ENGLAND. 



607 



History, feudal vassals. He gave charters to several towns, by 

 > "^Y"*' which the citizens held their freedom and privileges 

 from the sovereign himself; and thus, by enlarging the 

 power of the people, he diminished that of the nobility, 

 and was enabled to levy armies independent of the ba- 

 rons. 



So far Henry's schemes of reformation were crowned 

 with success ; but when he attempted to repress the en- 

 croachments of the clergy, he found himself surround- 

 ed with difficulties, and involved in danger and dis- 

 quietude. He had long cherished the design of putting 

 a stop to clerical usurpations, and of maintaining the 

 prerogatives of the crown ; hut the mild character, and 

 advanced years of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, 

 prevented him from employing any active measures 

 while that prelate lived. On his death, however, he re- 

 solved to exert liimself, and, for this purpose, raised to 

 A.D. 1162. the primacy his chancellor Thomas-a-Becket, on whose 

 fidelity and compliance he thought he could entirely 

 depend. 



The clergy, during the former reign, had been ad- 

 vancing, with rapid strides, to independence ; and such 

 was the height which they had gained, that it was dif- 

 ficult to determine whether the king or the primate was 

 the first man in the kingdom. They had extorted from 

 Stephen new privileges, and immunities wholly incon- 

 sistent with the liberty of the subject, or the welfare of 

 the kingdom. They had renounced all immediate sub- 

 ordination to the civil magistrate. They claimed ex- 

 emption, not only from the usual taxes of the state, but 

 also from its punishments, and pretended that ecclesias- 

 tical penalties alone could be inflicted on their offences. 

 Innumerable crimes were the effects of these privileges, 

 and murders, robberies, and rapes, were daily perpetra- 

 ted with impunity by the lower orders of the church. 

 No less than one hundred murders are said to have 

 been committed, since the king's accession, by eccle.si- 

 a-l ics ; mm holy wclcrs were considered as a sufficient 

 protection for every species of guilt. The first abuse, 

 however, which Henry attempted to remedy, WHS the 

 commutation of money for penances, which had been 

 inflicted as an atonement for sins. To such an extent 

 had this imposition grown, that more money was drawn 

 from the people in that way, than was produced by all 

 the funds and taxes in the kingdom ; and to relieve his 

 ubjects, in some degree, from such a heavy and arbi- 

 trary burden, Henry required that a civil officer should, 

 tor the future, be present in all ecclesiastical courts, to 

 tfivt; his consent in every case of a composition for spi- 

 ritual offences. He next proceeded to the correction of 

 more heinous irregularities, and he soon had an oppor- 

 tunity afforded him of exerting his abilities to the ut- 

 most. A clerk in the diocese of Sarum, having de- 

 bauched a gentleman's daughter, afterwards murdtTcd 

 the father ; Cor which crime he was tried in the arch- 

 bithop'a court, and was punished only with degrada- 

 tion. This circumstance had excited such general in- 

 dignation, that the king commanded the murderer to 

 be delivered up to the civil magistrate, to receive the 

 pmiMmient of the law. Hut Hc-cket, who, since his 

 exaltation to the primacy, had broken off nil personal 

 intercourse with Henry, and opposed him in all his 

 of remedying clerical abuses, (see BE< KET,) in- 

 sisted upon the privileges of their order. He asserted 

 that no ecclesiastic could be punished with death ; and 

 even hinted to the king, that it did not become him to 

 intermeddle in the affairs of the church. 



Henry was not of a disposition to submit, either to 

 insolence or injustice. He considered this case as a suf- 



Histerv. 



ficient pretence for bringing, at once, to a decision, those 

 controversies which were daily arising between the civil ^^"V"" 1 ' 

 and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and to define precisely 

 what were the powers of the civil magistrate. For this 

 purpose he convoked all the prelates of the realm, and 

 demanded of them, whether or not they would submit 

 to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom : they 

 replied, that they would, saving their own order. Hen- 

 ry, indignant at this evasion, left the assembly ; and the 

 bishops were so terrified by his threats, that they all 

 complied except Becket, who for a time was inflexible, Jan . 9^ 

 but who also was induced to yield at the request of the H64. 

 pope's legate. 



The king then summoned a general council of the The const I- 

 nobility and prelates, at Clarendon, to whom he sub- tutions of 

 mitted'sixteen propositions, which were immediately Clarendon. 

 agreed to, and which are well known under the title of 

 the Constitution!! of Clarendon. Among others, it was 

 enacted, that all suits respecting the advowson and pre- 

 sentation of churches, should be determined in the civil 

 courts ; that clergymen, accused of any crime, should 

 be tried by the temporal judges ; that no person, parti- 

 cularly no bishop, should leave the kingdom, without 

 the king's license ; that no officer of the crown should 

 be excommunicated or suspended, without the sove- 

 reign's consent; that no appei>.l should be carried to the 

 holy see, except with the permission of the king; that 

 all prelates should be regarded as barons of the realm, 

 .should possess the privileges, and be subject to the bur- 

 dens imposed upon that rank ; that goods forfeited to 

 the king should not be protected in churches and 

 church-yards ; and that the sons of villeins should not 

 receive holy orders, without the consent of their lord. 

 To these, all the bishops, and even Becket himself, after 

 some entreaty, set their seals, and also took an oath to 

 observe the constitutions of Clarendon, legally, with good 

 faith, and without fraud or reserve. The sanction of 

 I'ope Alexander III. would now have completed Hen- 

 ry's triumph ; but that pontiff, perceiving the tendency 

 of these laws to establish the independence of the civil 

 power on the clergy, rejected them all but six, which 

 were of the least importance, and which he was willing 

 to ratify for the sake of peace. When Becket was in- 

 formed of Alexander's decision, he expressed the deep- 

 est sorrow for his compliance; and even suspended him- 

 self from the exercise of all ecclesiastical functions, un- 

 til he should receive absolution from the pope. 



Henry, roused to indignation by the insolence and Henry pro. 

 obstinacy of the primate, resolved to make him feel the secutcs the 

 weight of his vengeance. He desired the pope to grant 

 a legantine commission to the Archbishop of York. 

 This was sent, but a clause was annexed, forbidding 

 him to execute any act in prejudice of the Archbishop 

 of Canterbury. The king, disappointed in his purpose, 

 returned the commission by the same messenger that 

 brought it. He then instituted an action against him, 

 for some lands which he held in his primacy. Beeket 

 excused himself for not appearing personally in court, 

 on account of sickness, but sent four knights to plead 

 his cause. This was construed into a disrespect for the 

 king's court ; and for this offence, the primate, in a 

 great council held at Northampton, was punished with 

 the confiscation of all his goods and chattels ; and Hen- 

 ry, bishop of Winchester, was compelled, by order of 

 the court, to pronounce the sentence against him. He 

 was next day prosecuted for various small sums, which 

 had passed between him and the king, which he was 

 obliged to pay ; and then, as if to crush him at once, 

 Henry demanded of him to give an account of his ad- 



