William of Newburgh, 'so did the heavenly King build monasteries, to fight against spiritual wickedness.'

When Henry II. came to the crown, the grave had just closed over the greatest of the Cistercians, the greatest monk of the age, the man in whom monkhood had proSt. Bernard. duced its perfect and crowning flower, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. This man, a frail worn-out ascetic, had been the master-spirit of Europe during the whole of Stephen's reign. Some wonderful influence dwelt in him, which made all men bow before him. For in him was incarnate the best and highest spirit of monasticism; he was the perfect type and image of the man who has died to self, died to nature even, that he may become the servant of God and man. Whatever faults St. Bernard had, (and we can see in him most of the great faults of monkhood,) he had this reality of self-devotion, and by this he ruled the minds of men. He showed them self-devotion in a form which they could understand and reverence. And because he was the man who perfectly fulfilled the best ideal of his time, his influence was unbounded. 'By him the sorrowful were comforted, those in trouble helped, the sick healed, the poor relieved. He made himself as much the servant of all as if he were son to the whole world; yet he took care of his own conscience in such freedom from outward things as if the keeping of his own heart were his only care.'

Clerical

In England, during the struggle between Stephen and Matilda, the power of the Church, and of the Pope as head of the Church, had increased immensely. Both par- Growth of ties frequently sought the help of the Pope. The Papal and Pope gave his sanction to Stephen's coronation; power. and from the Pope the Earl of Gloucester got leave to break his oath to Stephen. The Pope was induced to forbid the crowning of Eustace, the son of Stephen. Thus the Pope's right to interfere in the affairs of the nation became a settled thing. In a quarrel which Stephen had with the Pope, Stephen was worsted, for the Pope laid the first interdict upon England, and Stephen was only too glad to submit, that he might have it taken off. Meanwhile the clergy, though obliged to take sides with either Stephen or Matilda, tried to hold aloof as much as they could. They were the only men of peace, the only men whom the nation trusted.

When Stephen in 1139 ventured to arrest the Bishops of Salisbury and Lincoln for treason to himself, though the character of these bishops was by no means high, public feeling was entirely against him for this outrage on sacred persons, and the clergy took advantage of the general indignation to call a council at Westminster (1142) and pass a decree that no laymen should lay violent hands on a priest or a monk under pain of excommunication. What was still 'Benefit of more important, they succeeded in exempting all clerical persons from being tried for any offence whatever in secular courts of justice; the Church alone was. to have the right to judge her own sons. This must have been carried in Stephen's reign; at least King Henry declared that it had not been the custom in his grandfather's reign, and the clergy did not contradict him;1 though it is difficult to understand this, as by William the Conqueror's law all church causes had been taken out of the lay courts into the separate courts of the Church.

clergy.'

But when it came to the knowledge of King Henry that owing to this freedom of the clergy from secular judgment, Henry opthefts, murders, and other crimes were done by posed to it. wicked priests almost with impunity, because the bishops were too lazy to visit them with due punishment, he was very angry. He was told that more than a hundred murders had been committed by clergy during his reign; and some cases which came under his own notice, showing the inadequacy of the ecclesiastical courts to punish offences, roused a more personal feeling, and made him determined to put an end to this abuse of privilege on the part of the clergy.

Perhaps to the successful young king of England, who was lord of the goodliest half of France, who had defied the Influence of king of France, and received the homage of the the Church. kings of Scotland and Wales, it seemed a light thing to try his strength against the Church. If so, he had not reckoned the forces which were against him. Let us try to understand what the feelings of common men towards the

1 Some indeed denied that Henry's customs had ever been customs at all, as Fitz-Stephen, Vita Becket,' p. 216, and Becket himself, according to Benedict of Peterborough, though never in his letters; but the ground ordinarily taken by the clergy was to rest their claim for immunity not on custom, but on inherent right.

Church in the twelfth century were, by looking at her through their eyes. The Church was imposing enough in her outward splendour, her wealth and lands, her cathedrals and monasteries, her gorgeous hierarchy, her universal dominion. But all these temporal thrones, dominations, princedoms, powers, were only the vanguard of the great army of the Church; in the rear was the glorious company of apostles, prophets and martyrs, the whole hierarchy of heaven, stretching upwards to the throne of God himself; and this unseen host (it was believed) was constantly interfering in human affairs, smiting the evil-doers, helping the humble and the poor. And this great Church, so vast and awful as a whole, was not too far off to be loved. If the Father was unapproachable in his infinity, if the Son was too dreadful when thought of as the coming Judge, the mild-hearted mother of God was easy to be entreated. Her lovely image kept alive in the people's mind the idea of Divine goodness and mercy. Moreover the Church was the sympathising companion of every man and woman from the cradle to the grave. Her magic tokens were needful at every crisis of life, to bless the infant, to hallow the marriage, to help the passing soul through the gates of death, to give the corpse quiet rest in the grave. Though even in those days there were some who doubted, and some who mocked her spells, none dared to go entirely without them. Even amusements were blessed by the Church; she opened her sacred buildings to Christmas shows and religious plays. Every monastery was a school, a dispensary, a hospital, a hostelry. The legends of the Church were the one imaginative influence which the poor of the middle ages knew; for the old legends of heathendom had been taken up by the Church, and woven into her own tales.

Besides, however many bad priests there might be in the Church, the ideal of what a priest ought to be was ever present in the middle ages, and was from time to time The true more or less realised in some man who, like St. priest. Anselm or St. Bernard, looked on himself as not born for himself, but for all those who needed his help; whose very stole signified the yoke of Christ, and who had put off the secular man that he might put on Christ; and such an ideal 1 See FitzStephen, Vita Becket,' pp. 203, 206.

·

commanded the allegiance of all hearts. And the common people had good reason to be grateful to the Church, In the wars between Stephen and Matilda, when bands of cruel mercenaries were scouring the country, where could the poor villagers with their wives and children and their little bits of furniture take refuge, except in the neighbouring church? How often had they sat cowering in the sacred place, blessing the saint who had provided their only refuge, until the band of bloody men had passed away! And though there were among the nobles of that day some men so abandoned that they paid no respect even to churches and monasteries, had not the judgment of God been shown in terrible ways upon these very men? Again, who was it but the Legate of our Lord the Pope who had made David, King of Scots, promise that he and his barons would leave off their horrid habit of killing women and children and defenceless persons on their raids into England? And had not the clergy in council at London, in Stephen's reign, ordained that the plough and the husbandman in the fields should enjoy the same peace as if they were in the churchyard? Who but the Church

cared to protect the poor and the defenceless?

The King's

What had the king to set against this? The king of the twelfth century was chiefly known to his subjects as a hard exactor of money. If any reverence attached to position. his office, it was chiefly because the Church had anointed him, and he was in some sort the servant of the Church. It was his part to do the coarse work which the Church's hands were too fine to touch. The old tribal feeling of respect for the head of the race was dead long ago; the Englishman felt no national enthusiasm for his Norman or Angevin1 king. The feeling of feudal attachment and faithfulness existed only among those who were personally bound to the king; but the enthusiasm, the loyalty of the masses, turned towards the Church. The men of the twelfth century were quite able to separate the Church as an institution from the clergy as individuals. They were quite aware of the worldliness, greed, and uncleanness of priests; no more bitter things were ever said

1 Henry was an Angevin, being descended by his father from the Counts of Anjou.

against the clergy than were said (and sung) in the twelfth century; but though men found fault with the clergy, they were quite satisfied with the Church as she existed in idea; it had not occurred to any but a very few thinkers that there was anything wrong in the programme which the Church put forth, any mistake in her claim to enforce on the world the law of God. 'The kingdom of God is within you' is a truth that mankind has been slow to learn.

Henry had not reckoned on these strong tendrils of affection and gratitude which held together the fabric of the Church's power. Still less had he reckoned on finding a stout champion of the Church in Thomas Becket, Archbishop .of Canterbury, whose history must now be told.

Stephen

1135

David, king of Scots, who had invaded England on be

half of his niece Matilda, defeated in the Battle of the
Standard

1138

Peace of Wallingford

1153

Henry II.

1154

CHAPTER XII.

THOMAS BECKET was the son of some respectable citizens of London, of Norman race. It was possible even then to rise from the humble rank of a citizen to the high Thomas position of an archbishop; for even in those Becket. aristocratic times the Church could not wholly forswear the essentially democratic nature of Christianity; and when in later years Thomas the Archbishop was taunted with his lowly origin, he answered in quite a republican spirit: 'I had rather be one made noble by a noble mind, than a degenerate slip of an ancient house.' Becket received a good education, and studied for some time in Paris. His father had influen

M