Life of Thomas a Becket Part 3

[SN: Meeting near Gisors.]

The cardinal Legates traveled in slow state. They visited first Becket at Sens, afterwards King Henry at Rouen. At length a meeting was agreed on to be held on the borders of the French and English territory, between Gisors and Trie. The proud Becket was disturbed at being hastily summoned, when he was unable to muster a sufficient retinue of hors.e.m.e.n to meet the Italian cardinals. The two kings were there. Of Henry's prelates the Archbishop of Rouen alone was present at the first interview. Becket was charged with urging the King of France to war against his master. [SN: Octave of St. Martin. Nov. 23.] On the following day the King of France said in the presence of the cardinals, that this impeachment on Becket's loyalty was false. To all the persuasions, menaces, entreaties of the cardinals[136] Becket declared that he would submit, "saving the honor of G.o.d, and of the Apostolic See, the liberty of the Church, the dignity of his person, and the property of the churches. As to the Customs he declared that he would rather bow his neck to the executioner than swear to observe them. He peremptorily demanded his own restoration at once to all the honors and possessions of his see." The third question was on the appeal of the bishops. Becket inveighed with bitterness on their treachery towards him, their servility to the King. "When the shepherds fled all Egypt returned to idolatry." Becket interpreted these "shepherds" as the clergy.[137] He compares them to the slaves in the old comedy; he declared that he would submit to no judgment on that point but that of the Pope himself.

[SN: The Cardinals before the King.]

The Cardinals proceeded to the King. They were received but coldly at Argences, not far from Caen, at a great meeting with the Norman and English prelates. The Bishop of London entered at length into the King's grievances and his own; Becket's debt to the King,[138] his usurpations on the see of London. At the close Henry, in tears, entreated the cardinals to rid him of the troublesome churchman. William of Pavia wept, or seemed to weep from sympathy. Otho, writes Becket's emissary, could hardly suppress his laughter. The English prelates afterwards at Le Mans solemnly renewed their appeal. Their appeal was accompanied with a letter, in which they complain that Becket would leave them exposed to the wrath of the King, from which wrath he himself had fled;[139] of false representations of the Customs, and disregard of all justice and of the sacred canons in suspending and anathematizing the clergy without hearing and without trial. William of Pavia gave notice of the appeal for the next St. Martin's Day (so a year was to elapse), with command to abstain from all excommunication and interdict of the kingdom till that day.[140] Both cardinals wrote strongly to the Pope in favor of the Bishop of London.[141]

[SN: Dec. 29.]

At this suspension Becket wrote to the Pope in a tone of mingled grief and indignation.[142] He described himself as the most wretched of men; applied the prophetic description of the Saviour's unequaled sorrow to himself. He inveighed against William of Pavia:[143] he threw himself on the justice and compa.s.sion of the Pope. But this inhibition was confirmed by the Pope himself, in answer to another emba.s.sage of Henry, consisting of Clarembold, Prior elect of St. Augustine's, the Archdeacon of Salisbury, and others.[144] This important favor was obtained through the interest of Cardinal John of Naples, who expresses his hope that the insolent Archbishop must at length see that he had no resource but in submission.

[SN: May 19. Becket to the Pope.]

Becket wrote again and again to the Pope, bitterly complaining that the successive amba.s.sadors of the King, John of Oxford, John c.u.mmin, the Prior of St. Augustine's, returned from Rome each with larger concessions.[145] The Pope acknowledged that the concessions had been extorted from him. The amba.s.sadors of Henry had threatened to leave the Papal Court, if their demands were not complied with, in open hostility.

The Pope was still an exile in Benevento,[146] and did not dare to reoccupy Rome. The Emperor, even after his discomfiture, was still formidable; he might collect another overwhelming Transalpine force. The subsidies of Henry to the Italian cities and to the Roman partisans of the Pope could not be spared. The Pontiff therefore wrote soothing letters to the King of France and to Becket. He insinuated that these concessions were but for a time. "For a time!" replied Becket in an answer full of fire and pa.s.sion: "and in that time the Church of England falls utterly to ruin; the property of the Church and the poor is wrested from her. In that time prelacies and abbacies are confiscated to the King's use: in that time who will guard the flock when the wolf is in the fold? This fatal dispensation will be a precedent for all ages.

But for me and my fellow exiles all authority of Rome had ceased forever in England. There had been no one who had maintained the Pope against kings and princes." His significant language involves the Pope himself in the general and unsparing charge of rapacity and venality with which he brands the court of Rome. "I shall have to give an account at the last day, where gold and silver are of no avail, nor gifts which blind the eyes even of the wise."[147] [SN: To the Cardinals.] The same contemptuous allusions to that notorious venality transpire in a vehement letter addressed to the College of Cardinals, in which he urges that his cause is their own; that they are sanctioning a fatal and irretrievable example to temporal princes; that they are abrogating all obedience to the Church. "Your gold and silver will not deliver you in the day of the wrath of the Lord."[148] On the other hand, the King and the Queen of France wrote in a tone of indignant remonstrance that the Pope had abandoned the cause of the enemy of their enemy. More than one of the French prelates who wrote in the same strain declared that their King, in his resentment, had seriously thought of defection to the Antipope, and of a close connexion with the Imperial family.[149]

Alexander determined to make another attempt at reconciliation; at least he should gain time, that precious source of hope to the embarra.s.sed and irresolute. His mediators were the Prior of Montdieu and Bernard de Corilo, a monk of Grammont.[150] It was a fortunate time, for just at this juncture, peace and even amity seemed to be established between the Kings of France and England. Many of the great Norman and French prelates and n.o.bles offered themselves as joint mediators with the commissioners of the Pope.

[SN: Meeting at Montmirail.]

A vast a.s.sembly was convened on the day of the Epiphany in the plains near Montmirail, where in the presence of the two kings and the barons of each realm the reconciliation was to take place. Becket held a long conference with the mediators. He proposed, instead of the obnoxious phrase "saving my order," to subst.i.tute "saving the honor of G.o.d;"[151]

the mediators of the treaty insisted on his throwing himself on the King's mercy absolutely and without reservation. With great reluctance Becket appeared at least to yield: his counselors acquiesced in silence.

With this distinct understanding the Kings of France and England met at Montmirail, and everything seemed prepared for the final settlement of this long and obstinate quarrel. [SN: Jan. 6, 1169.] The Kings awaited the approach of the Primate. But as he was on his way, De Bosham (who always a.s.sumes to himself the credit of suggesting Becket's most haughty proceedings) whispered in his ear (De Bosham himself a.s.serts this) a solemn caution, lest he should act over again the fatal scene of weakness at Clarendon. Becket had not time to answer De Bosham: he advanced to the King and threw himself at his feet. Henry raised him instantly from the ground. Becket, standing upright, began to solicit the clemency of the King. He declared his readiness to submit his whole cause to the judgment of the two Kings and of the a.s.sembled prelates and n.o.bles. After a pause he added, "Saving the honor of G.o.d."[152]

[SN: Treaty broken off.]

At this unexpected breach of his agreement the mediators, even the most ardent admirers of Becket, stood aghast. Henry, thinking himself duped, as well he might, broke out into one of his ungovernable fits of anger.

He reproached the Archbishop with arrogance, obstinacy, and ingrat.i.tude.

He so far forgot himself as to declare that Becket had displayed all his magnificence and prodigality as chancellor only to court popularity and to supplant his king in the affections of his people. Becket listened with patience, and appealed to the King of France as witness to his loyalty. Henry fiercely interrupted him. "Mark, Sire (he addressed the King of France), the infatuation and pride of the man: he pretends to have been banished, though he fled from his see. He would persuade you that he is maintaining the cause of the Church, and suffering for the sake of justice. I have always been willing, and am still willing, to grant that he should rule his Church with the same liberty as his predecessors, men not less holy than himself." Even the King of France seemed shocked at the conduct of Becket. The prelates and n.o.bles, having in vain labored to bend the inflexible spirit of the Primate, retired in sullen dissatisfaction. He stood alone. Even John of Poitiers, his most ardent admirer, followed him to Etampes, and entreated him to yield.

"And you, too," returned Becket, "will you strangle us, and give triumph to the malignity of our enemies?"[153]

The King of England retired, followed by the Papal Legates, who, though they held letters of Commination from the Pope,[154] delayed to serve them on the King. Becket followed the King of France to Montmirail. He was received by Louis; and Becket put on so cheerful a countenance as to surprise all present. On his return to Sens, he explained to his followers that his cause was not only that of the Church, but of G.o.d.[155] He pa.s.sed among the acclamations of the populace, ignorant of his duplicity. "Behold the prelate who stood up even before two kings for the honor of G.o.d."

[SN: War of France and England.]

Becket may have had foresight, or even secret information of the hollowness of the peace between the two kings. Before many days, some acts of barbarous cruelty by Henry against his rebellious subjects plunged the two nations again in hostility. The King of France and his prelates, feeling how nearly they had lost their powerful ally, began to admire what they called Becket's magnanimity as loudly as they had censured his obstinacy. The King visited him at Sens: one of the Papal commissioners, the Monk of Grammont, said privately to Herbert de Bosham, that he had rather his foot had been cut off than that Becket should have listened to his advice.[156]

[SN: Excommunication.]

Becket now at once drew the sword and cast away the scabbard. "Cursed is he that refraineth his sword from blood." This Becket applied to the spiritual weapon. On Ascension Day he again solemnly excommunicated Gilbert Foliot Bishop of London, Joscelin of Salisbury, the Archdeacon of Salisbury, Richard de Luci, Randulph de Broc, and many other of Henry's most faithful counselors. He announced this excommunication to the Archbishop of Rouen,[157] and reminded him that whosoever presumed to communicate with any one of these outlaws of the Church by word, in meat or drink, or even by salutation, subjected himself thereby to the same excommunication. The appeal to the Pope he treated with sovereign contempt. He sternly inhibited Roger of Worcester, who had entreated permission to communicate with his brethren.[158] "What fellowship is there between Christ and Belial?" He announced this act to the Pope, entreating, but with the tone of command, his approbation of the proceeding. An emissary of Becket had the boldness to enter St. Paul's Cathedral in London, to thrust the sentence into the hands of the officiating priest, and then to proclaim with a loud voice, "Know all men, that Gilbert Bishop of London is excommunicate by Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury and Legate of the Pope." He escaped with some difficulty from ill-usage by the people. Foliot immediately summoned his clergy; explained the illegality, injustice, nullity of an excommunication without citation, hearing, or trial, and renewed his appeal to the Pope. The Dean of St. Paul's and all the clergy, excepting the priests of certain monasteries, joined in the appeal. The Bishop of Exeter declined, nevertheless he gave to Foliot the kiss of peace.[159]

[SN: Henry's intrigues in Italy.]

King Henry was not without fear at this last desperate blow. He had not a single chaplain who had not been excommunicated, or was not virtually under ban for holding intercourse with persons under excommunication.[160] He continued his active intrigues, his subsidies in Italy. He bought the support of Milan, Pavia, Cremona, Parma, Bologna. The Frangipani, the family of Leo, the people of Rome, were still kept in allegiance to the Pope chiefly by his lavish payments.[161] He made overtures to the King of Sicily, the Pope's ally, for a matrimonial alliance with his family: and finally, he urged the tempting offer to mediate a peace between the Emperor and the Pope.

Reginald of Salisbury boasted that, if the Pope should die, Henry had the whole College of Cardinals in his pay, and could name his Pope.[162]

[SN: New Legatine Commission. Mar. 10, 1169.]

But no longer dependent on Henry's largesses to his partisans, Alexander's affairs wore a more prosperous aspect. He began, yet cautiously, to show his real bias. He determined to appoint a new legatine commission, not now rapacious cardinals and avowed partisans of Henry. The Nuncios were Gratian, a hard and severe canon lawyer, not likely to swerve from the loftiest claims of the Decretals; and Vivian, a man of more pliant character, but as far as he was firm in any principle, disposed to high ecclesiastical views. At the same time he urged Becket to issue no sentences against the King or the King's followers; or if, as he hardly believed, he had already done so, to suspend their powers.

[SN: English prelates waver.]

The terrors of the excommunication were not without their effect in England. Some of the Bishops began gradually to recede from the King's party, and to incline to that of the Primate. Hereford had already attempted to cross the sea. Henry of Winchester was in private correspondence with Becket: he had throughout secretly supplied him with money.[163] Becket skillfully labored to awaken his old spirit of opposition to the Crown. He reminded Winchester of his royal descent, that he was secure in his powerful connexions; "the impious one would not dare to strike him, for fear lest his kindred should avenge his cause."[164] Norwich, Worcester, Chester, even Chichester, more than wavered. This movement was strengthened by a false step of Foliot, which exposed all his former proceedings to the charge of irregular ambition.

He began to declare publicly not only that he never swore canonical obedience to Becket, but to a.s.sert the independence of the see of London and the right of the see of London to the primacy of England. Becket speaks of this as an act of spiritual parricide: Foliot was another Absalom.[165] He appealed to the pride and the fears of the Chapter of Canterbury: he exposed, and called on them to resist, these machinations of Foliot to degrade the archiepiscopal see. At the same time he warned all persons to abstain from communion with those who were under his ban; "for he had accurate information as to all who were guilty of that offence." Even in France this proceeding strengthened the sympathy with Becket. The Archbishop of Sens, the Bishops of Troyes, Paris, Noyon, Auxerre, Boulogne, wrote to the Pope to denounce this audacious impiety of the Bishop of London.

[SN: Interview of the new Legates with the King. Aug. 23.]

The first interview of the new Papal legates, Gratian and Vivian, with the King, is described with singular minuteness by a friend of Becket.[166] On the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day they arrived at Damport. On their approach, Geoffrey Ridel and Nigel Sackville stole out of the town. The King, as he came in from hunting, courteously stopped at the lodging of the Legates: as they were conversing the Prince rode up with a great blowing of horns from the chase, and presented a whole stag to the Legates. The next morning the King visited them, accompanied by the Bishops of Seez and of Rennes. Presently John of Oxford, Reginald of Salisbury, and the Archdeacon of Llandaff were admitted. The conference lasted the whole day, sometimes in amity, sometimes in strife. Just before sunset the King rushed out in wrath, swearing by the eyes of G.o.d that he would not submit to their terms. Gratian firmly replied, "Think not to threaten us; we come from a court which is accustomed to command Emperors and Kings." The King then summoned his barons to witness, together with his chaplains, what fair offers he had made. He departed somewhat pacified. The eighth day was appointed for the convention, at which the King and the Archbishop were again to meet in the presence of the Legates.

[SN: Aug. 31.]

It was held at Bayeux. With the King appeared the Archbishops of Rouen and Bordeaux, the Bishop of Le Mans, and all the Norman prelates. The second day arrived one English bishop--Worcester. John of Poitiers kept prudently away. The Legates presented the Pope's preceding letters in favor of Becket. The King, after stating his grievances,[167] said, "If for this man I do anything, on account of the Pope's entreaties, he ought to be very grateful." The next day at a place called Le Bar, the King requested the Legates to absolve his chaplains without any oath: on their refusal, the King mounted his horse, and swore that he would never listen to the Pope or any one else concerning the restoration of Becket.

The prelates interceded; the Legates partially gave way. The King dismounted and renewed the conference. At length he consented to the return of Becket and all the exiles. He seemed delighted at this, and treated of other affairs. He returned again to the Legates, and demanded that they, or one of them, or at least some one commissioned by them, should cross over to England to absolve all who had been excommunicated by the Primate. Gratian refused this with inflexible obstinacy.

The King was again furious: "I care not an egg for you and your excommunications." He again mounted his horse, but at the earnest supplication of the prelates he returned once more. He demanded that they should write to the Pope to announce his pacific offers. The Bishops explained to the King that the Legates had at last produced a positive mandate of the Pope, enjoining their absolute obedience to his Legates. The King replied, "I know that they will lay my realm under an interdict, but cannot I, who can take the strongest castle in a day, seize any ecclesiastic who shall presume to utter such an interdict?"

Some concessions allayed his wrath, and he returned to his offers of reconciliation. Geoffry Ridel and Nigel Sackville were absolved on the condition of declaring, with their hands on the Gospels, that they would obey the commands of the Legates. The King still pressing the visit of one of the Legates to England, Vivian consented to take the journey. The bishops were ordered to draw up the treaty; but the King insisted on a clause "Saving the honor of his Crown." They adjourned to a future day at Caen. The Bishop of Lisieux, adds the writer, flattered the King; the Archbishop of Rouen was for G.o.d and the Pope.

Two conferences at Caen and at Rouen were equally inconclusive; the King insisted on the words, "saving the dignity of my Crown." Becket inquired if he might add "saving the liberty of the Church."[168]

The King threw all the blame of the final rupture on the Legates, who had agreed, he said, to this clause,[169] but through Becket's influence withdrew from their word.[170] He reminded the Pope that he had in his possession letters of his Holiness exempting him and his realm from all authority of the Primate till he should be received into the royal favor.[171] "If," he adds, "the Pope refuses my demands, he must henceforth despair of my good will, and look to other quarters to protect his realm and his honor." Both parties renewed their appeals, their intrigues in Rome; Becket's complaints of Rome's venality became louder.[172]

Becket began again to fulminate his excommunications. Before his departure Gratian signified to Geoffry Ridel and Nigel Sackville that their absolution was conditional; if peace was not ratified by Michaelmas, they were still under the ban. Becket menaced some old, some new victims, the Dean of Salisbury, John c.u.mmin, the Archdeacon of Llandaff, and others.[173] But he now took a more decisive and terrible step. [SN: Nov. 2, 1170.] He wrote to the bishops of England,[174]

commanding them to lay the whole kingdom under interdict; all divine offices were to cease except baptism, penance, and the viatic.u.m, unless before the Feast of the Purification the King should have given full satisfaction for his contumacy to the Church. This was to be done with closed doors, the laity expelled from the ceremony, with no bell tolling, no dirge wailing; all church music was to cease. The act was specially announced to the chapters of Chichester, Lincoln, and Bath. Of the Pope he demanded that he would treat the King's amba.s.sadors, Reginald of Salisbury and Richard Barre, one as actually excommunicate, the other as contaminated by intercourse with the excommunicate.[175]

The menace of the Interdict, with the fear that the Bishops of England, all but London and Salisbury, might be overawed into publishing it in their dioceses, threw Henry back into his usual irresolution. There were other alarming signs. Gratian had returned to Rome, accompanied by William, Archbishop of Sens, Becket's most faithful admirer.

Rumors spread that William was to return invested in full legatine powers--William, not only Becket's friend, but the head of the French hierarchy. If the Interdict should be extended to his French dominions, and the Excommunication launched against his person, could he depend on the precarious fidelity of the Norman prelates? Differences had again arisen with the King of France.[176] Henry was seized with an access of devotion. [SN: Henry at Paris.] He asked permission to offer his prayers at the shrines and at the Martyrs' Mount (Montmartre) at Paris. The pilgrimage would lead to an interview with the King of France, and offer an occasion of renewing the negotiations with Becket. [SN: Nov. 1169.]

Vivan was hastily summoned to turn back. His vanity was flattered by the hope of achieving that reconciliation which had failed with Gratian.

He wrote to Becket requesting his presence. Becket, though he suspected Vivian, yet out of respect to the King of France, consented to approach as near as Chateau Corbeil. After the conference with the King of France, two pet.i.tions from Becket, in his usual tone of imperious humility, were presented to the King of England. The Primate condescended to entreat the favor of Henry, and the restoration of the Church of Canterbury, in as ample a form as it was held before his exile. The second was more brief, but raised a new question of compensation for loss and damage during the archbishop's absence from his see.[177] [SN: Negotiations renewed.] Both parties mistrusted each other; each watched the other's words with captious jealousy. Vivian, weary of those verbal chicaneries of the King, declared that he had never met with so mendacious a man in his life.[178] Vivian might have remembered his own retractations, still more those of Becket on former occasions. He withdrew from the negotiation; and this conduct, with the refusal of a gift from Henry (a rare act of virtue), won him the approbation of Becket. But Becket himself was not yet without mistrust; he had doubts whether Vivian's report to the Pope would be in the same spirit. "If it be not, he deserves the doom of the traitor Judas."

Henry at length, agreed that on the question of compensation he would abide by the sentence of the court of the French King, the judgment of the Gallican Church, and of the University of Paris.[179] This made so favorable an impression that Becket could only evade it by declaring that he had rather come to an amicable agreement with the King than involve the affair in litigation.

[SN: Kiss of peace.]

At length all difficulties seemed yielding away, when Becket demanded the customary kiss of peace, as the pledge of reconciliation. Henry peremptorily refused; he had sworn in his wrath never to grant this favor to Becket. He was inexorable; and without this guarantee Becket would not trust the faith of the King. He was reminded, he said, by the case of the Count of Flanders, that even the kiss of peace did not secure a revolted subject, Robert de Silian, who, even after this sign of amity, had been seized and cast into a dungeon. Henry's conduct, if not the effect of sudden pa.s.sion or ungovernable aversion, is inexplicable. Why did he seek this interview, which, if he was insincere in his desire for reconciliation, could afford but short delay? and from such oaths he would hardly have refused, for any great purpose of his own, to receive absolution.[180] On the other hand, it is quite clear that Becket reckoned on the legatine power of William of Sens and the terror of the English prelates, who had refused to attend a council in London to reject the Interdict. He had now full confidence that he could exact his own terms and humble the King under his feet.[181]

[SN: King's proclamation.]

But the King was resolved to wage war to the utmost. Geoffry Ridel, Archdeacon of Canterbury, was sent to England with a royal proclamation containing the following articles:--I. Whosoever shall bring into the realm any letter from the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury is guilty of high treason. II. Whosoever, whether bishop, clerk, or layman, shall observe the Interdict, shall be ejected from all his chattels, which are confiscate to the Crown. III. All clerks absent from England shall return before the feast of St. Hilary, on pain of forfeiture of all their revenues. IV. No appeal is to be made to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury under pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of all chattels.

V. All laymen from beyond seas are to be searched, and if anything be found upon them contrary to the King's honor, they are to be imprisoned; the same with those who cross to the Continent. VI. If any clerk or monk shall land in England without pa.s.sport from the King, or with anything contrary to his honor, he shall be thrown into prison. VII. No clerk or monk may cross the seas without the King's pa.s.sport. The same rule applied to the clergy of Wales, who were to be expelled from all schools in England. Lastly, VIII. The sheriffs were to administer an oath to all freemen throughout England, in open court, that they would obey these royal mandates, thus abjuring, it is said, all obedience to Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury.[182] The bishops, however, declined the oath; some concealed themselves in their dioceses. Becket addressed a triumphant or gratulatory letter to his suffragans on their firmness.

"We are now one, except that most hapless Judas, that rotten limb (Foliot of London), which is severed from us."[183] Another letter is addressed to the people of England, remonstrating on their impious abjuration of their pastor, and offering absolution to all who had sworn through compulsion and repented of their oath.[184] The King and the Primate thus contested the realm of England.

[SN: The Pope still dubious.]

But the Pope was not yet to be inflamed by Becket's pa.s.sions, nor quite disposed to depart from his temporizing policy. John of Oxford was at the court in Benevento with the Archdeacons of Rouen and Seez. From that court returned the Archdeacon of Llandaff and Robert de Barre with a commission to the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Nevers to make one more effort for the termination of the difficulties. On the one hand they were armed with powers, if the King did not accede to his own terms within forty days after his citation (he had offered a thousand marks as compensation for all losses), to p.r.o.nounce an interdict against his continental dominions; on the other, Becket was exhorted to humble himself before the King; if Henry was inflexible and declined the Pope's offered absolution from his oath, to accept the kiss of peace from the King's son. The King was urged to abolish in due time the impious and obnoxious Customs. And to these prelates was likewise intrusted authority to absolve the refractory Bishops of London and Salisbury.[185] This, however, was not the only object of Henry's new emba.s.sy to the Pope. He had long determined on the coronation of his eldest son; it had been delayed for various reasons. He seized this opportunity of reviving a design which would be as well humiliating to Becket as also of great moment in case the person of the King should be struck by the thunder of excommunication. The coronation of the King of England was the undoubted prerogative of the Archbishops of Canterbury, which had never been invaded without sufficient cause, and Becket was the last man tamely to surrender so important a right of his see. John of Oxford was to exert every means (what those means were may be conjectured rather than proved) to obtain the papal permission for the Archbishop of York to officiate at that august ceremony.

The absolution of the Bishops of London and Salisbury was an astounding blow to Becket. He tried to impede it by calling in question the power of the archbishop to p.r.o.nounce it without the presence of his colleague.

The archbishop disregarded his remonstrance, and Becket's sentence was thus annulled by the authority of the Pope. Rumors at the same time began to spread that the Pope had granted to the Archbishop of York power to proceed to the coronation. Becket's fury burst all bounds. He wrote to the Cardinal Albert and to Gratian: "In the court of Rome, now as ever, Christ is crucified and Barabbas released. The miserable and blameless exiles are condemned, the sacrilegious, the homicides, the impenitent thieves are absolved, those whom Peter himself declares that in his own chair (the world protesting against it) he would have no power to absolve.[186] Henceforth I commit my cause to G.o.d--G.o.d alone can find a remedy. Let those appeal to Rome who triumph over the innocent and the G.o.dly, and return glorying in the ruin of the Church.

For me I am ready to die." Becket's fellow exiles addressed the Cardinal Albert, denouncing in vehement language the avarice of the court of Rome, by which they were brought to support the robbers of the Church.

It is no longer King Henry alone who is guilty of this six years'