If Becket was narrow, he probably was conscientious.  He may have been ambitious of wielding unlimited spiritual authority.  But it should be noted that, had he not quarrelled with the King, he could have been both archbishop and chancellor, and in that double capacity wielded more power; and had he been disposed to serve his royal master, had he been more gentle, the King might not have pushed out his policy of crippling the spiritual courts,—­might have waived, delayed, or made concessions.  But now these two great potentates were in open opposition, and a deadly warfare was at hand.  It is this fight which gives to Becket all his historical importance.  It is not for me to settle the merits of the case, if I could,—­only to describe the battle.  The lawyers would probably take one side, and Catholic priests would take the other, and perhaps all high-churchmen.  Even men like Mr. Froude and Mr. Freeman, both very learned and able, are totally at issue, not merely as to the merits of the case, but even as to the facts.  Mr. Froude seems to hate Becket and all other churchmen as much as Mr. Freeman loves them.  I think one reason why Mr. Froude exalts so highly Henry VIII. is because he put his foot on the clergy and took away their revenues.  But with the war of partisans I have nothing to do, except the war between Henry II. and Thomas Becket.

This war waxed hot when a second council of bishops and barons was assembled at Clarendon, near Winchester, to give their assent to certain resolutions which the King’s judges had prepared in reference to the questions at issue, and other things tending to increase the royal authority.  They are called in history “The Constitutions of Clarendon.”  The gist and substance of them were, that during the vacancy of any bishopric or abbey of royal foundation, the estates were to be in the custody of the Crown; that all disputes between laymen and clergymen should be tried in the civil courts; that clergymen accused of crime should, if the judges decided, be tried in the King’s court, and, if found guilty, be handed over to the secular arm for punishment; that no officer or tenant of the King should be excommunicated without the King’s consent; that no peasant’s son should be ordained without permission of his feudal lord; that great ecclesiastical personages should not leave the kingdom without the King’s consent.

“Anybody must see that these articles were nothing more nor less than the surrender of the most important and vital privileges of the Church into the hands of the King:  not merely her properties, but her liberties; even a surrender of the only weapon with which she defended herself in extreme cases,—­that of excommunication.”  It was the virtual confiscation of the Church in favor of an aggressive and unscrupulous monarch.  Could we expect Becket to sign such an agreement, to part with his powers, to betray the Church of which he was the first dignitary in England?  When have men parted with their privileges,