The History of England, Volume I Henry II Quarrel between the king and Becket
by David Hume
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 endeavoured 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 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 farther 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 vigour the rights, real
or pretended, of his see [f].
[ [f] Fitz-Steph. p. 28 Gervase, p. 1384.]
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 [g]. 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 to the king to inform him whom he should
absolve and whom excommunicate [h]: 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.
[ [g] M. Paris, p. 7. Diceto, p. 536. [h] Fitz-Steph. p. 28.]
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 vigour of his administration, attended
with perpetual success, had raised his character above that of any of
his predecessors [i]: the papacy seemed to be weakened by a schism
which divided all Europe: and he rightly judged, that if the present
favourable 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.
[ [i] Epist. St. Thom. p. 130.]
The union of the civil and ecclesiastic 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.
Among their other inventions to obtain money, the clergy 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 [k] 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.
[ [k] Fitz-Steph. p. 32.]
The ecclesiastics, in that age, had renounced all immediate
subordination to the magistrate: they openly pretended to an
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 [l]; 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 [m].
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 [n].
[ [l] Neubr. p. 394. [m] Fitz-Steph. p. 33. Hist. Quad. p. 32.
[n] 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.]
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 of
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 [o]: a device by which they
thought to elude the present urgency of the king's demand, yet reserve
to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all
their pretensions. The king was sensible of the artifice, and was
provoked to the highest indignation. He left the assembly, with
visible marks of his displeasure: he required the primate instantly to
surrender the honours and castles of Eye and Berkham: the bishops were
terrified, and expected still farther effects of his resentment.
Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the interposition of the
pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a breach with so
powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could have prevailed
on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general and absolute
promise of observing the ancient customs [p].
[ [o] Fitz-Steph. p. 31. Hist. Quad. p. 34. Hoveden, p. 492. [p]
Hist. Quad. p. 37. Hoveden, p. 493. Gervase, p. 1385.]
But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms:
he resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs
with which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical
usurpations before they were fully consolidated, and could plead
antiquity, as they already did a sacred authority, in their favour.
The claims of the church were open and visible. After a gradual and
insensible progress during many centuries, the mask had at last been
taken off; and several ecclesiastical councils, by their canons which
were pretended to be irrevocable and infallible, had positively
defined those privileges and immunities which gave such general
offence, and appeared so dangerous to the civil magistrate. Henry,
therefore, deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the
limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine
ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival
jurisdictions; and for this purpose he summoned a general council of
the nobility and prelates at Clarendon, to whom he submitted this
great and important question.
