THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



which, if once allowed, would not only have made the clergy 

 quite independent, but would have given them the opportunity 

 and the means of wholly subverting the kingly power. They 

 said that if a man contracted with another to do a thing, and 

 confirmed his promise by an oath, the fact that the oath was 

 binding only on the conscience gave them jurisdiction, and in 

 this way they drew before the spiritual courts many questions 

 of ordinary contracts, disputes about which ought rightly to have 

 been tried in the king's courts of .law, which were open to all 

 comers, and from which an appeal lay to the king himself. The 

 last and most important of the clerical claims, however, was 

 that which asserted that no clergyman could be brought to trial 

 in the king's courts, civil or criminal, for any breach of agree- 

 ment, however gross, or for any crime, however heinous. If a 

 clerk was accused of crime, and was arraigned before the king's 

 judges, the bishop of the diocese in which the prisoner dwelt 

 sent an order to the judge, notifying him that the man was in 

 orders, and requiring him to surrender the fellow to the bishop's 

 officer. When brought before the spiritual court the prisoner 

 was often allowed to clear himself on his simple oath, uncorro- 

 borated by any witness, to the effect that he had not done that 

 of which he was accused. If he confessed, or if the ca.-o was 

 clearly proved against him, he was put to penance, sometimes 

 he was put in prison, and sometimes but rarely he was 

 degraded from his ecclesiastical rank. In this way crimes of 

 the most abominable kind, and which, if committed by laymen, 

 were punishable with death, were done with comparative im- 

 punity when clerks were the offenders. Nor was this all. By 

 means of an absurd test, persons who were not, nor ever meant 

 to be, in holy orders, were admitted to the " benefit of clergy." 

 Ability to read or write, no matter how imperfectly, was taken 

 to be of itself sufficient proof that a man was a clerk, so that a 

 layman arraigned before the Icing's justices had only to show 

 that he could read or write what was afterwards appropriately 

 called " the neck verse," and he was forthwith handed over to 

 the ordinary to be put to his purgation in the ecclesiastical 

 court. 



This monstrous immunity, with its yet more monstrous 

 abuses, was like the last straw that broke the camel's back. So 

 flagrantly unjust was it, both in principle and practice, that all 

 honest men were indignant, and cried aloud for some check 

 upon it. The king, who was by means of it and the other pre- 

 tended rights of the clergy gradually ceasing to be master in 

 his own dominions, resolved to apply a curb, and to wipe away 

 the scandal. From the time when he mounted the throne in 

 1154 he had striven to restrain the power of the clergy, and, 

 aided by the clear head and bold hand of his bosom friend 

 Thomas a Becket, had striven not unsuccessfully. Great had 

 been the wrath poured on Becket's head when, as Lord Chan- 

 cellor of England, he had made havoc altogether of many a pet 

 clerical abuse. Under the idea that he would continue the same 

 policy in a sphere where that policy would have the largest 

 possible scope, Henry offered Becket the archbishopric of Can- 

 terbury when that see was vacanttdn 1161. Becket, it must in 

 fairness be admitted, was very averse to accept the offer, and for 

 thirteen months held out a persistent refusal. Finally, how- 

 ever, he yielded to the earnest solicitations and orders of the 

 king, and was duly installed as Primate at Canterbury. 



To the surprise of all men, and to the infinite disgust of the 

 king, Becket from the day of his consecration pursued a totally 

 new course to that he had formerly taken. Nowhere was there 

 so bold an asserter of clerical rights, nowhere a more untiring 

 worker on behalf of the power of the Church. He claimed lands 

 which had onco belonged to the see of Canterbury, but which 

 had long been independent and in laymen's hands ; he excom- 

 municated* the owner of an advowson for ejecting a priest 

 who had been presented by himself ; he asserted the right 

 of the spiritual courts to inquire into questions of contract 

 confirmed by oath ; and in every respect he proved himself 



* Excommunication was the expulsion of a man, by the highest 

 ecclesiastical authority, from the communion of Christian men. The 

 rights and comforts of the Church were refused to the excommuni- 

 cated ; the sacraments were not allowed to be administered to him ; 

 he was reckoned accursed ; and, in times of superstition, he was sup- 

 posed to be eternally lost if he died without absolution. Excommuni- 

 cation was the great weapon of ecclesiastics, and it wao a powerful one 

 in the age of ignorance and moral darkness. 



to be the exact opposite of what Henry had looked for in him. 

 The case which induced .the king to try conclusions with 

 Becket and the clerical party was an exceedingly gross one. A 

 priest in Worcestershire had violated a gentleman's daughter, 

 and afterwards murdered her father. "When the scoundrel was 

 about to be brought to trial before the king's justices, Becket 

 claimed him as a clerk, and getting possession of him, degraded 

 him from his priest's office, and then insisted that he could not 

 be tried again in the king's court for the same offence. 



These were the circumstances under which King Henry sum- ' 

 moned the bishops to Westminster; and the meaning of the 

 words " saving our own order " is sufficiently clear. Henry left 

 the hall in a rage, but it was not an impotent one. By promises, 

 by threats, by various means, he detached most of the prelates 

 from their primate, and ho won over the Archbishop of York by 

 significant hints about the next incumbent of the see of Canter- 

 bury. Last to give in was Becket, who yielded only to the 

 universal pressure brought to bear upon him, and repented as 

 soon as he had assented. But repentance or no repentance, he 

 did assent, and with the rest of the prelates professed his 

 willingness to observe " the ancient customs of the kingdom" 

 which did not recognise the clerical claims and to withdraw 

 the saving clause. 



Henry knew with whom ho had to deal. He knew that a 

 confession of this sort was quite useless unless it could be 

 embodied in some visible instrument. Taking advantage of his 

 success, of the schism in the Papacy (there were t& this time two 

 Popes, one at Home, the other in France, and Henry played off 

 one against the other), and of the resolute support of the barons, 

 who were only too glad to give the spiritual lords a kick down, 

 Henry summoned the primate and all the bishops to meet him 

 at Clarendon, a village in Wiltshire, and there, being backed, 

 like Stephen do Langton on a later occasion, by <; the whole 

 nobility of England," he required their sworn assent to what 

 have been called the Constitutions of Clarendon. 



The "Constitutions" were dreadfully hard eating for the 

 bishops, divesting them as they did of nearly all their invidious 

 privileges, some of which it must be confessed were sanctioned 

 by those " ancient customs " which the king had sworn the 

 bishops to observe. Suits concerning advowsons and rights of 

 presentation were to be decided in the civil courts ; no clerk, no 

 matter of what rank, was to quit the kingdom without the royal 

 permission ; the pretended right to try questions of contracts 

 made on oath was to be renounced; excommunicated persons 

 were not to be made to find security for their residence in any 

 appointed place ; laymen were not to be tried in spiritual courts 

 except by approved good witnesses ; no chief tenant of the 

 crown to be excommunicated without the king's assent ; the 

 final appeal in all spiritual causes to be in the king ; prelates to 

 be regarded as barons of the realm, and to be taxed accordingly ; 

 bishops not to be elected without the royal assent ; the privilege 

 of sanctuary to be curtailed ; and clerks accused of any crime 

 to be tried in the king's courts, like other men. 



The Great Council of the barons unanimously approved the 

 Constitutions, and, sour as the food was, all the prelates, except 

 the primate, swore to accept it "legally, with good faith, and 

 without fraud or reserve." Becket was resolute, though alone ; 

 friends as well as foes besieged his constancy, still he held out ; 

 and it was not till Richard de Hastings, Grand Prior of tho 

 Templars, a man who seldom bent his knee, even in prayer, 

 went down on his knees and besought him, that ho gave in. 

 Unwillingly, and in hope of getting the Pope to annul his 

 oath, he swore like the rest to accept the Constitutions " with 

 good faith, and without fraud or reserve." 



Pope Alexander refused to ratify the treaty ; he released all 

 who had sworn from their oaths, and threatened to excommuni- 

 cate everybody who should try to support the king's demands. 

 A long trial of strength ensued. Becket got over to France, 

 and plotted there against his former friend ; Henry took tho 

 revenues of the hostile bishops into his own hands, and by dint 

 of perseverance managed to keep the clergy in check ; and it is 

 probable he would have done very much more than he did had 

 it not been for the brutal murder oi' Thomas a Becket, which 

 was a blunder as well as a crime. 



In the autumn of I\70 Becket had returned to Canterbury, 

 nominally reconciled to the king ; but the old question which 

 should be the greater being revived, Henry is reported to have 

 said in a hasty moment, " Is there not one of tho.;'; who cat my 



