ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



tion of the status and privileges of the clergy seemed to Henry inconsistent 

 with the due order and government of the realm. Henry's violence of 

 method and personal want of character led Becket to see in him a deadly enemy 

 of the Church and of religion. 



The archbishop had not long been consecrated when he began to offend 

 the king, first by objecting to the conversion of ' sheriff^s aid ' into a royal 

 tax,' then by excommunicating a tenant-in-chief, without first consulting the 

 king according to custom,' but chiefly by his championship of the immunity 

 of the clergy from the jurisdiction of the secular courts. A case in point was 

 that of Philip de Broi, a canon in the Lincoln diocese, who, having been 

 acquitted in the bishop's court on a charge of murder, refused to plead in a 

 secular court, and insulted the judge. The king insisted on the necessity of 

 a secular trial of the accused, both for murder and for contempt, but Becket 

 revoked the case to Canterbury, where, after the decision that the question as 

 to murder could not be re-opened, the canon was duly punished for insulting 

 the lay judge. ^ Not satisfied, however, the king presently requested the 

 assent of the bishops to the customs of Henry I, involving the delivery of 

 criminous clerks to the secular court immediately after degradation by the 

 court ecclesiastical. But the bishops would not assent without a reservation 

 of the rights of their order.* This reservation formed the principal subject of 

 a curious conference between Becket and the king near Northampton. 

 Henry, who was there first, would not let the archbishop enter the town, 

 alleging that it would not contain the retinues of both, and rode out to meet 

 him, when a conversation took place in the open air. In spite of Henry's 

 angry reproaches, however, Becket firmly refused to retract the obnoxious 

 stipulation.^ Among those wavering bishops whom the king now formed 

 into a party against their chief, was Robert de Chesney, bishop of Lincoln.* 

 The breach between king and primate was further widened by the latter's 

 attitude at the council of Clarendon in January 1164, when he promised to 

 observe the customs of Henry I, yet objected to confirm that promise when 

 the royal claim for the predominance of the secular power was defined by the 

 reduction of the customs to writing.'' Further offence was caused by his 

 apparent contempt of a summons to appear in the king's court, whither one 

 John the Marshal, taking advantage of a recent royal order, had transferred a 

 suit which he had instituted against the archbishop in the latter's own court.* 

 Shortly afterwards he was again summoned, not directly, but through the 

 sheriff of Kent,' to appear at a council at Northampton. He arrived there 

 on Tuesday, 6 October, 1 1 64 (after some annoyance from the king's retinue, 

 who had occupied his lodgings), and was housed at the priory of St. Andrew.'" 

 Next day the king refused the kiss of peace." On Thursday Becket was con- 

 demned by the lay lords and the prelates sitting in the council together, to 

 forfeiture of all his movable property for contempt of the first summons, and 

 was required to answer for >C3°° ^"^ ^^^ ^^^ castles of Eye and Berkhamp- 

 stead ; and on Friday he was sentenced to repay to the king a loan of £s°° 



' Materials for Hist, of Thomas Becket (Rolls Ser.), i, 12. 



' Ibid, iii, 43. ' Ibid, i, 12 ; ii, 374 ; iii, 45 ; iv, 24. 



* Ibid, ii, 376; iv, 202-5. * Ibid, iv, 27. ' Ibid. 30; ii, 327, 



' Ibid, i, 15-23 ; ii, 3 1 1, 379-83 ; iii, 46-9, 278-89 ; iv, 33-7, 99-103, 189, 206-8. 



' Ibid, iv, 40, cf. i, 20, § vii. 



' Ibid, iii, 51. '" Ibid. 50 ; iv, 42. " Ibid, iii, 50. 



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