belonging to it, the castle of Eye with 140 soldiers, and that of Berkhampstead.” or was the king’s favour misplaced, for Thomas was an excellent servant.  Business was rapidly despatched by him; and Henry found himself relieved of the most irksome part of his work.  The chancellor surrounded himself by able men, looking even as far as Gaul for poor Englishmen who were distinguished for their talent; fifty-two clerks were employed under him in the Chancery.  As he grew more and more important to his master, unlimited powers were put in his hand.  There are even entries in the Pipe Roll of pardons issued by him, the first instance of such a right ever used by any save king or queen.  It was said that those who had the king’s favour might count it as a vain thing, unless they had also the friendship of the chancellor.  “The king’s dominions, which reach from the Arctic Ocean to the Pyrenees, he put into your power, and in this alone was any man thought happy, that he should find favour in your eyes,” runs a letter written afterwards to Thomas.

To complete the king’s schemes, however, one dignity yet remained to be conferred on Thomas.  He was eager, in view of his proposed reconstruction of Church and State, to adopt the Imperial system of a chancellor-archbishop.  The difficulties in the way were great, for ancient custom limited the technical supremacy of the king’s will in the choice of the Primate.  No archbishop since the Conquest had been chosen for other reasons than those of piety and learning; no secular primate had been appointed since Stigand, and before Stigand there had never been one at all; no deacon had ever been chosen for this high office; and never had a king’s officer been made archbishop, however common it may have been to put chancellor or treasurer in less important sees.  Amid the anxiety and questioning which followed the death of Theobald in 1161, Thomas himself clearly saw the parting of the ways:  “Whoever is made archbishop,” he said, “must quickly give offence to God or to the king.”  Henry alone knew no hesitation.  Fresh from his triumphs abroad, master of his great empire, clear and decided in his projects for the ordering of his dominions, eager with the force and determination of twenty-eight years, recognizing no check to his imperious will and the dictates of his friendship, he chose Thomas as archbishop, “Matilda dissuading, the kingdom protesting, the whole Church sighing and groaning.”  The king, who was then in France, sent his envoy, Richard de Lucy, to Canterbury to press the essential problem home in plain words:  “If,” he said, “the king and the archbishop are joined together in affection, the state of the Church will still be quiet and happy; but if the thing should fall out otherwise, what strife may come from it, what difficulties and tumults, what loss and peril to souls, I cannot hide from you.”  The argument prevailed, and in London, in the presence of the king’s little son Henry, then seven years