"BECKET"

(Printed 1879; published 1884)

In 1879 my father printed the first proofs of his tragedy of "Becket," which he had begun in December 1876. But he considered that the time was not ripe for its publication; and this therefore was deferred until December 1884. We had visited Canterbury in August 1877, and gone over each separate scene of Becket's martyrdom. "Admirers of Becket," my father notes, "will find that Becket's letters, and the writings of Herbert of Bosham, Fitzstephen, and John of Salisbury throw great light on those days. Bishop Lightfoot found out about Rosamund for me.

The play is so accurate a representation of the personages and of the time, that J. R. Green said that all his researches into the annals of the twelfth century had not given him “so vivid a conception of the character of Henry II. and his court as was embodied in Tennyson's 'Becket.""

To my father it was interesting to learn the impression made upon Roman Catholics by this

1879-84

W. G. WARD

work. He first asked the opinion of his neighbour at Freshwater, W. G. Ward. He could not have asked a more candid, truth-speaking critic than this "most generous of all Ultramontanes," who was deeply versed not only in the spirit and doctrine of his own Church, but also in the modern French and English drama. My father once said of Ward when speaking to a friend of Roman Catholic casuistry: "Well, one of the most truthful men I ever met was a strict Ultramontane he was grotesquely truthful." They thoroughly understood each other, for Ward was "full of fun and faith." So it came to pass that my father often discussed religion and Roman Catholicism with him in their walks together. He once said to Ward, "You know you would try to get me put in prison if the Pope bid you." Ward replied, "The Pope would never tell me to do anything so foolish.

It may be imagined that we looked forward with some anxiety to the evening when Ward had promised to be at Farringford to hear "Becket." He came, as it afterwards appeared, to listen patiently, though convinced "that the whole play would be out of his line." At the end of the play he broke out into enthusiastic praise. "Dear me! I did not expect to enjoy it at all. It is splendid! How wonderfully you have brought out the phases of his character as Chancellor and Archbishop! Where did you get it all?"

to

Struggle for power under one guise or another has doubtless been among the most fruitful sources of theme for tragedy. During many centuries, as we know, "spiritual power," clothed in earthly panoply, seemed to most men be the one embodiment of the Divine Power. What struck Ward in my father's play was the clear and impressive manner in which he had brought out Becket's feeling that in accepting the Archbishopric he had changed masters, that he was not simply advanced to a higher service of the same liege lord, but that he had changed his former lord paramount, whose fiery self-will made havock of his fine intellect, for one of higher degree; and had become a power distinct from and it might be antagonistic to the King. Thus Becket says, still loving his old friend :

The worldly bond between us is dissolved,
Not yet the love: can I be under him
As Chancellor ? as Archbishop over him?

My father's view of Becket was as follows: Becket was a really great and impulsive man, with a firm sense of duty, and, when he renounced the world, looked upon himself as the head of that Church which was the people's "tower of strength, their bulwark against throne and baronage. This idea so far wrought in his dominant nature as to betray him into many rash acts; and later he lost himself in the idea. His enthusiasm reached a spiritual ecstasy which carries

1884 IRVING'S INTERPRETATION

the historian along with it; and his humanity and abiding tenderness for the poor, the weak and the unprotected, heighten the impression so much as to make the poet feel passionately the wronged Rosamund's reverential devotion for him (most touchingly rendered by Ellen Terry), when she kneels praying over his body in Canterbury Cathedral.1

As a stage tragedy (adapted by Irving) Irving has told us that "Becket" is one of the three most successful plays produced by him at the Lyceum. "Becket' is a finer play than 'King John,'" he wrote to my father. Palgrave has observed that "Becket" has two excellent characteristics of the old Greek drama, that of bringing the four protagonists prominently throughout before the audience: and that of introducing the crisis of the tragedy in a scene of first-rate comedy. Irving's arrangement has been criticised as too episodical; but the thread of human interest remains strong enough for its purpose, as from first to last it holds the audience in an attitude of rapt attention. Assuredly Irving's interpretation of the many-sided, many-mooded, statesman-soldier-saint was as vivid and as subtle a piece of acting as has been seen in our day.

He says truly that one of the chief keynotes of the character is to be found in the following lines, which he always gave with an indescribable

1 In the play Rosamund is the king's wife by a left-handed marriage.

tenderness, as if looking back to and recalling the daydream of his youth.

Becket. There was a little fair-hair'd Norman maid,

Lived in my mother's house: if Rosamund is The world's rose, as her name imports her—she Was the world's lily.

Ay, and what of her?

John of Salisbury.
Becket. She died of leprosy.

John of Salisbury.

I know not why

You call these old things back again, my lord. Becket. The drowning man, they say, remembers all

The chances of his life, just ere he dies.

In 1879 Irving refused the play: but in 1891 he asked leave to produce it, holding that the taste of the theatre-going public had changed in the interval, and that it was now likely to be a success on the stage.

He writes to me (1893):

"

We have passed the fiftieth performance of "Becket,' which is in the heyday of its success. I think that 1 may, without hereafter being credited with any inferior motive, give again the opinion which I previously expressed to your loved and honoured father. To me "Becket" is a very noble play, with something of that lofty feeling and that far-reaching influence, which belong to a "passion play." There are in it moments of passion and pathos which are the aim and end of