to Becket's management, honored him with his friendship and intimacy; and whenever he was disposed to relax himself by sports of any kind, he admitted his chancellor to the party.* An instance of their familiarity is mentioned by Fitz-Stephens, which, as it shows the manners of the age, it may not be improper to relate. One day, as the king and the chancellor were riding together in the streets of London, they observed a beggar, who was shivering with cold. "Would it not be very praiseworthy," said the king," to give that poor man a warm coat in this severe season? "It would, surely," replied the chancellor; "and you do well, sir, in thinking of such good actions." "Then he shall have one presently," cried the king; and seizing the skirt of the chancellor's coat, which was scarlet, and lined with ermine, began to pull it violently. The chancellor defended himself for some time; and they had both of them like to have tumbled off their horses in the street, when Becket, after a vehement struggle, let go his coat; which the king bestowed on the beggar, who, being ignorant of the quality of the persons, was not a little surprised at the present.† Becket, who, by his complaisance and good humor, had rendered himself agreeable, and by his industry and abilities useful, to his master, appeared to him the fittest person for supplying the vacancy made by the death of Theobold. As he was well acquainted with the king's intentions of retrenching, or rather confining within the ancient bounds, all ecclesiastical privileges, and always showed a ready disposition to comply with them, § Henry, who never expected any resistance from that quarter, immediately issued orders for electing him archbishop of Canterbury. But this resolution, which was taken contrary to the opinion of Matilda, and many of the ministers, drew after it very unhappy consequences; and never prince of so great penetration appeared, in the issue, to have so little understood the genius and character of his minister. No sooner was Becket installed in this high dignity, which rendered him for life the second person in the kingdom, with some pretensions of aspiring to be the first, than he totally altered his demeanor and conduct, and endeavored to acquire the character of sanctity, of which his former busy and osten+ Fitz-Steph. p. 16. Hist. Quad. p. 8. * Fitz-Steph. p. 16. Epist. St. Thom. p. 232. tatious course of life might, in the eyes of the people, have naturally bereaved him. Without consulting the king, he immediately returned into his hands the commission of chancellor; pretending that he must thenceforth detach himself from secular affairs, and be solely employed in the exercise of his spiritual function; but in reality, that he might break off all connections with Henry, and apprise him that Becket, as primate of England, was now become entirely a new personage. He maintained, in his retinue and attendants alone, his ancient pomp and lustre, which was useful to strike the vulgar; in his own person he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which he was sensible would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end. He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world he changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered further unpalatable by the mixture of unsavory herbs: he tore his back with the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars, whom he afterwards dismissed with presents: * he gained the affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity, was admitted to his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility, as well as on the piety and mortification, of the holy primate : he seemed to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of seriousness, and mental recollection, and secret devotion; and all men of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design, and that the ambi tion and ostentation of his character had turned itself towards a new and a more dangerous object. [1163.] Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against the ecclesiastical power, which he knew had been formed by that prince: he was himself the aggressor, and endeavored to overawe the king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises. He summoned the earl of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever since the conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but which, as it had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket pretended his predecessors were prohibited *Fitz-Steph. p. 25. Hist. Quad. p. 19. by the canons to alienate. The earl of Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the greatness of his own birth and the extent of his possessions, was allied to all the principal families in the kingdom; his sister, who was a celebrated beauty, had further extended his credit among the nobility, and was even supposed to have gained the king's affections; and Becket could not better discover, than by attacking so powerful an interest, his resolution of maintaining with vigor the rights, real or pretended, of his see.* William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of a living which belonged to a manor that held of the archbishop of Canterbury; but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented, on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was violently expelled by Eynsford. The primate, making himself, as was usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued in a summary manner the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who complained to the king, that he, who held" in capite " of the crown, should, contrary to the practice established by the Conqueror, and maintained ever since by his successors, be subjected to that terrible sentence without the previous consent of the sovereign.† Henry, who had now broken off all personal intercourse with Becket, sent him, by a messenger, his orders to absolve Eynsford; but received for answer, that it belonged not for the king to inform him whom he should absolve and whom excommunicate; ‡ and it was not till after many remonstrances and menaces that Becket, though with the worst grace imaginable, was induced to comply with the royal mandate. Henry, though he found himself thus grievously mistaken in the character of the person whom he had promoted to the primacy, determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching clerical usurpations. He was entirely master of his extensive dominions: the prudence and vigor of his administration, attended with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of his predecessors: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism which divided all Europe; and he rightly judged that, if the present favorable opportunity were neglected, the crown must, from the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an entire subordination under the mitre. *Fitz-Steph. p. 28. Gervate, p. 1384. + Fitz-Steph. p. 28. The union of the civil and ecclesiastical power serves extremely, in every civilized government, to the maintenance of peace and order; and prevents those mutual encroachments which, as there can be no ultimate judge between them, are often attended with the most dangerous consequences. Whether the supreme magistrate who unites these powers receives the appellation of prince or prelate, is not material. The superior weight which temporal interests commonly bear in the apprehensions of men above spiritual, renders the civil part of his character most prevalent; and in time prevents those gross impostures and bigoted persecutions which, in all false religions, are the chief foundation of clerical authority. But during the progress of ecclesiastical usurpations, the state, by the resistance of the civil magistrate, is naturally thrown into convulsions; and it behoves the prince, both for his own interest and for that of the public, to provide in time sufficient barriers against so dangerous and insidious a rival. This precaution had hitherto been much neglected in England, as well as in other Catholic countries; and affairs at last seemed to have come to a dangerous crisis: a sovereign of the greatest abilities was now on the throne: a prelate of the most inflexible and intrepid character was possessed of the primacy: the contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their conflict. the clergy Among their other inventions to obtain money, had inculcated the necessity of penance as an atonement for sin; and having again introduced the practice of paying them large sums as a commutation, or species of atonement for the remission of those penances, the sins of the people, by these means, had become a revenue to the priests; and the king computed, that by this invention alone they levied more money upon his subjects than flowed, by all the funds and taxes, into the royal exchequer.* That he might ease the people of so heavy and arbitrary an imposition, Henry required that a civil officer of his appointment should be present in all ecclesiastical courts, and should, for the future, give his consent to every composition which was made with sinners for their spiritual offences. The ecclesiastics in that age had renounced all immediate subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an VOL. I. *Fitz-Steph. p. 32. H exemption, in criminal accusations, from a trial before courts of justice; and were gradually introducing a like exemption in civil causes: spiritual penalties alone could be inflicted on their offences; and as the clergy had extremely multiplied in England, and many of them were consequently of very low characters, crimes of the deepest dye-murders, robberies, adulteries, rapes- were daily committed with impunity by the ecclesiastics. It had been found, for instance, on inquiry, that no less than a hundred murders had, since the king's accession, been perpetrated by men of that profession, who had never been called to account for these offences; * and holy orders were become a full protection for all enormities. A clerk in Worcestershire, having debauched a gentleman's daughter, had, at this time, proceeded to murder the father; and the general indignation against this crime moved the king to attempt the remedy of an abuse which was become so palpable, and to require that the clerk should be delivered up, and receive condign punishment from the magistrate.† Becket insisted on the privileges of the church; confined the criminal in the bishop's prison, lest he should be seized by the king's officers; maintained that no greater punishment could be inflicted on him than degradation; and when the king demanded that, immediately after he was degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same accusation, and for the same offence.‡ Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies which daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions. He summoned an assembly of all the prelates in England; and he put to them this concise and decisive question, whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The bishops unanimously replied, that they were willing, "saving their own order;"§ a device by which they thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve *Gul. Neubr. p. 394. † Fitz-Steph. p. 33. Hist. Quad. p. 32. Fitz-Steph. p. 29. Hist. Quad.. p. 33, 45. Hoveden, p. 492. M. Paris, p. 72. Diceto, p. 536, 537. Brompton, p. 1058. Gervase, p. 1384. Epist. St. Thom. p. 208, 209. § Fitz-Steph. p. 31. Hist. Qurd. p. 34. Hoveden, p. 492. |