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[ NOTE M, p. 263 Henry, by the feudal customs, was entitled to levy a tax for the marrying of his eldest daughter, and he exacted three shillings a hide on all England. H. Hunting, p. 379. Some historians (Brady, p. 270, and Tyrrel, vol. ii. p. 182) heedlessly make this sum amount to above eight hundred thousand pounds of our present money; but it could not exceed one hundred and thirty-five thousand. Five hides, sometimes less, made a knight’s fee, of which there were about sixty thousand in England, consequently near three hundred thousand hides; and at the rate of three shillings a hide, the sum would amount to forty-five thousand pounds, or one hundred and thirty-five thousand of our present money. See Rudborne, p. 257. In the Saxon times there were only computed two hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred hides in England.]
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[ NOTE N, p. 266. The legates a latere, as they were called, were a kind of delegates, who possessed the full power of the pope in all the provinces committed to their charge, and were very busy in extending, as well as exercising it. They nominated to all vacant benefices, assembled synods, and were anxious to maintain ecclesiastical privileges, which never could be fully protected without encroachments on the civi[**] power. If there were the least concurrence or opposition, it was always supposed that the civil power was to give way; every deed, which had the least pretence of holding of any thing spiritual, as marriages, testaments, promissory oaths, were brought into the spiritual court, and could not be canvassed before a civil magistrate. These were the established laws of the church; and where a legate was sent immediately from Rome, he was sure to maintain the papal claims with the utmost rigor; but it was an advantage to the king to have the archbishop of Canterbury appointed legate, because the connections of that prelate with the kingdom tended to moderate his measures. William of Newbridge, p. 383, (who is copied by later historians), asserts that Geoffrey had some title to the counties of Maine and Anjou. He pretends that Count Geoffrey, his father, had left his these dominions by a secret will, and had ordered that his body should not be buried till Henry should swear to the observance of it, which he, ignorant of the contents, was induced to do. But besides that this story is not very likely in itself, and savers of monkish fiction, it is found in no other ancient writer, and is contradicted by some of them, particularly the monk of Marmoutier, who had better opportunities than Newbridge of knowing the truth. See Vita Gauf Duc. Norman, p. 103.]
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[ NOTE P, p. 293. The sum scarcely appears credible; as it would amount to much above half the rent of the whole land. Gervase is indeed a contemporary author; but churchmen are often guilty of strange mistakes of that nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with the public revenues. This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand pounds of our present money. The Norman Chronicle (p. 995) lays, that Henry raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight’s fee in his foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says he levied on England, an inequality nowise probable. A nation may by degrees be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound; but a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount without a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little accustomed to taxes. In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight’s fee was computed at four pounds a year. There were sixty thousand knights fees in England.]
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[ NOTE Q, p. 295. Fitz-Stephen, p. 18. This conduct appears violent and arbitrary; but was suitable to the strain of administration in those days. His father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an example of much greater violence. When Geoffrey was master of Normandy, the chapter of Sens presumed, without his consent, to proceed to the election of a bishop; upon which he ordered all of them with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their testicles be brought him in a platter. Fitz-Steph. p. 44. In the war of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the churches within his dominions. See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.]
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[ NOTE R, p. 307. I follow here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to Becket; though, no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards his patron. Lord Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a manuscript letter, or rather manifesto of Folliot, bishop of London, which is addressed to Becket himself; at the time when the bishop appealed to the pope from the excommunication pronounced against him by his primate. My reasons why I give the preference to Fitz-Stephens are, 1. If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens might render him partial to Becket even after the death of that prelate, the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have rendered him more partial on the other side. 2. The bishop was moved by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket. He had himself to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to all, especially to a prelate; and no more effectual means than to throw all the blame on his adversary. 3. He has actually been guilty of palpable calumnies in that letter. Among these, I reckon the following. He affirms that when Becket subscribed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he said plainly to all the bishops of England, “It is my master’s pleasure, that I should forswear myself, and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to incur a perjury, and repent afterwards as I may.” However barbarous the times, and however negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality, these are not words which a primate of great sense and of much seeming sanctity would employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon these principles, but never surely would publicly avow them. Folliot also says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from timidity, and led the way to their subscribing. This is contrary to the testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Beeket’s character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal for ecclesiastical immunities. 4. The violence and injustice of Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest of the prosecution. Nothing could be more iniquitous than, after two years’ silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in his accounts. If the king was so palpably oppressive in one article, he may be presumed to be equally so in the rest. 5. Though Folliot’s letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself, it does not acquire more authority on that account. We know not what answer was made by Becket; the collection of letters cannot be supposed quite complete. But that the collection was not made by one (whoever he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor of them, where there are many passages very little favorable to him, insomuch that the editor of them at Brussels, a Jesuit, thought proper to publish them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of Folliot’s. Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to write to ah excommunicated person, whose very commerce would contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his primate, might calumniate him the more freely. 6. Though the sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council, implies that he had refused to make any answer to the king’s court, this does not fortify the narrative of Folliot. For if his excuse was rejected as false and frivolous, it would be treated as no answer. Becket submitted so far to the sentence of confiscation of goods and chattels, that he gave surety, which is a proof that he meant not at that time to question the authority of the king’s courts. 7. It may be worth observing, that both the author of Historia Quadrapartita, Gervase, contemporary writers, agree with Fitz-Stephens; and the latter is not usually very partial to Becket. All the ancient historians give the same account.]