by declaring that the question belonged to him alone to settle.  The chancellor, in a long argument, crushed the already humbled bishop, and raised the king’s anger to its utmost pitch by drawing attention to the fact that Hilary had appealed to Rome to the contempt of the royal dignity.  The king, his countenance changed with fury, turned passionately to the bishop, who tremblingly swore, while Archbishop Theobald crossed himself in amazement at the audacious perjury, that it was the abbot who had got the bull of which Thomas complained.  Theobald entreated that the matter might be settled according to Canon law, but this the king promptly refused.  Finally Hilary was forced to complete submission, and the archbishop prayed that he might be pardoned for any imprudent words he had used against the king’s majesty.  Henry was ever ready to yield everything in form when once he had got his own way.  “Not only,” he answered, “do I now give him the kiss of peace, but if his sins were a hundredfold, I would forgive them all for your prayers and for the love I bear him;” and bishop and abbot and justiciar, all by the king’s orders, joined in the kiss of peace.

But no kiss of peace given at Henry’s orders could turn away the rising wrath of the Church.  A general feeling of danger was in the air, and both sides, in preparing for the inevitable future, chose the same man to fight their battle,—­Thomas, the disciple and secretary of Theobald, Thomas, the minister of the king’s reforms.  The young king had turned with passionate affection to his brilliant chancellor.  In hall, in church, in council-chamber, on horseback, he was never separated from his friend.  Thomas, like his master, was always ready for hunting, or for hawking, or for a game of chess.  He was willing, too, to save the king the cost and burden of entertainment and display.  He was careful to magnify his office.  He held a splendid court, where Henry’s son and a train of young nobles were brought up to knightly accomplishments.  He was dressed in scarlet and furs, and his clothes were woven with gold.  His table was covered with gold and silver plate, and his servants had orders to buy the most costly provisions in the shops for cooked meat, which were then the glory of the city.  His household was the talk of London.  The king himself, curious to see how things went on, would sometimes come on horseback to watch the chancellor sitting at meat, or, bow in hand, would turn in on his way from hunting, and, vaulting over the table, would sit down and eat with him.  Henry lavished gifts on him, so that according to one of his chroniclers, “when he might have had all the churches and castles of the kingdom if he chose since there was none to deny him, yet the greatness of his soul conquered his ambition; he magnanimously disdained to take the poorer benefices, and required only the great things—­the provostship of Beverley, the deanery at Hastings, the Tower of London with the service of the soldiers