Richard de Lucy

Richard de Lucy (died July 14, 1179, Lesnes Abbey, Kent, Eng.) was the chief justiciar (judiciary officer) of England under King Henry II (reigned 1154–89). He was involved in the king’s struggle against the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, and he virtually controlled the country during Henry’s protracted absences resulting from family rebellions that challenged the king’s royal power.

Richard came from Lucé, near Domfront, Normandy. He probably entered the English royal service under King Henry I. As a supporter of King Stephen in the civil war that broke out in 1139, Lucy in 1143 became county justiciar and sheriff of Essex. About 1155 Henry II made him and Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, chief justiciars; after Leicester’s death in 1168 Lucy held the office alone.

As one of Henry II’s chief councillors, Lucy helped formulate much important legislation, including reforms of property law and of judicial procedure. He was singled out by Henry’s enemies as the main author of the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164), which maintained—contrary to Becket’s stand—that clerics convicted of felony in ecclesiastical courts should be punished by lay authority instead of by the church. Lucy was excommunicated by Becket in 1166 and again in 1169, and Becket’s murder by the king’s henchmen in 1170 resulted in part from his refusal to lift such sentences of excommunication. In 1173–74, while Henry was fighting the rebels in Normandy, Anjou, and the north of England, Lucy helped greatly to maintain Henry’s rule throughout the rest of the king’s domains.

Shortly before his death Lucy resigned (1179) his office and entered Lesnes Abbey, which he had founded the previous year in penance for his part in the events leading to Becket’s murder.