A king of this character would eagerly listen to suggestions of interested or flattering courtiers, that unless the Primate's power were limited, the authority of the king would be reduced to nothing. The succession to the throne would depend entirely on the clergy, and he himself would reign only so long as might seem good to the Archbishop. Nor were they the baser courtiers alone who feared and hated Becket. The nobles might tremble from the example of De Clare, with whose powerful house almost all the Norman baronage was allied, lest every royal grant should be called in question.[49] Even among the clergy Becket had bitter enemies; and though at first they appeared almost as jealous as the Primate for the privileges of their order, the most able soon espoused the cause of the King; those who secretly favored him were obliged to submit in silence.
Parliament of Westminster.
The King, determined to bring these great questions to issue summoned a Parliament at Westminster. He commenced the proceedings by enlarging on the abuses of the archidiaconal courts. The archdeacons kept the most watchful and inquisitorial superintendence over the laity, but every offence was easily commuted for a pecuniary fine, which fell to them. The King complained that they levied a revenue from the sins of the people equal to his own, yet that the public morals were only more deeply and irretrievably depraved. He then demanded that all clerks accused of heinous crimes should be immediately degraded and handed over to the officers of his justice, to be dealt with according to law; for their guilt, instead of deserving a lighter punishment, was doubly guilty: he demanded this in the name of equal justice and the peace of the realm. Becket insisted on delay till the next morning, in order that he might consult his suffragan bishops. This the King refused: the bishops withdrew to confer upon their answer. The bishops were disposed to yield, some doubtless impressed with the justice of the demand, some from fear of the King, some from a prudent conviction of the danger of provoking so powerful a monarch, and of involving the Church in a quarrel with Henry at the perilous time of a contest for the Papacy which distracted Europe. Becket inflexibly maintained the inviolability of the holy persons of the clergy.[50] The King then demanded whether they would observe the "customs of the realm." "Saving my order," replied the Archbishop. That order was still to be exempt from all jurisdiction but its own. So answered all the bishops except Hilary of Chichester, who made the declaration without reserve.[51] The King hastily broke up the assembly, and left London in a state of consternation, the people and the clergy agitated by conflicting anxieties. He immediately deprived Becket of the custody of the Royal Castles, which he still retained, and of the momentous charge, the education of his son. The bishops entreated Becket either to withdraw or to change the offensive word. At first he declared that if an angel from Heaven should counsel such weakness, he would hold him accursed. At length, however, he yielded, as Herbert de Bosham asserts out of love for the King,[52] by another account at the persuasion of the Pope's Almoner, said to have been bribed by English gold.[53] He went to Oxford and made the concession.
Jan. 1164.
The King, in order to ratify with the utmost solemnity the concession extorted from the bishops, and even from Becket himself, summoned a great council of the realm to Clarendon, a royal palace between three and four miles from Salisbury. |Council of Clarendon.| The two archbishops and eleven bishops, between thirty and forty of the highest nobles, with numbers of inferior barons, were present. It was the King's object to settle beyond dispute the main points in contest between the Crown and the Church; to establish thus, with the consent of the whole nation, an English Constitution in Church and State. Becket, it is said, had been assured by some about the King that a mere assent would be demanded to vague and ambiguous, and therefore on occasion disputable customs. But when these customs, which had been collected and put in writing by the King's order, appeared in the form of precise and binding laws, drawn up with legal technicality by the Chief Justiciary, he saw his error, wavered, and endeavored to recede.[54] The King broke out into one of his ungovernable fits of passion. One or two of the bishops who were out of favor with the King and two knights Templars on their knees implored Becket to abandon his dangerous, fruitless, and ill-timed resistance. The Archbishop took the oath, which had been already sworn to by all the lay barons. He was followed by the rest of the bishops, reluctantly according to one account, and compelled on one side by their dread of the lay barons, on the other by the example and authority of the Primate, according to Becket's biographers, eagerly and of their own accord.[55]
Constitutions of Clarendon.
These famous constitutions were of course feudal in their form and spirit. But they aimed at the subjection of all the great prelates of the realm to the Crown to the same extent as the great barons. The new constitution of England made the bishops' fiefs to be granted according to the royal will, and subjected the whole of the clergy equally with the laity to the common laws of the land.[56] I. On the vacancy of every archbishopric, bishopric, abbey, or priory, the revenues came into the King's hands. He was to summon those who had the right of election, which was to take place in the King's Chapel, with his consent, and the counsel of nobles chosen by the King for this office. The prelate elect was immediately to do homage to the King as his liege lord, for life, limb, and worldly honors, excepting his order. The archbishops, bishops, and all beneficiaries, held their estates on the tenure of baronies, amenable to the King's justice, and bound to sit with the other barons in all pleas of the Crown, except in capital cases. No archbishop, bishop, or any other person could quit the realm without royal permission, or without taking an oath at the King's requisition, not to do any damage either going, staying, or returning, to the King or the kingdom.
II. All clerks accused of any crime were to be summoned before the King's Courts. The King's justiciaries were to decide whether it was a case for civil or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Those which belonged to the latter were to be removed to the Bishops' Court. If the clerk was found guilty or confessed his guilt, the Church could protect him no longer.[57]
III. All disputes concerning advowsons and presentations to benefices were to be decided in the King's Courts; and the King's consent was necessary for the appointment to any benefice within the King's domain.[58]
IV. No tenant in chief of the King, none of the officers of the King's household, could be excommunicated, nor his lands placed under interdict, until due information had been laid before the King; or, in his absence from the realm, before the great Justiciary, in order that he might determine in each case the respective rights of the civil and ecclesiastical courts.[59]