In return for concessions which trenched so deeply on the honour and dignity of the crown, Henry reaped only the advantage of seeing his ministers absolved from the sentence of excommunication pronounced against them, and of preventing the interdict which, if these hard conditions had not been complied with, was ready to be laid on his kingdom. It was obviously the dread of this event that induced him to submit to terms so dishonourable, and so anxious was he to conciliate Becket, that he took the most extraordinary steps to flatter his vanity; and even on one occasion humiliated himself so far as to hold the stirrup of the haughty prelate's horse while he twice mounted and dismounted. Becket now took leave of France on his return to England. On his approaching the coast, the archbishop of York and the rest of the suspended prelates ignorant of the compromise, and afraid lest he should publish the pope's sentence against them, endeavoured to oppose his landing by stationing military guards at the different ports. But on being informed that a reconciliation had taken place, they laid down their arms. Becket, elated with his victory, proceeded in the most ostentatious manner to take possession of his diocese. In Rochester and all the towns through which he passed, he was received with the shouts and acclamations of the populace. As he approached Southwark, the clergy, the laity, men of all ranks and ages, came forth to meet him, and celebrated with hymns of joy his triumphant entrance. And though he was commanded by the young prince, whose order to absolve the suspended and excommunicated bishops he had refused to obey, to return immediately to his diocese, he found that he was not mistaken when he reckoned upon the highest veneration of the public towards his person and his dignity. But instead of a temperate and lenient exercise of his authority, he proceeded with the more courage to dart his spiritual thunders, and issued the censures of the church against all who had assisted at the coronation of the young prince, or been active in the late persecution of the exiled clergy. These violent measures exasperated Henry more and more, but he hoped by forbearance and delay on his part to soften the rigour of Becket's opposition, especially since his pride was fully gratified by his restoration. Becket, however, was resolved to push to the utmost the advantages which his present victory gave, and to disconcert the cautious measures of the king by the vehemence and rigour of his own conduct. Assured of support

from Rome, he was little intimidated by dangers which his courage taught him to despise, and which, even if attended with the most fatal consequences, would serve only to justify his ambition and thirst of glory. His refusal to absolve the archbishop of York, induced that prelate, and two others, to lay their complaints before Henry, then residing at Baieux in Normandy. The king foresaw that his whole plan of operations was overthrown, and that the dangerous contest between the civil and ecclesiastical powers must come to an immediate and decisive issue. In his indignation, he could not help exclaiming with great warmth, "That he was an unhappy prince, who maintained a number of lazy insignificant persons about him, none of whom had gratitude or spirit enough to revenge him on a single insolent prelate who gave him such disturbance." These words were heard by four

Stephan. 73-Ep. v. 73.

gentlemen of the court, Reginald Fitz-Urse, William de Tracy, Richard Britow, and Hugh de Morville, and taking them as a hint, they immediately formed a design against the archbishop's life.

Before leaving France, some expressions which they had dropt gave a suspicion of their design, and the king despatched a messenger after them, charging them to attempt nothing against the person of the primate; but these orders arrived too late to prevent the fatal deed. The four assassins, though they took different roads to England, arrived almost at the same time (29th December, 1170) at Saltwoode, near Canterbury;10 and being there joined by some assistants, they proceeded in great haste to the archiepiscopal palace and found the primate but very slenderly attended. They told him they came from the king to command him to absolve the bishops under censure. Becket replied that it was not within the authority of an inferior jurisdiction to set aside the sentence of a superior court, and that the pope's censure could not be reversed but by the pope himself. This answer not satisfying them, they charged the monks of Canterbury, in the king's name, to keep the archbishop safe, that he might be forthcoming, and then departed with a menacing air. The same evening they returned to the palace, and leaving a body of soldiers in the court-yard, rushed into the cloister with their swords drawn, and from thence into the church, where the archbishop was at vespers. "Where is the traitor?" they exclaimed, and nobody answering, they asked for the archbishop; upon which Becket moved towards them, without showing the least sign of fear, and told them he was the person. When one of them threatened him with death, he coolly answered he was prepared to die for the cause of God, and in defence of the rights of the church; "but," added he, "if you must have my life, I charge you not to hurt any other person here, either clergy or laity, for none of them have any concern in the late transactions." The assassins immediately laid hands on him, and offered to drag him out of the church, but finding it could not be done without difficulty, they despatched him on the spot. He made no resistance, and though his head was cloven with several wounds, he never gave a groan nor offered to avoid a stroke." He was only in the fiftythird year of his age. One of his attendants, a clergyman belonging to the cathedral, having interposed his arm to ward off a blow, had it nearly cut off. The murderers afraid they had gone too far, durst not return to the king's court in Normandy, but rather chose to withdraw to Knaresborough, to a tower belonging to Hugh de Morville. Here they continued till they found themselves the aversion and contempt of the country, for nobody would hold conversation or eat or drink with them. Justice, we should have thought, would soon have overtaken their crime, but there was no law to inflict capital punishment on any person who had killed a member of the church, the clergy having exempted themselves from the king's jurisdiction. Tired of solitude and public neglect, they took a journey to Rome, and being admitted to penance, they went to Jerusalem, where they spent the remainder of their lives in penitential austerities. The body of Becket, which the assassins had hesitated whether to throw into the sea or cut into small pieces, was buried by the monks and friars in a vault of the cathedral 10 Gervase, 1414.

"} Stephan. 81-88.-Quadrilogus, III. 13-18.-Gervase, 1415

The intelligence of the murder threw Henry into the greatest consternation. He was fully sensible of the dangerous consequences which he had reason to apprehend from so unexpected an event, and as it was extremely his interest to clear himself from all suspicion, he took no care to conceal the depth of his affliction. He shut himself up in his chamber, suspended all intercourse with his servants, and even refused, during three days, food or sustenance of any kind. But the point of chief importance was to convince the pope of his innocence, and for this purpose he immediately despatched an embassy to Rome. Alexander was highly incensed at the king, and stimulated to revenge by the letters he received from the partisans of Becket. The king of France wrote to his holiness to draw St Peter's sword against Henry, and to study some new and exemplary justice;' others were equally urgent, and moved for an interdict upon his dominions. But the ambassadors found means so far to appease the pontiff, as to avoid the terrible blow of excommunication, having made oath before the whole consistory that their prince was innocent, and that he would stand to the pope's judgment in the affair, and make every submission that should be required of him. Accordingly, on returning to England next year, Henry repaired to Canterbury where he did penance, and underwent a voluntary discipline in testimony of his regret for the murder. When he came within sight of the cathedral where the body was buried, he alighted from his horse and walked barefoot in the habit of a pilgrim till he came to Becket's tomb, where, after he had prostrated himself and prayed for a considerable time, he submitted to be scourged by the monks, and passed all that day and night kneeling on the bare stones without any refreshment. For nearly a year after Becket's death, all divine offices ceased in the church of Canterbury until it was re-consecrated by order of the pope. In 1173 he was canonized by a papal bull, and a particular collect was appointed to be used in all the churches within the province for expiating the guilt of the murder of that blessed martyr and bishop !' 12 In 1221, the body was taken up in presence of Henry III. and a great concourse of the nobility and others, and deposited in a rich shrine on the east side of the church, erected at the expense of Stephen Langton, then archbishop of Canterbury. His shrine was visited from all parts, and enriched with the most costly offerings. Pilgrimages were performed to obtain his intercession with heaven, and in one year it was computed that above 100,000 of these pious devotees visited Canterbury. The miracles said to have been wrought at his tomb were so numerous, that Gervase of Canterbury tells us there were two large volumes filled with them kept in that church.

A character so extraordinary was sure to be variously represented according as the portrait was drawn by friends or enemies. Most contemporary writers justify his conduct throughout and make him a glorious martyr. The clergy extolled the greatness of his sanctity and his merits, exalting him far above all the cloud of witnesses' who had by their blood cemented the fabric of the church. Later writers, however, have set his character in a very disadvantageous light, accusing him of insolence, bigotry, perjury and treason, both against his king and his country. In the main ground of the quarrel, that of requiring

Forty-eight years after his decease, the doctors of the university of Paris had a warm dispute whether he was saved or damned.

ecclesiastics, guilty of felony, murder, or other high crimes, to be punished directly by the secular magistrate, it cannot be denied that the English constitution afforded several precedents in favour of the archbishop's opinion. Alfred executed a judge for trying and condemning a clerk; and in the contest between Anselm and William, it was taken for granted that none but the pope had a right to try the archbishop. But allowing all this, the exemption of clerks from the civil courts was no right inseparable from their order, but only a privilege granted them by the crown, and therefore revokable by the same authority. From all which it follows, that whatever may be said of Becket's opposition at first, yet after the parliament of Clarendon had enacted, "that clerks should be tried in the king's courts," he ought not to have insisted upon the prior exemption. As to the other parts of his conduct, his first signing and then renouncing the articles of Clarendon,-his quitting the kingdom without the royal permission,—his refusing to return to his see upon the best terms enjoyed by any of his predecessors, his breaking off the accommodation only for being denied the kiss of peace,and similar instances of violence and obstinate inflexibility, these can neither be palliated nor defended. That he was a man of great talents and invincible courage is incontestable, but he was of a most ambitious and turbulent spirit, excessively passionate, haughty and ostentatious, ungrateful in his disposition, and implacable in his resentments. From the cunning and falsehood he occasionally evinced, as well as from his sudden change of life from gaiety and splendour to retirement and abstinence, we can hardly help suspecting that he only became the champion of the church from an ambitious desire of sharing its power,-a power more independent of court favour than the chancellorship, and therefore more agreeable to the pride and haughtiness of his temper. He certainly would have been the most extraordinary person of his age had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had he directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice, instead of being engaged by the prejudices of the times to sacrifice all private obligations and public connexions to duties which he imagined or represented as superior to every civil and political consideration. As to the endless panegyrics on his virtues, it is, indeed, a mortifying reflection to those who are actuated by the love of fame, that the wisest legislator and most exalted genius that ever reformed or enlightened the world, can never expect such eulogies as has been conferred on pretended saints, whose whole conduct was probably to the last degree odious or contemptible, and whose industry was entirely directed to the pursuit of objects pernicious to mankind. Becket was also the subject of poetical legends; a work entitled, 'Lives of the Saints,' in verse, contains an account of his martyrdom and translation. If this author is to be credited, the archbishop was a scholar and had his palace filled with literary men, who passed their time there in reading, disputing. and deciding important questions of the state.

Archbishop Langton.

DIED A. D. 1228.

STEPHEN DE LANGTON, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reigns of John and Henry, and one of the ablest men who ever filled the primacy of England, was educated at the university of Paris, where he afterwards taught divinity, and prelected upon the sacred writings with much reputation. After some years spent in this way, he was chosen chancellor of the university, canon of Paris, and dean of Rheims. His reputation having reached Rome, he was sent for by Pope Innocent III., who marked his sense of his merits by bestowing upon him the dignity of a cardinal with the title of St Chrysagonus.

We have adverted in our notice of king John, to the contest which arose betwixt the monks of Canterbury and the suffragan prelates of that diocese upon the occasion of electing a successor to Archbishop Hubert. On the cause being carried to Rome, on the mutual appeal of both parties, the pope decided against the claims of both pretenders to the primacy, and ordered the monks who had been deputed to maintain the cause of their brethren to elect Langton. Innocent had reason to suppose that the choice would not be disagreeable to the king of England, who had frequently written to the cardinal in terms of the highest esteem; but no answer having been returned by the envoys whom he sent to England to solicit John's approbation of the prelate-elect, he proceeded to consecrate him at Viterbo, on the 27th of June, 1207.1

On the arrival of the bull intimating the election and consecration of the cardinal, John, who had favoured the elevation of John de Gracy, bishop of Norwich, to the vacant primacy, was inflamed with rage, and vented his passion on the monks of Christchurch, whom he drove into exile. He then wrote a spirited and angry letter to the pope, in which he accused the holy father of injustice and presumption in raising a stranger to the highest dignity in his kingdom without his knowledge or consent. He reminded his holiness of the extent of revenue which he drew from England; and assured him that unless he immediately repaired the injury he had done him, he would break off all communication betwixt his kingdom and Rome. To this letter Innocent immediately returned a long answer, in which he exhorted the king not to oppose God and the church any longer, and plainly told him that if he persisted in his obstinacy, he would plunge himself into inextricable difficulties, and would at length be crushed by a power, which no one could hope to resist with success. The quarrel had now become a trial of strength between the power of the king and that of the pontiff. John remained firm even under the dreadful threat of interdiction, which was at last pronounced against him, as already related. While the king continued to hold out against the head of the church, Langton abode at Pontigny in France, whither several of the English bishops hastened to pay their submissions to him as their primate. The king ultimately solicited a conference with Langton at Dover, and offered to acknowledge him as primate, but the parties could not agree as to the article