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phrase. He promised obedience, saving the honor of God.

'You wish,' replied Henry, powerfully disappointed and displeased, to be king in my place. This man,' he continued, turning to Lewis, 'deserted his Church of his own will, and he tells you and all men that his cause is the cause of the Church. He has governed his Church with as much freedom as those who have gone before him, but now he stands on God's honor to oppose me wherever he pleases, as if I cared for God's honor less than he. I make this proposal. Many kings have ruled in England before me, some less, some greater than I am; many holy men have been Archbishops of Canterbury before him. Let him behave to me as the most sainted of his predecessors behaved to the least worthy of mine, and I am content.'

The king's demand seemed just and moderate to all present. The archbishop hesitated. Lewis asked him if he aspired to be greater than acknowledged saints. His predecessors, he said, had extirpated some abuses, but not all. There was work which remained to be done. He was stopped by a general outcry that the king had yielded enough; the saving clause must be dropped. At once, at the tone of command, Becket's spirit rose. Priests and bishops, he answered defiantly, were not to submit to men of this world save with reservations: he for one would not do it.

The meeting broke up in confusion. A French noble said that the archbishop was abusing their hospitality, and did not deserve any longer protection. Henry mounted his horse and rode sadly away. The pope's agents followed him, wringing their hands and begging for some slight additional concession. The king told them that they must address themselves to the archbishop. Let the archbishop bind himself to obey the laws. If the laws were amiss, they should be modified by the pope's wishes. In no country in the world, he said, had the clergy so much liberty as in England, and in no country were there greater villains among them. For the sake of peace he did not insist on terms precisely defined. The archbishop was required to do nothing beyond what had been done by Anslem.

Becket, however, was again immova

ble as stone. Lewis, after a brief coldness, took him back into favor. His power of cursing had been restored, to him. The doubt was only whether the pope had recalled the safeguards which he had given to the king. The pope's agents, on the failure of the conference, gave Henry a second letter, in which Alexander told him that, unless peace was made, he could not restrain the archbishop longer. Again representatives of the various parties hurried off to Rome, Becket insisting that if the pope would only be firm the king would yield, Henry embarrassing the pope more completely than threats of schism could have done by placing the Constitutions unreservedly in his hands, and binding himself to adopt any change which the pope might suggest. Becket, feverish and impatient, would not wait for the pope's decision, and preferred to force his hand by action. He summoned the Bishops of London and Salisbury to appear before him. They appealed to Rome, but their appeal was disregarded. Appeals, as Becket characteristically said, were not allowed in order to shield the guilty, but to protect the innocent. On Palm Sunday, at Clairvaux, he took once more to his bell and candles. He excommunicated the two bishops and every one who had been concerned with his propertythe Earl of Norfolk, Sir Ranulf de Broc, whom he peculiarly hated, Robert de Broc, and various other [persons. The chief justice he threatened. The king he still left unmentioned, for fear of provoking the pope too far.

Harassed on both sides, knowing perfectly well on which side good sense and justice lay, yet not daring to declare Becket wrong, and accept what, after all that had passed, would be construed into a defeat of the Church, the unfortunate Alexander drifted on as he best could, writing letters in one sense one day, and contradicting them the next. On the surface he seemed hopelessly false. The falsehood was no more than weakness, a specious anxiety to please the king without offending the archbishop, and trusting to time and weariness to bring about an end. There is no occasion to follow the details of his duplicities. Two legates were again sent-not cardinals this time, but ecclesiastical lawyers, Gratian and Vivian-bound by oath this time to

tian had returned to Rome. Vivian was present, and pressed Lewis to bring the archbishop to reason. Lewis really exerted himself, and not entirely unsuccessfully. Henry was even more moderate than before. The Constitutions, by the confession of Becket's biographer, Herbert, who was with him on the spot, were practically abandoned. Henry's only condition was that the archbishop should not usurp the functions of the civil power; he, on his part, undertaking not to strain the prerogative. Becket dropped his saving clause, and consented to make the promise required of him, if the king would restore his estates, and give him compensation for the arrear rents, which he estimated at 20,000l. Lewis said that money ought not to be an obstacle to peace. It was unworthy of the archbishop to raise so poor a difficulty. But here, too, Henry gave way. An impartial estimate should be made, and Becket was to be repaid.

cause no scandal by accepting bribes. As usual, the choice was impartial; Gratian was for Becket, Vivian for the king. So long as his excommunications were allowed to stand, Becket cared little who might come. He added the chief justice to the list of the accursed, as he had threatened to do. He wrote to the Bishop of Ostia that the king's disposition could only be amended by punishment. The serpent head of the finiquity must now be bruised, and he bade the bishop impress the necessity of it upon the pope. Gratian was taken into Becket's confidence. Vivian he treated coldly and contemptuously. According to Herbert and Becket's friends, Gratian reported that the king was shifty and false, and that his object was to betray the Church and the archbishop. Henry himself declared that he assented to all that they proposed to him, and Diceto says that the legates were on the point of giving judgment in Henry's favor when the Archbishop of Sens interposed and forbade them. In the confusion of statement the actions of either party alone can be usefully attended to, and behind the acts of all, or at least of the pope, there was the usual ambiguity. Alexander threatened the king. He again empowered Becket to use whatever power he possessed to bring him to submission, and he promised to confirm his sentences. As certainly he had secret conferences at Rome with Henry's envoys, and promised, on the other hand, that the archbishop should not be allowed to hurt him. Becket, furious and uncontrollable, called the Bishop of London a parricide, an infidel, a Goliath, a son of Belial; he charged the Bishop of Hereford to see that the sentence against Foliot and his brother of Salisbury should be observed in England. Henry, on the other hand, assured Foliot of protection, and sent him to Rome with letters from himself to pursue his appeal and receive absolution from the pope himself. The Count of Flanders interposed, the Count of Mayence interposed, but without effect. At length on the 18th of November, [the anniversary of the conference with the cardinals at Gisors, Henry and Lewis met again at Montmartre outside Paris, Becket and his friends being in attendance in an adjoining chapel. Gra

But now, no more than before, had the archbishop any real intention of submitting. His only fear was of offending Lewis. The Archbishop of Sens had gone to Rome to persuade the pope to give him legatine powers over Henry's French dominions. The censures of the Church might be resisted in England. If Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine were laid under interdict, these two spiritual conspirators had concluded that the king would be forced to surrender. Becket was daily expecting a favorable answer, and meanwhile was protracting the time. He demanded guarantees. He did not suspect the king, he said, but he suspected his courtiers. John of Salisbury had cautioned him, and the pope had cautioned him, against so indecent a requisition. Lewis said it was unreasonable. Becket said then that he must have the kiss of peace as a sign that the king was really reconciled to him. He probably knew that the kiss would and must be withheld from him until he had given proofs that he meant in earnest to carry out his engagements. The king said coldly that he did not mean, and had never meant, to injure the Church. He was willing to leave the whole question between himself and the archbishop either to the peers and prelates of France or to the French universities. More he

could not do. The conference at Montmartre ended, as Becket meant that it should end, in nothing.

He sent off despatches to the Archbishop of Sens and to his Roman agents, entirely well satisfied with himself, and bidding them tell the pope that Normandy had only to be laid under interdict and that the field was won Once more he had painfully to discover that he had been building on a quicksand. Instead of the interdict, the pope sent orders to the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bish of Nevers to absolve a second time the victims whom he had excommunicated at Clairvaux. Instead of encouragement to go on and smite the king with the spiritual sword, he received a distinct command to abstain for another interval. Last of all, and worst of all, the pope informed him that at the king's request, for certain important purposes, he had granted a commission, as legate over all England, to his rival and enemy the Archbishop of York. The king's envoys had promised that the commission should not be handed to the Archbishop of York till the pope had been again consulted But the deed was done. The letter had been signed and delivered. The hair shirt and the five daily floggings had been in vain then! Heaven was still inexorable. The archbishop raved like a madman. 'Satan was set free for the destruction of the Church.' 'At Rome it was always the same. Barabbas was let go, and Christ was crucifixed.' 'Come what might, he would never submit, but he would trouble the Roman Church no more.'

Becket had now been for more than five years in exile. He had fought for victory with a tenacity which would have done him credit had his cause been less preposterous. At length it seemed that hope was finally gone. At the supreme moment another opportunity was thrust into his hands. Henry's health was uncertain; he had once been dangerously ill. The succession to the English crown had not yet settled into fixed routine. Of the Conqueror's sons William had been preferred to Robert. Stephen supplanted Matilda; but the son of Stephen was set aside for Matilda's son. To prevent disputes it had been long decided that Prince Henry must be crowned and

receive the homage of the barons while his father was still living.

The pope in person had been invited to perform the ceremony. The pope had found it impossible to go, and among the other inconveniences resulting from Becket's absence the indefinite postponement of this coronation had not been the lightest. The king had been reluctant to invade the acknowledged privilege of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and had put it off from year to year, But the country was growing impatient. The archbishop's exile might now be indefinitely protracted. The delay was growing dangerous, and the object of the commission for which the king had asked, and which the pope had granted to the Archbishop of York, was to enable the Archbishop of York to act in the coronation ceremony. The commission in its terms was all that Henry could desire; the pope not only permitted the Archbishop of York to officiate, but enjoined him to do it. Promises were said to have been given that it was not to be used without the pope's consent; but in such a labyrinth of lies little reliance can be placed on statements unconfirmed by writing. The pope did not pretend that he had exacted from the English envoys any written engagement. He had himself signed a paper giving the Archbishop of York the necessary powers, and this paper was in the king's hands. The coronation was the symbol of the struggle in which Becket was now engaged. The sovereign, according to his theory, was the delegate of the Church. In receiving the crown from the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the sovereign formally admitted his dependent position; and so long as it could be maintained that the coronation would not hold unless it was performed either by the Archbishop of Canterbury or by the pope himself, the sovereign's subject state was a practical reality.

Becket saw the favorable moment, and instantly snatched at it. He had many powerful friends in England among the peers and knights. The lay peers, he says in his letters, had always been truer to him than the clergy, they on their part having their own differences with the crown. He had ascertained that the coronation could not be postponed; and

if he could make the validity of it to depend on his own presence, he might redeem his past mortifications, and bring Henry to his feet after all. He knew Alexander's nature, and set his agents to work upon him. He told them to say that if the coronation was accomplished without his own presence the power of the Roman see in England was gone; and thus, when all seemed lost he gained the feeble and uncertain pope to his side once more. In keeping with his conduct throughout the whole Becket difficulty, Alexander did not revoke his previous letter. He left it standing as something to appeal to, as an evidence of his goodwill to Henry. But he issued another injunction to the Archbishop of York, strictly forbidding him to officiate; and he enclosed the injunction to Becket to be used by him in whatever manner he might think fit. The Archbishop of York never received this letter. It was given, we are told, to the Bishop of Worcester, who was in Normandy, and was on the point of returning to England. The Bishop of Worcester was detained, and it did not reach its destination. So runs the story; but the parts will not fit one another, and there is a mystery left unexplained.* This only is certain, that the inhibition was not served on the Archbishop of York. Rumor may have reached England that such a thing had been issued; but the commission which had been formerly granted remained legally unrevoked, and on the 18th of June Prince Henry was crowned at Westminster in his father's presence by the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London, Durham, Rochester, and Salisbury.

It was easy now for Becket to represent to Alexander that the English bishops had rewarded his kindness to them

*It would appear from a letter of John of Salisbury that the prohibitory letter had been purposely withheld by Becket, who was allowing himself to be guided by some idle vaticinia or prophecies. John of Salisbury writes to him (Letters, vol. ii. p. 236): Memineritis quantum periculum et infortunium ad se traxerit mora porrigendi . . . prohibitorias Eboracensi archiepiscopo et episcopis transmarinis. . . . Subtilitatem vestram vaticinia quæ non erant a Spiritu deluserunt. . . . Vaticiniis ergo renunciemus in posterum, quia nos in hac parte gravius infortunia per

culerunt."

by defying his positive injunctions. To the superstitious English barons the existence of the inhibition threw a doubt on the legality of the coronation, and as men's minds then were, and with the wild lawless disposition of such lion cubs as the Plantagenet princes, a tainted title would too surely mean civil war. By illfortune offence was given at the same time to Lewis, who considered that his daughter should have been crowned with her husband, and he resented what he chose to regard as a wilful slight. The pope was told that the coronation oath had been altered, that the liberties of the Church had been omitted, and that the young king had been sworn to maintain the Constitutions of Clarendon. Becket made the most of his opportunity; mistakes, exaggerations, wilful lies, and culpable credulity, did their work effectively; Lewis went to war again, and invaded Normandy; the pope, believing that he had been tricked and insulted, commanded Henry to make peace with the archbishop under threat of instant personal excommunication of himself and an interdict over his whole dominions. Henry flew back from England to Normandy. In a month he dispelled the illusions of Lewis, and restored peace. It was less easy to calm Alexander, who regarded himself, if not openly defied, yet as betrayed by the breach of the promise that the commission to the Archbishop of York should not be used without a fresh permission from himself. Henry knew that a sentence of excommunication against himself, and an interdict over his French dominions, was seriously possible. The risk was too great to be incurred without another effort to compose the weary quarrel. The archbishop, too, on his side had been taught by often repeated experience that the pope was a broken reed. Many times the battle seemed to have been won, and the pope's weakness or ill-will had snatched the victory from him. He had left England because he thought the continent a more promising field of battle for him. He began to think that final success, if he was ever to obtain it, would only be possible to him in his own see, among his own people, surrounded by his powerful friends. He too, on his side, was ready for a form of agreement which would allow him to return and re

possess himself of the large revenues of which he had felt the want so terribly. More than once he and Henry met and separated without a conclusion. At length at Frêteval in Vendôme, on St. Mary Magdalen's day, July 22, an interview took place in the presence of Lewis and a vast assemblage of prelates and knights and nobles; where, on the terms which had been arranged at Montmartre, the king and the archbishop consented to be reconciled. The kiss which before had been the difficulty was not offered by Henry and was not demanded by Becket; but according, to the account given by Herbert, who describes what he himself witnessed, and relates what Becket told him, after the main points were settled, the king and the archbishop rode apart out of hearing of every one but themselves. There the archbishop asked the king whether he might censure the bishops who had officiated at the coronation. The king, so the archbishop in formed his friends, gave his full and free consent. The archbishop sprang from his horse in gratitude to the king's feet. The king alighted as hastily, and held the archbishop's stirrup as he remounted. These gestures the spectators saw and wondered at, unable, as Herbert says, to conjecture what was passing till it was afterwards explained to them.

That the king should have consented as absolutely and unconditionally as Becket said that he did, or even that he should have consented at all in Becket's sense of the word, to the excommunication of persons who had acted by his own orders and under a supposed authority from the pope, is so unlikely in itself, so inconsistent with Henry's conduct afterwards, that we may feel assured that Henry's account of what took place would, if we knew it, have been singularly different. But we are met with a further difficulty. Herbert says positively that the conversation between Becket and the king was

The

private between themselves, that no one heard it or knew the subject of it except from Becket's report. Count Theobald of Blois asserted, in a letter to the pope, that in his presence (me præsente) the archbishop complained of the conduct of the English prelates, and that the king empowered him to pass sentence on them. Yet more remarkably, the archbishop afterwards at Canterbury insisted to Reginald Fitzurse that the king's promises to him had been given in the audience of 500 peers, knights, and prelates, and that Sir Reginald himself was among the audience. Fitzurse denied that he heard the king give any sanction to the punishment of the bishops. He treated Becket's declaration as absurd and incredible on the face of it. The Count of Blois may have confounded what he himself heard with what Becket told him afterwards, or he may have referred to some other occasion. charge against the king rests substantially on Becket's own uncorrected words; while, on the other side, are the internal unlikelihood of the permission in itself and the inconsistency of Becket's subsequent action with a belief that he had the king's sanction for what he intended to do. Had he supposed that the king would approve, he would have acted openly and at once. Instead of consulting the king, he had no sooner left the Frêteval conference than he privately obtained from the pope letters of suspension against the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Durham, and letters of excommunication against the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and Rochester; and while he permitted Henry to believe that he was going home to govern his diocese in peace, he had instruments in his portfolio which were to explode in lightning the moment that he set foot in England, and convulse the country once more.The Nineteenth Century.

OF VULGARITY IN OPINION.

BY A. K. H. B.

THERE are opinions held by human beings which, being revealed to you, enable you to form an estimate of the moral as well as of the intellectual state of

the human being that holds them. You are placed in a position to say not merely whether the human being be a wise man or a blockhead, but whether or not

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