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     [* Hoveden, p. 590].

     [** Benedict. Abbas, p. 202. Diceto p. 585.]

     [*** Benedict, Abbas, p. 305. Annal. Waverl. p.
     181.]

The clergy and the laity were, during that age, in a strange situation with regard to each other, and such as may seem totally incompatible with a civilized, and indeed with any species of government. If a clergyman were guilty of murder, he could be punished by degradation only: if he were murdered, the murderer was exposed to nothing but excommunication and ecclesiastical censures; and the crime was atoned for by penances and submission.[*] Hence the assassins of Thomas Becket himself, though guilty of the most atrocious wickedness, and the most repugnant to the sentiments of that age, lived securely in their own houses, without being called to account by Henry himself, who was so much concerned, both in honor and interest, to punish that crime, and who professed or affected, on all occasions, the most extreme abhorrence of it. It was not till they found their presence shunned by every one as excommunicated persons, that they were induced to take a journey to Rome, to throw themselves at the feet of the pontiff, and to submit to the penances imposed upon them; after which, they continued to possess without molestation their honors and fortunes, and seem even to have recovered the countenance and good opinion of the public. But as the king, by the constitutions of Clarendon, which he endeavored still to maintain,[**] had subjected the clergy to a trial by the civil magistrate, it seemed but just to give them the protection of that power, to which they owed obedience: it was enacted, that the murderers of clergymen should be tried before the justiciary, in the presence of the bishop or his official; and besides the usual punishment for murder, should be subjected to a forfeiture of their estates, and a confiscation of their goods and chattels.[***]

     [* Petri Bles. epist. 73, apud Bibl. Patr. torn.
     xxiv. p. 992.]

     [** Gervase, p. 1433. ]

     [*** Diceto, p. 592. Gervase, p. 1433]

The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself. It is remarkable, that this law was enacted by the king in a council which he held at Verneuil, and which consisted of some prelates and barons of England, as well as some of Normandy, Poictou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Brittany and the statute took place in all these last-mentioned territories,[*] though totally unconnected with each other;[**] a certain proof how irregular the ancient feudal government was, and how near the sovereigns, in some instances, approached to despotism, though in others they seemed scarcely to possess any authority. If a prince, much dreaded and revered like Henry, obtained but the appearance of general consent to an ordinance which was equitable and just, it became immediately an established law, and all his subjects acquiesced in it, If the prince was hated or despised; if the nobles, who supported him, had small influence; if the humors of the times disposed the people to question the justice of his ordinance; the fullest and most authentic assembly had no authority. Thus all was confusion and disorder; no regular idea of a constitution; force and violence decided every thing.

The success which had attended Henry in his wars, did not much encourage his neighbors to form any attempt against him; and his transactions with them, during several years, contain little memorable. Scotland remained in that state of feudal subjection to which he had reduced it, and gave him no further inquietude. He sent over his fourth son, John, into Ireland, with a view of making a more complete conquest of the island; but the petulance and incapacity of this prince, by which he enraged the Irish chieftains, obliged the king soon after to recall him.[***]

     [* Benedict. Abbas, p. 248. It was usual for the
     kings of England, after the conquest of Ireland, to summon
     barons and members of thai country to the English
     parliament. Molineux’s case of Ireland, p. 64, 65, 66.]

     [** Spelman even doubts whether the law were not
     also extended to England. If it were not, it could only be
     because Henry did not choose it; for his authority was
     greater in that kingdom than in his transmarine dominions.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 437, etc.]

The king of France had fallen into an abject superstition; and was induced, by a devotion more sincere than that of Henry, to make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Becket, in order to obtain his intercession for the cure of Philip, his eldest son. He probably thought himself well entitled to the favor of that saint, on account of their ancient intimacy; and hoped that Becket, whom he had protected while on earth, would not now, when he was so highly exalted in heaven, forget his old friend and benefactor. The monks, sensible that their saint’s honor was concerned in the case, failed not to publish that Lewis’s prayers were answered, and that the young prince was restored to health by Becket’s intercession. That king himself was soon after struck with an apoplexy, which deprived him of his understanding: Philip though a youth of fifteen, took on him the administration, till his father’s death, which happened soon after,

1180.

opened his way to the throne; and he proved the ablest and greatest monarch that had governed that kingdom since the age of Charlemagne. The superior years, however, and experience of Henry, while they moderated his ambition, gave him such an ascendant over this prince, that no dangerous rivalship for a long time arose between them. The English monarch, instead of taking advantage of his own situation, rather employed his good offices in composing the quarrels which arose in the royal family of France; and he was successful in mediating a reconciliation between Philip and his mother and uncles. These services were but ill requited by Philip, who, when he came to man’s estate, fomented all the domestic discords in the royal family of England, and encouraged Henry’s sons in their ungrateful and undutiful behavior towards him. Prince Henry, equally impatient of obtaining power, and incapable of using it, renewed to the king the demand of his resigning Normandy; and on meeting with a refusal, he fled with his consort to the court of France: but not finding Philip at that time disposed to enter into war for his sake, he accepted of his father’s offers of reconciliation, and made him submissions. It was a cruel circumstance in the king’s fortune, that he could hope for no tranquillity from the criminal enterprises of his sons but by their mutual discord and animosities, which disturbed his family and threw his state into convulsions. Richard, whom he had made master of Guienne, and who had displayed his valor and military genius by suppressing the revolts of his mutinous barons refused to obey Henry’s orders, in doing homage to his elder brother for that duchy; and he defended himself against young Henry and Geoffrey, who, uniting their arms, carried war into his territories.[**]