The matter was this:  A young nobleman, who held a clerical office, committed a murder.  As an ecclesiastic, he was brought before the court of the Bishop of Lincoln, and was sentenced to pay a small fine.  But public justice was not satisfied, and the sheriff summoned the canon, who refused to plead before him.  The matter was referred to the King, who insisted that the murderer should be tried in the civil court,—­that a sacred profession should not screen a man who had committed a crime against society.  While the King had, as we think, justice on his side, yet in this matter he interfered with the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts, which had been in force since Constantine.  Theodosius and Justinian had confirmed the privilege of the Church, on the ground that the irregularities of a body of men devoted to the offices of religion should be veiled from the common eye; so that ecclesiastics were sometimes protected when they should be punished.  But if the ecclesiastical courts had abuses, they were generally presided over by good and wise men,—­more learned than the officers of the civil courts, and very popular in the Middle Ages; and justice in them was generally administered.  So much were they valued in a dark age, when the clergy were the most learned men of their times, that much business came gradually to be transacted in them which previously had been settled in the civil courts,—­as tithes, testaments, breaches of contract, perjuries, and questions pertaining to marriage.  But Henry did not like these courts, and was determined to weaken their jurisdiction, and transfer their power to his own courts, in order to strengthen the royal authority.  Enlightened jurists and historians in our times here sympathize with Henry.  High-Church ecclesiastics defend the jurisdiction of the spiritual courts, since they upheld the power of the Church, so useful in the Middle Ages.  The King began the attack where the spiritual courts were weakest,—­protection afforded to clergymen accused of crime.  So he assembled a council of bishops and barons to meet him at Westminster.  The bishops at first were inclined to yield to the King, but Becket gained them over, and would make no concession.  He stood up for the privileges of his order.  It was neither justice nor right which he defended, but his Church, at all hazards,—­not her doctrines, but her prerogatives.  He would present a barrier against royal encroachments, even if they were for the welfare of the realm.  He would defend the independence of the clergy, and their power,—­perhaps as an offset to royal power.  In his rigid defence of the privileges of the clergy we see the churchman, not the statesman; we see the antagonist, not the ally, of the King.  Henry was of course enraged.  Who can wonder?  He was bearded by his former favorite,—­by one of his subjects.