the public authority had usurped, he deemed it right to restore, and to recall to their proper state.  Whence a grave question on the ecclesiastical law and the customs of the realm, having arisen between him and the king of the English, a council being convened, those customs were proposed which the king pertinaciously required to be confirmed by the signatures as well of the archbishop as of his suffragans.  The archbishop with constancy refused, asserting that in them was manifest the subversion of the freedom of the Church.  He was in consequence treated with immense insults, oppressed with severe losses, and provoked with innumerable injuries.  At length, being threatened with death, (because the case of the Church had not yet become fully known, and the persecution seemed to be personal,) he determined that he ought to give place to malice.  Being driven, therefore, into exile, he was honourably received by our lord the pope Alexander[72] at Senon, and recommended {205} with especial care to the Monastery of Pontinea (Pontigny).

    [Footnote 72:  Pope Alexander III. was at this time residing as a
    refugee at Sens, having been driven from Italy a few years
    before by Frederick Barbarossa.]

  Malice, bent on the punishment of Thomas,
  Condemns to banishment the race of Thomas. 
  The whole family goes forth together. 
  No order, sex, age, or condition
  Here enjoys any privilege.

Lesson the Second.

Meanwhile in England all the revenues of the archbishop are confiscated, his estates are laid waste, his possessions are plundered, and by the invention of a new kind of punishment, the whole kin of Thomas is proscribed together.  For all his friends or acquaintance, or whoever was connected with him, by whatever title, without distinction of state or fortune, dignity or rank, age or sex, were alike exiled.  For as well the old and decrepit, as infants in the cradle and women lying in childbirth, were driven into banishment; whilst as many as had reached the years of discretion were compelled to swear upon the holy [Gospels][73] that immediately on crossing the sea they would present themselves to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in order that being so oftentimes pierced even by the sword of sympathy, he would bend his strength of mind to the king’s pleasure.  But the man of God, putting his hand to deeds of fortitude, with constancy bore exile, reproaches, insults, the proscription of parents and friends, for the name of Christ; he was never, by any injury, at all broken or changed.  For so great was the firmness of this confessor of Christ, that he seemed to teach all his fellow exiles, that every soil is the brave man’s country.

    [Footnote 73:  Tactis sacrosanctis.  It may mean reliques, or
    other sacred things.] {206}

  Thomas put his hands to deeds of fortitude,
  He despised losses, he despised reproaches,
  No injury breaks down Thomas: 
  The firmness of Thomas exclaimed to all,
  “Every soil is the brave man’s country.”