standing alone, he ing dully on the stones A little recanted his submission and deciared trickle of blood snaked down the the Council of Clarendon and

its altar steps. compromise null and void.

Becket, knowing that if were in. England he would lose not only his life but his cause, remained in In his absence France.

Henry decided to ensure

the succession.

HENR

hla

ENRY knelt in the Catho

dral, stripped of was fit for promotion. The See of The Angevins should not fail as feli magnificence, Friars scourged him humblest in the kingdom Canterbury fell vacant. IIenry the Normans, in a welter of civil tre appointed to it "our well-beloved war. The kingdom should not again punishing the mightiest. Pilgrims bath of anarchle blood. thronged to Canterbury, where a Thomas, surnamed a Becket." Becket wallow in

He would crown. as his successor positive epidemic of miraculous refused the honour.

D head- healing broke out at the tomb of the His excuse: he was but a deacon: Richard, his eldest son, how should he take precedence of strong, lusty, handsome youth, with murdered primate,

the grim goddess Two hundred years later, Geoffrey the Lords Bishops of the Realm? his heart vowed

Choucer made congs of such a pli- Becket was He His reason; that he knew an Arch- of war.

Ruthless French logic mode short grimage. Thomas bishop was in a cleft stick: If he did

did the Cantuar were not present to do his than St. George, was Britain'a true pleasure of Rome; he

Becket's death, But though, at to the strong. And Alfred, holding on his swordsmanship; ordeal by to be tried by the Courts Christian.

mediaeval king required. With his of the King.

Becket The King insisted--and

shop of York, was summoned and set Henry withdrew his claims; though Danes. had flre, when a man stoked his inno- his shield against the

IC dispute arose a

a

change a document was

was change in allegiance came a

yielded.

enthroned as the diadem on the boyish hend. And the common people, in common with neither the time nor the force to cence on the healing quality of his impose from his precarious throne in feat. Again the royal pen scratched; put before the accused. If he could in character. Becket became the pleate of All England and, with Henry the Lawgiver was legally in all Christendom, worshipped Becket wrong: the rite of Coronation and abhored the King: though the Church emerged technically triump- Winchester the rule of the King's und the jury were made judges of read it he was absolved from sub- King's friend, even, socially, his Justice upon a clan-ridden, thano- fact, of right and wrong, of Inno- jectlun to the King's Court. The rival. All major business was con- that swift reversal of allegiance the

The Pope, free for a moment of hant from the dispute, yet since that cence

and guilt. Only the purely upshot was that the rich, who could ducted by the Chancellor.. When the that characterised him-a reversal was the right of Canterbury. ridden land.

what penalty read, were given light sentences by King was in Normandy or, Maine or not to be condemned as hypocrisy The jury came to us in almost its legal question of

Christian, and the

Becket was he became at once the fanalle of embarrassments with an unti-Pope, day, and from that crime, Britain poor, Anjou or Touraine,

with the Emperor, and with the has possessed a system of law and the the Courts Ch

State, the Church. present form from a crime: the crime should be imposed was left to

who could not, were given heavy virtually at the head of the

ceaseless friction of Guelph and equnì justice between King and sub- He was wealthy. His clothing was

rallied Ghibelline in Italy, of murder: to which was added the Itinerent judge,

toject, Church and sinner, man and crime of sacrilege. It is not the But no priest might be judged by sentenees by the King's Courts.

His feasts rivalled those

Becket's support: Becket crossed the man, that was the envy and is the King's Court. They .were There was another point: the splendid.

Channel, He made his protest to pattern of the world, only blessing to come from a tainted the

amenable only to the. Courts document was always the same, the of the King, source.

The Normans came bringing to Christian-the ecelesiastical courts, fables, scratched with priestly England a stern, rude, cruel justice. which, as constituted by men who on legal parchment, were known by heart by every villein in the land. All nobles claimed "beneat of DURING their close associa la un unwarmed room clergy as a matter of course, read, recorded: a.quarrel that was half a a hair shirt. The King who

Many a man who could not

If not, he was entitled Becket was made Chancellor; the King's will he fell under the dip work of the Primate's absence. It beatified and canonised. Be, more Prussia where the law was always man staked the justice of his claim to no "benefit of clergy-the right only Secretary of State a despotic Pope's will he risked the disfavour duty at the Coronation, then Ebor patron, singh

should do it. Roger Ebor, Archbi-

10

OUR BRITISH crosswORDS

ACROSS

1.Tonk, but not for the man who

turns out the chassis (hyphen.4. and 7).

7 Miaow?

6 Scottish county.

10 Gentle reminder for an angler.

11: What the jury have often done

for a plaintiff.

12 Roman historian.

15 It's not an extra man to help on

one side of the fleld, but it's in

In accordance with regulations.

16 The real glst of this adjective

.17

is in the middle.

Topic that always interests a king

20 To. go for one is not to altack

one.

22 Something unpleasant in pro-

gress.

23.0 for the of a vanished

hand:"

(Tennyson).

24 South Sea Islands.

27: Bucić up!

20 The author of "Peter Pan" nearly runs through an ab- struction

20 Has endicas drying possibilities

(two words, 6 and: B),

M. DOWN

Graduate an article for a sta

side" pursuit.

2. Sort of tle to attract.

3 Part of the house.

4. More than touch with a sharp-

heart and black guards to start;

'it.

You can read this document

from anlah to start.

16

20

128

6 A great Elizabethan.

7 For paving (hyphen, 0 and 5). Of the breed of the Dog Star? (two words, and 7),

13 Quick-to respond to an SOS.

14 Scope here, but it takes nearly

a dozen to do it.

10 He's not in the habit of signing

the visitors' book.

10 Give a beating, but there doesn't

seem to be much weight behind

it.

20 Plunder except an obsolete

trumpet,

21 At the beginning.

25 In red it is badly slanged.

28 This bird can't be as much as

Ave shillings.

Yesterday's Solation -DISCREPANO KAAN ENNNEJ ENMESHED REECH O C_P_H_LB DE OWED GIVEN IT IS NRB NLBEINE B STAG TITANIC MERIGE U RAIN | E PA· I GRILLAZO V

KOOKE

N NIET O E ED SQUIRREL UNEY

EXTREMENESS

pen

HIS palace shrank

to A morinatie cell; his feast dwindled to bread and water caten bare from tlun, only one quarrel is boards; his fur cloak shrivelled to

hud.

and whose only contact with the jest, but which might have showed made him became for him an enemy: priesthood was during Confession, Henry what manner of man he had robbing Holy Mother Church of her would claim benent of clergy and chosen. King and Chancellor rode holy dues; trying to seize for him- luburiously spell out as proof the together, through the driving snow, self the rights of her holy bishops; syllables he knew by rote.

Henry, with the violent physical striving to subject the gentle pricate Henry, his mind full of

a of Christ, men who shed no blood, to а level humour of the time, pointed to justice, which should endear him to beggar cowering in the wind. "You the bloody jurisdiction of the Royal his people and safeguard his throne, are a priest: give your cloak to him, Courts. resented this loophole in the law Thomas!”

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Not punishment but forgiveness: and strove to close it. He chose-de-Becket-stretched out his hand and that was the burthen of his cry. Not his advisers men who had quality twitched the rich fur from the King's escape but justice was the slogan of

"Rather give him yours, the King. but no great gifts of birth; men of should,

For years throughout the middle the people; men who, being pour, Sire. It is richer and warmer than would do the King's will from self- mine." The King was thunderstruck of the twelfth century the fight went interest. Notable among them was at the personal affront as much as on. Test case after test case was one deacon, secretary to the Arch- that to his position. "But you are held. The King retracted and de- manded that, if the "criminous bishop of Canterbury; an ambitious, a priest."

Courts were subject to

Via Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, brilliant son of a London merchant, Decket looked at the King levelly. clerks

Honolulu, San Francisco, Papama not Majesty nlready prompted and earmarked "Is Your

a Christian, if they were found guilty,

Canal and Havana. for further advancement; a man Christian?" French logle uppre- they should be handed over for sen

The tence to the Royal Court,

Pres. Lincoln with a faculty for identifying biru ciated the tarn of the phrase.

Two hundred years inter, the In Pres. Coolidge self with whatever master he served. King rode shivering home, swearing

Angovin Iden Pres. Wilson His name was Thomas a Becket.. that his Chancellor was the cleverest quisition adopted the First he served the Archbishop of rogue in Christendom. Such a man of handing over convicted heretics Pres. Hoover

but Becket Pres. Cleveland Canterbury. He was in his house- was valuable to a king. Such a man to, the "secular arm,"

Pres. Coolidge

敷

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