1129.
Upon the King's return from Normandy, a great council of the clergy was held at London, for the punishing of priests who lived in concubinage, which was the great grievance of the Church in those ages, and had been condemned by several canons. This assembly thinking to take a more effectual course against that abomination, as it was called, decreed severe penalties upon those who should be guilty of breaking it, entreating the King to see the law put in execution; which he very readily undertook, but performed otherwise than was expected, eluding the force of the law by an evasion to his own advantage: for exacting fines of the delinquent priests, he suffered them to keep their concubines without further disturbance. A very unaccountable step in so wise a body for their own concernments, as the clergy of those times is looked upon to have been; and although perhaps the fact be not worth recording, it may serve as a lesson to all assemblies never to trust the execution of a law in the hands of those who will find it more to their interests to see it broken than observed.