Henry had, however, peculiar advantages in the contest.  He was master of a disciplined body of ministers and servants, in whom he could confidently trust.  He was sure, in this matter at least, of the support of the lay baronage, who had long arrears of jealousy to make up against their hereditary opponents the clergy, and who were not likely now to forget that no party in the Church had ever made common cause with the feudal lords.  He could count on the obedience of the secular clergy.  In France or Germany the bishops were members of the great houses, and as powerful local rulers wielded a vast feudal authority.  In England their position was very different.  They were drawn from the staff of the king’s chapel, and had their whole training in the administration of the court; and they formed an official nobility who were charged, in common with the secular nobility, with the conduct of the general business of the realm.  They were appointed to their places by the king for services done to him, and as instruments of his policy.  Neither Pope nor people had any share in their election.  Their estates were granted them by the same titles, and with the same obligations as those of feudal barons; the king could withhold their temporalities, sequestrate their lands, confiscate their personal goods, and burden them with heavy fines; they lay absolutely at his mercy without appeal.  Every tie of feudal duty, of official training, of prudent self-interest, forced them into subjection to the Crown.  Their Roman sympathies were quenched as they watched the growing independence of the monasteries, and saw Church endowments taken to enrich the new religious houses of every kind which were springing up all over England.  They feared the new authority claimed by legates, which threatened to withdraw the clergy, if they chose to assert their claims, from regular episcopal jurisdiction.  They were thrown on the side of the king in ecclesiastical questions, drawn together by a common cause, both alike found their interest in the defence of national tradition as opposed to foreign custom.

Their leaders too looked coldly on the cause of the Primate.  The Archbishop of York, Roger of Pont l’Eveque, once the companion of Thomas in Theobald’s household, was now his personal enemy and rival.  The two prelates inherited the secular strife as to which see should have the precedence.  Moreover, while Canterbury represented the papal policy and always looked to Rome, York preserved some faint traditional leanings towards the liberties of the Irish and Scotch churches from whence the Christianity of the north had sprung.  The Bishop of London, Gilbert Foliot, who, with the approval of Thomas, had been translated from Hereford only five months before, was, by his mere position, marked out as the chief antagonist of the archbishop, for St Pauls was at the head of the whole body of secular clergy throughout southern England, and to its bishop inevitably fell the leadership