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This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: HULTON, SAMUEL F TITLE: THE PRIMACY OF ENGLAND PLACE: OXFORD DA TE : 1899 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Restrictions on Use: Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record ^%n ^^"^^o^f Samuel F^a'VcVx«.'r- j^ "^^ Prdjnacy of England, Oxford 1899 • D. ^S^, -h 255 p. fac-sira, { \,t »\}'m KuJ • - ' ■ m m -Mirfcift^ ■! n ■ ■■ '"W O*!*^** ^ FILM SIZE: 3^^^ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: ' / IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA QIA) IB IIB DATE FILMED:_JV2_3^^ INITIALS__>^^Ar._ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT r Association for Information and image Management 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiImiiIiiiiImiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiIiiiiiiniIiiiiIiiiiIm TTT Inches f4+ TTT 1 ¥^ 1.0 I.I 1.25 ^ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 4 yi II 2.8 M lii 1= 2.2 UL lUUU 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.6 T I I 1 MfiNUFflCTURED TO fillM STPINDflRDS BY fiPPLIED imGE, INC. THE PRIMACir OF ENGLAND svl .V^ -^ ^y^ -Si S. E HUUTON 936 H91 in tlie ©its of gljew "gork 1901 / THE PRIMACY OF ENGLAND \ The Primacy of England BY SAMUEL F. HULTON OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW If AlOpSvov Ai6Qiv KoX ^Kncfiirrpov rifirjs oxvphv C^vyos Aeschylus, Agamemnon^ 43, 44. I 5:i>l f\ OXFORD B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 and 51 BROAD STREET LONDON SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, & Co. 1899 OXFORD BURROWS AND DOE, PRINTERS THE HOLYWELL PRESS '{ . I ^ ^ «< ^ O- 94 i CONTENTS. PAGE I 27 44 PAPAL SUPREMACY: Chap. I. Canterbury disdains an Equal - II. York stomachs a Superior III. The War of Independence IV. Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont l'Eveque - - - - - 63 V. Archiepiscopal Amenities - - 97 VI. Halcyon Days - - - - ^35 ROYAL SUPREMACY: VII. A King with a Pope in his Belly - 171 VIII. Tools of the Prerogative - - 181 PARLIAMENTARY SUPREMACY : IX. The Dusk of the Gods - - - 233 I 319171 PAPAL SUPREMACY CHAPTER I. CANTERBURY DISDAINS AN EQUAL Authorities : Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica ; Historians of York (Rolls Series) ; William of Malmesbury (Rolls Series) ; Haddan and Stubbs, Ecclesiastical Documents. ' Ut dignitatum ordo servetur, si quis indebitum sibi locum usurpav- erit, nulla se ignorantia defendat, sitque plane sacrilegii reus.' — Theodosian Code. The Struggle between the Archbishops of England for precedence and priority of session in synod and national assembly, for the right of crowning kings and of holding the Roman legation ; that active rivalry, from which resulted the strange isolation which still marks the relations of the two provinces to one another, began in this wise. In the year 1070 William the Conqueror nominated Thomas of Bayeux to succeed Archbishop Aldred at York, and Lanfranc, Abbot of Caen, to fill the room of the deposed Stigand at Canterbury. Now, on this occa- sion, the rule laid down of old time by Pope Honorius, that, on the death of one of the two Metropolitans of Britain, the survivor of the twain should consecrate a B 2 The Primacy of England, successor to his departed brother, could not be followed ; and Lanfranc accordingly was * hallowed* in his own episcopal see by eight bishops, his suffragans. Such a course was not open to Thomas. The presence of three prelates at least was required at the consecration of a bishop; and though the northern province nominally included Scotland, the Archbishop of York had at this time practically but one suffragan, Aethelwine of Dur- ham, an outlaw. When therefore he came to Canterbury to be ' hallowed,' Lanfranc demanded of him a profession of obedience with an oath thereon. This Thomas re- fused to give, unless first he saw writing of authority and evident reason whereby he could do so without prejudice to his Church; and though the proofs he craved were produced to him, he would in no wise give way. Then Lanfranc waxed wroth, and bade the bish- ops who were come thither to do the service, and all the monks, to unrobe themselves ; and by his command so they did. Thus Thomas for that time departed with- out the blessing (William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont.^ 39). *The Elect of York acted thus,' writes WiUiam of Malmesbury, 'more from lewdness of wit, than rebel- liousness and pride of heart ; for he was a new man and beguiled by flattering words, nor knew he the customs and usages of England.' Hugh the Chantor, the York- ist chronicler, on the other hand, declares this demand of an express profession of obedience to be unprece- dented. *I marvel greatly,' writes another northern writer of the twelfth century, *how anyone dared, in spite of tradition, and with contempt of the apostolic !f Canterbury disdains an Equal, 3 precept " in honour preferring one another," to unravel the garment of unity and concord which until the com- ing of the Normans had been preserved intact by the Churches of the English, and to break down the system of brotherly equahty on which those Churches had been founded.' The original scheme of government, designed by Gre- gory the Great for the Church of Britain, is set forth in a letter written by him to Augustine in the year 601. * We license you to ordain twelve bishops in such places as be under your jurisdiction, but so that the Bishop of London be ever hereafter consecrated of his own synod, and receive his pall of this Holy and Apostolic See. Also we will that you send a bishop to York, so that if that city and the region round about it receive the word of God, the said bishop be authorised to make twelve other bishops, and be himself their metropolitan, for we intend to give him also a pall if we live. Let him never- theless be subject to your jurisdiction, but after your death so have the oversight of the bishops whom he shall make, that he in no wise be subject to the Bishop of London. Betwixt London and York let there be this difference, that he be the higher which is first ordained. We will further that unto you be subject not only the bishops whom you or the Bishop of York may ordain, but all the priests of Britain, that you may be unto them a pattern both to live and believe aright ' (Bede) \ ^ Gregory's letter illustrates the difference in point of jurisdiction between the offices of ' primate,' ' metropolitan,' and * bishop.' The bishop presided over the * parish,' or ' diocese ' in its modern sense. B 2 4 The Primacy of England, This plan for the division of the whole Island into two provinces of London and York, the southern to include Wales, the northern Scotland, to be administered by two metropolitans of equal rank, with twelve suffragan bis- hops apiece, was never fully realized. Metropolitical dignity arose, as did some other ecclesiastical dignities, out of the civil organisation of the Empire ; and from a very early date the bishop of the civil metropolis in each province, under the title, 'chief bishop,' 'head,' or 'exarch' of the province, 'archbishop' or ' primae sedis episcopus ' (whence ' primate '), was, first by custom and later by canon, invested with superiority over his comprovincial brethren ; ordained them, decided their disputes, and heard appeals from them ; called and presided over provincial synods ; visited sees ; and took charge of vacant bishoprics. In the Western Church each province long remained a separate ecclesiastical unit, no appeal lying from a provincial synod or a provincial metropolitan except to Rome ; but after the eighth century, when a new distinction of rank was introduced, the word ' primate,' which had been originally equivalent to ' metropolitan,' was used, much in the same sense as ' patriarch ' had long been employed in the East, to signify the new ecclesiastical officer who presided over a group of provinces, or ' diocese ' in its ancient sense ; and who was privileged to exercise over metropolitans within that group much the same command which they in their turn exercised over bishops. His primatial cross with two bars or double traverse marks the union in him of two powers, namely, that of metropolitan in his own province, and that of president over other metropolitans. Pope Gregory's scheme of government then, after providing for the appointment of bishops in England, named London and York mother-cities and chief centres of future ecclesiastical pro- vinces, as though they still retained the commanding position which they had occupied during the Roman occupation of Britain ; and then proceeded to confer upon Augustine for life, if not upon his successors at Canterbury, a patriarchal or primatial jurisdiction over the metro- politans of London and York. Although the honours destined by Gregory for London were to adorn Canterbury, the former see put forward on several occasions claims to metropolitical rank. Thus Archbishop Anselm was com- pelled to beg the Pope to refuse the grant of a pall which Richard de Canterbury disdains an Equal, S In the year 604 Mellitus was consecrated bishop of London by Augustine ; but when the latter died soon afterwards, the transfer of the seat of the southern arch- bishop from the metropolis to a dependency of Kent was impracticable for political reasons, and some years later was rendered impossible by the apostacy of the East Saxons. Merlin's prophecy * Dignitas Londoniae adornaret Doroberniam ' found fulfilment. By the time of Archbishop Justus (624), the archiepiscopal see had become definitely established at Canterbury; and save w^hen King f)ffa secured the elevation of Lichfield to metropolitical rank (787-803), its supremacy in the south- ern province has never been seriously imperilled (Had- dan and Stubbs, Eccles. Doc.j iii. 66), The fortunes of York have been far different. In the year 625 Paulinus, one of Augustine's followers, came to the Northumbrian court, and, on the conversion of King Edwin, became bishop of a kingdom stretching from Humber to Forth, and including the isles of Anglesea and Man. But scarcely had he entered upon the duties of his office, when Edwin was defeated and slain at Hatfield by the allied forces of Penda and Belmeis was about to ask of him (Eadmer, Hist. Nov., 202). Gilbert Foliot, again, defied Thomas Becket on the ground that London ought of right to be an independent metropolitical see {Letters of John of Salisbury). Still later, William Fitzstephen, in his description of London, writes : ' In the Church of St. Paul there is an episcopal chair. Formerly it was the metropolitical chair, and it is believed that it will be so again " when the citizens shall return to the island." But perhaps the archiepiscopal title and the corporeal presence of the blessed martyr Thomas will suffice to preserve the dignity of Canter- bury intact for ever.' ■; / 6 The Primacy of England. Cadwallon; and before even the pall sent by Pope Honorius had reached his hands, the Archbishop of Northumbria fled into Kent ((^zi)- For more than a century the see did not recover me- tropolitical rank. During the earlier part of this period, after the restoration of Christianity by King Oswald (63 5), the northern province was administered by bishops of Lindisfarne, members of the unorthodox Celtic Mission, such as refused to accept the Catholic observance of Easter and the wearing of a round-shaven tonsure; and by them the seat of the Northumbrian bishopric was removed from York, which was still the head- quarters of the remnant of the Roman School, to Holy Island, a spot at once more convenient to the royal castle of Bamborough, and in its physical features more congenial to these wanderers from lona. Meanwhile Gregory's scheme seems to have been wholly forgotten ; for when, after the discomfiture of the Celtic party at the Council of Whitby (664) and the subsequent re- tirement of the Mission to Scotland, Bishop Wilfrid restored the episcopal see to York, he failed to securei a pall for himself. Nor did Oswy, king of Northum-i bria, assert the rights of the Church of which he was the patron ; but, in the desire for uniformity of ritual and observance, joined Egbert of Kent in despatching^ Wighard to Rome, that, being hallowed Archbishop of** Canterbury, he might ordain Catholic bishops through- out Britain ; and when Wighard died without receiving consecration, he accepted in his stead the papal nominee Theodore of Tarsus (680). Thus Theodore became, in Canterbury disdains an Equal. 7 the words of Bede, * the first archbishop to whom the whole Church of the English consented to submit itself,' that Church which had been evangelized by Romans in Kent, by Scoto-Irish in Northumbria, by Burgundians in East Anglia, and by Franks in Wessex. Under the style * Dei gratia Archiepiscopus Britanniae Insulae ' he presided with the sanction of four kings, over the epis- copal council at Hatfield (680); as sole primate, he visited the whole of England, establishing the Roman rule of Easter, and divided, without consulting Wilfrid, the vast diocese of Northumbria into the sees of York, Hexham, Witherne and Lindisfarne. The archbishops who succeeded him, Brihtwald (693-73i)» 'Bretone Heahbiscop,' and Tatwin, * primas totius Insulae,' exer- cised pastoral control in the north, convoking Church councils and compelling the attendance thereat of bishops of York ; and it was on this exercise of un- disputed spiritual jurisdiction throughout the various temporal kingdoms of the land that the successors of Augustine relied in later days as proof, not only of superiority to their northern rivals, but also of their right to patriarchal dignity throughout Britain. Not until the year 735 did Egbert of York, at the suggestion of Bede, recover archiepiscopal rank for his see, and southern primates revert to the more modest position and style of Archbishops or Metropolitans of Canterbury (Haddan & Stubbs, Eccles. Documents^ iii. 319, 340, 397). Wars and civil disturbance however soon checked any further realization of Gregory's \ scheme for the Northern Church. Towards the close 8 The Primacy of England. of the eighth century the bishoprics of Hexham and Witherne were crushed under the pressure of the invading Scots. Lindisfarne was ravaged by the Danes in 793; its monastery was destroyed in 875; and the see suffered many changes and chances before the bones of St. Cuthbert found final resting-place at Durham in 995. But in spite of these losses, and although their province was impoverished and their title as metropolitans depended upon the grudging obe- dience of the bishops of Durham and the intermittent submission of their Scottish suffragans, archbishops of York occupied a position of no small importance in the days of West-Saxon supremacy. They were great landowners ; and returns in Domesday show that the domains, which had already been appropriated to their archiepiscopal see before the Conquest, were in extent little, if at all, inferior to those of Canterbury. They were representatives of a distinct and dangerous nation- ality of Northmen ; and the fact that, though the bulk of their estates lay in Yorkshire, the remainder was distributed through Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Gloucestershire and Hampshire, and that they were permitted to hold the see of Worcester themselves or to present to it some near kinsman, points to the con- clusion that south-country monarchs had adopted a line of policy which the Conqueror subsequently followed in bestowing upon York additional endowments in the counties of Lincoln and Gloucester ; and that they had already recognised the importance of not leaving the interests, as well as the influence, of such weighty Canterbury disdains an Equal 9 politicians to be confined wholly to the north.^ In these days too, the attendance of archbishops of York at southern gemots was looked upon as to some extent a pledge for the allegiance of Northumbria, and was secured by the inclusion of Nottinghamshire, a Mercian county, in the northern province ; while their associ- ation with southern archbishops in the unction and coronation of West-Saxon monarchs was designed to signify the acceptance of a new king, by the northern ^ At the Conquest such of the endowments of the various English sees as remained in the time of Edward the Confessor were in no case confiscated, or their titles even called in question. • In the case of ecclesiastical property, the will and seal of Eadward was as good as William's,' and the lands of the English archbishops and bishops passed as a matter of routine to their Norman successors. In Domesday, Lanfranc is returned as holding land in above a hun- dred manors, of which some sixty are in Kent, the remainder being distributed through Sussex, Essex, Surrey, Middlesex, Hertford, Bucks, and Oxon. Thomas of York is represented in fewer counties than Lanfranc, but with a larger number of manors in which he held land. His name appears in six counties only, but with 130 manors. Still, as the quantity of land held in several seems to have been extremely small, the total would not perhaps be greater than that held by Canterbury. Seventy-seven manors in Yorkshire, nine in Nottinghamshire, five in Leicestershire, and one in Hampshire, seem to have already belonged to the archbishops of York. Of thirteen in Gloucestershire, two only are entered as having been held by Archbishop Aldred, Thomas' pre- decessor ; and the rest, together with twenty-five in Lincolnshire, seem to have been conferred upon the Archbishop by the Conqueror for political reasons {Domesday Studies, ii. 405). The respective values of the archiepiscopal sees in later times were as follows : — I. ' Taxatio Ecclesiastica of Pope Nicholas IV ' begun in 1288, when the Pope granted the tenths of all ecclesiastical benefices to Edward I for six years, towards defraying the expense of an expedition to the lO The Primacy of England. Church as its patron and protector, and by the northern nation as the sole representative of the three-fold sovereignty of West-Saxons, Mercians and North- umbrians. Holy Land. By this assessment all taxes, payable as well to our kings as to popes, were regulated until the survey made in the twenty- sixth year of Henry VIH. (Record printed in l8o2 by order of George HI.) (i) Canterbury — Spiritualities — £ s. d. Page 3. Church of Cranebrook in the dean- ery of Cherring - - - 26 13 4 Page 138. Church of Maghefeud in the dean- ery of South Mailing - - 60 o o Temporalities — Page 6. Net value of nineteen manors in Kent 1355 8 I Pages 13, 14 b. Property in London and Middlesex - - - - 130 15 o Pages 139 b, 140. Property in diocese of Chichester . - - - 354 o \q\ Page 206. Property in diocese of Winchester 65 o o (2) York- Page 325. Archiepiscopus Ebor. habet in om- nibus suis bonis temporalibus et spiritualibus ubicunque in Anglia 1333 6 8 In the year 1318, however, a fresh taxation, entitled ' Nova Taxatio,' was made as to some part of the province of York ; chiefly on account of the invasion of the Scots, by which the ' poor boraile ' clergy were rendered unable to pay the former tax ; and under this new assess- ment York was rated at ;^666 13s. 4*^. A taxation of the time of Richard H includes the Church of Recul- ver in the Deanery of Westbere, value ;^ii3 6s. 8^/., among the spiritualities of Canterbury (Thorn in Twysden, Decent Scriptores, 2164 ; Somner and Batteley, Anttq. of Canterbury, Append, to Supple- ment, no. XI, a). Another 'Taxatio,' under Henry VI, includes Reculver, and an interest of the value of £^ in the church of North- Canterbury disdains an Equal. II In short, from the days of Archbishop Egbert, arch- bishops of York claimed to preside over a Church, flete in the diocese of Rochester, among the spiritualities, and property in Trenge in the archdeaconry of Huntingdon, worth ;^8o i8s. 5 and from dividends, Total annual income . - . ;^222i6 Permanent annual payments - - 3034 Annual net income - - ^^19182 (2) York- Income from rents, ;^30I7; from fines, ;^9405 ; from houses, etc., ^^81 3 ; from woods, ;^i88; from quit-rents, etc., ;^35o; and from dividends, etc., j^2^. Total amount gross income - - ;^I3798 Permanent yearly payments - - 1169 Annual net income - ;^I2629 IV. Under the Act, 6 and 7 William IV, c. 77, it was provided ' that, in order to provide for the augmentation of the smaller bishop- Canterbufy disdains an Equal. 13 and the like, no difference in title manifests the actual but unacknowledged superiority of the latter see. One only among the written professions of obedience, which southern primates carefully exacted from their suffra- gans at consecration after the fall of the archbishopric of Lichfield, purports to have been made by an arch- bishop of York. It bears the date 796, and therein Eadulf * of York ' promises * to bow the neck in obedi- ence to Ethelheard of Canterbury and his successors, as long as he shall breathe the air of heaven.' Modern investigation however has shewn 'that the only arch- bishops of York, who were contemporaries of Ethelheard, were the two Eanbalds, who were never subject to Canterbury; and that Eadulf was almost certainly a bishop of Lindsey. The word " Eboracensis " after the bishop's name, was probably inserted to uphold the claims of Canterbury in the eleventh century;' strong evidence that at that time no genuine submission of York was forthcoming (Haddan and Stubbs, Eccles. Doc.f iii. 506). William of Malmesbury, though a keen partisan, admits that the Conqueror was ' sorely vexed at Lan- franc's demand, thinking he sought an injustice, and put more confidence in subtle learning than in good faith and reason.' After a short while however the Archbishop appeared at court in person. 'By his rics, such fixed annual sums should be paid to the Ecclesiastical Com- missioners out of the revenues of the larger sees respectively as to leave as an average annual income — To the Archbishop of Canterbury - - ;^I50CX) To the Archbishop of York - - ;^iocxx> i J! t 14 The Primacy of England. arguments he eased the King's heart and convinced those who were there from beyond the sea. The EngUsh, who understood the matter, bear witness to him in all things.' Lanfranc's task was no difficult one. If he was resolved himself that he would brook no rival in his work of rousing the English Church from the lethargy into which it had fallen since the death of Dunstan, but that, when establishing method and pro- gress in place of misgovernment and inaction, he would hold north as well as south beneath his undisputed primacy, he was well aware that his master was equally bent on fusing the former political divisions of the island, and crushing Northumbrian, Mercian, and West- Saxon into unity under the pressure of his vigorous Norman hand. The Conqueror was easily converted by the argument that the consolidation of the Church would aid and protect the consolidation of the State. ' For the integrity of the country,' said Lanfranc, ' it is expedient that all Britain should obey one primate. Well may it be in your time or in that of your succes- sors, that one of the Danes, the Northmen, or the Scots, who are for ever coming to York in ships to attack the realm, may be set up as king by the archbishop and the fickle Northumbrians, and thus the kingdom be divided ' (Hugh the Chantor, Histor. of York, ii.). Then was it decreed by the King with the counsel of all, that, for the present, Thomas of Bayeux should return to the Mother Church of the whole realm ; and should read in the presence of the bishops a profession in which he promised absolute canonical obedience to Canterbury disdains an Equal, 15 Lanfranc personally; but he should not be bound to pay the like to his successors, unless it should be conclusively proved in an episcopal council that such was their due. (William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont., 40.) *The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion.' Thomas, quailing before the royal threat of banishment of his kith and kin, presented himself a second time for consecration. 'Wilt thou be subject to this Holy Church, to me and my successors ? ' said Lanfranc; and Thomas after a pause answered with tears and sighs, *To thee will I be subject, but not to thy successors, unless by command of the Pope ' (Hugh the Chantor, Histor. of York, ii.). The gift of a pall by the Pope, which in its origin had been merely a mark of honour and dignity conferred upon eminent ecclesiastics, 'summi sacerdotii signum,' was now become a necessary qualification for metro- political power, *in quo plenitudo pontificalis officii' (Maskell, Monument. Kit. Eccles. Anglic, iii. ' Office of enthroning an archbishop'). From the days of Nicholas I {^66), no archbishop, although he had received conse- cration, might venture to perform any of those duties which were peculiar to, and characteristic of, his office, until he had received the pallium from the tomb of the chief of the apostles. With this object, in the year 107 1, Canterbury and York went together to Rome. While Lanfranc was received with marked favour at the Papal court, Alexander rising from his throne to meet him and bestowing upon him a second pall as a mark of respect, Thomas, as the son of a priest, was deprived of his i i6 The Primacy of England, bishopric, and only received it back on the intercession of his rival. Although the moment scarcely seemed propitious, he forthwith proceeded to challenge the primacy of Canterbury, and laid claim to the subjection of Dorchester, Lichfield and Worcester ; of which sees the first owed its foundation to Oswald, king of North- umbria (635), the second to Ceadda, a monk of Lindisfarne, while the third had been closely associated with York in Anglo-Saxon times.^ Alexander referred the points in dispute to the de- 1 The connection of York with Worcester seems to have begun with St. Oswald, who retained the latter see, to which he had been consecrated, on his promotion to York in 972. Aldulf, his successor, held the two together till his death in icx)2 ; and Wulfstan, the next archbishop, retained Worcester till the year 1016, when Leofsi was appointed as bishop. On the death of Leofsi, Brihteage, nephew of Archbishop Wulfstan, was appointed in 1033. His successor. Living, and Archbishop Aelfric then contested possession of the see. Aldred, who succeeded Living in 1045, became Archbishop of York in the year 106 1 (Stubbs in Hoveden (Rolls Series), vol. iv. Preface, p. xxxv.). Before resigning Worcester, Aldred obtained from Edward the Con- fessor a grant attaching it to the see of York, * the same gift which Archbishops Oswald, Aldulph and Wulfstan had of the king, and kept quiet and uninjured when England was distracted by Danish invasion ' (Dugdale, Monasticon, VL iii. p. 1177). On going to Rome, however, Aldred was compelled to resign the see in return for the gift of a pall, and Wulfstan was appointed to succeed him. The new bishop was consecrated by Aldred because Stigand had been suspended from his office. It was, however, to the Archbishop of Canterbury that his profession of obedience was made, and for further security Aldred was required to swear that he would not claim his subjection because he had consecrated him (Wilkins, Concilia, I. 315). On the death of Aldred, Wulfstan instituted a suit for the recovery of twelve manors which had been taken from his see and annexed to that of York, and gained a verdict in his favour at a general council held before the King and Lanfranc (Dugdale, Monasiicon, 1, 571). Canterbury disdains an Equal, 17 cision of the bishops and abbots of England ; and the case was twice debated in the year 1072, on the first occasion before an ecclesiastical synod at Winchester, on the second before a general gem6t presided over by the King at Windsor. In support of his claim Lanfranc produced in evidence Bede's Ecclesiastical History^ and a series of letters from various popes which were either forged or garbled for the occasion (Haddan and Stubbs, iii. (id note). He argued that, from the days of Augus- tine to those of Egbert, the Archbishop of Canterbury had the primacy over England and Ireland, and held Councils divers times within the precincts of York ; that he cited thereto Bishops of York, and, when necessary, punished or deposed them. Thomas in reply relied on the letter of Gregory, and declared the privilege of ecclesiastical supremacy granted therein to Augustine to have been merely a life interest. Had the Pope intended to give the same distinction to his successors, he would have expressly stated it in the words of his epistle. Lanfranc disposed of this argument by point- ing out that in the same way Christ, when conferring the power of the keys on St. Peter, might have added 'and I confirm the same to your successors'; yet the omission of such words had in no way deprived the Bishops of Rome of the privilege. Regulations con- tained in the letter as to the precedence of London and York, were irrelevant to the present discussion, and could not affect the relations of York and Canterbury. * I am not the Bishop of London,' said he, * nor is there any question relating to London before the court.' i8 The Primacy of England. Under the terms of the letter he was strictly entitled, as the successor of Augustine, to claim the obedience of all the priests of Britain; yet, 'for the sake of peace, writes Gervase of Canterbury, * he forewent his right to the submission of the Bishop of Durham, so that Thomas, in the proud possession of one suffragan at any rate, might claim the title "Archbishop."' The decision of the Council was in favour of Lanfranc. The northern province was limited to the bishopric of Durham and all the region from the boundaries of the see of Lichfield and the river Humber to the extremity of Scotland. York was declared to be subject to Can- terbury in all matters pertaining to the internal regiment of the Catholic Church ; so that whenever within Eng- land Canterbury should hold his council, the Archbishop of York should resort thereto with his bishops, and be obedient to his decrees canonical. Moreover, when the Archbishop of Canterbury should die, York should re- pair to Canterbury to consecrate a successor. On the death of an Archbishop of York, his successor elect should resort to such place as the Archbishop of Canter- bury might appoint, to receive consecration, making first a profession of obedience with an oath thereon (Wilkins, Concilia). 'Then,' says William of Malmesbury, * Lanfranc danced for joy; and caused all these things to be written, so that new doings should not slide out of mind and his successors be beguiled of the knowledge thereof. But he bare himself discreetly withal, so that nothing of mo- ment was left unrecorded, nor the effect thereof spent by overmuch ado; for it is hateful for a man to make Canterbury disdains an Equal, 19 himself curious in his own praising.' By his directions the judgment of the Council was drawn up in the form of an agreement, and copies thereof were distributed to churches and abbeys throughout the province. The original document is still preserved in the muniment room at Canterbury, and bears the autograph signatures of Lanfranc, Thomas, Hubert the papal legate, and three bishops ; while it is marked with the crosses of William and Queen Matilda, authenticated in the handwriting of Lanfranc (Appendix II to Chapter I). Thomas now made profession of obedience with exaggerated humility. ' No Christian,' said he, ' should run counter to the laws of Christianity and the salutary institutions of Fathers of the Church, for from such behaviour arise quarrels, hatred, envying and strife. The higher his rank, the more ready should he be to obey the divine precept. I therefore promise absolute canonical obedience to you and your successors, well- assured that it is due. I was uncertain about this when I received consecration from you, and for that reason, though promising absolute obedience to you personally, I made a merely conditional agreement to pay the same to your successors ' {Histor. of York (Rolls Series), iii. 13). As long as his great rival lived, he admitted his supremacy, attending Church councils with his suffra- gans, and assisting at episcopal consecrations in obedi- ence to his commands. In the year 1073 the dearth of suffragans in the north compelled him to apply for help from the southern province, to enable him to consecrate the bishop elect of the Orkneys. In his letter he c 2 ao The Primacy oj England, addresses Lanfranc as * Britanniae summus pastor/ and almost apologizes for styling himself 'Archbishop of York.* In begging the loan of two bishops, he protests before heaven that their assistance shall never be al- leged by him as a reason for claiming their subjection to his see. Lanfranc, however, when directing the Bishop of Worcester to attend the consecration, care- fully forwarded to him the Archbishop's letter, and ordered him to preserve it as evidence in case any such claim should be raised in the future (Wilkins, Concilia). Ecclesiastical precedence was now to be further regu- lated. At the Council of Hertford in the seventh century bishops had been forbidden generally to thrust them- selves forward through ambition, and directed to take rank according to the time of their ordinations. Since then certain sees had gained precedence. Now, in 1075, the synod of London awarded the presidential chair in Church councils to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of York was placed on his right, the Bishop of London, as Dean of the province of Canterbury, on his left. The seat next to York was given to the Bishop of Winchester, as chancellor of the southern province ; while the rest of the bishops were directed ' to sit ac- cording to their ancienties' (Wilkins, Concilia). Such were the steps which, according to Eadmer, the Canterbury Chronicler, * reduced Thomas to the level of his predecessors.' The claims of York seemed silenced for ever, and the discomfited Archbishop devoted himself to the restoration of his ruined Cathedral and devastated province, and the reorganization of his demoralized Chapter. APPENDIX I Gregorius Augustino Anglorum episcopo, June 22, 601. Reverentissimo et sanctissimo fratri Augustino coepiscopo Gregorius servus servorum Dei . . . Quia nova Anglorum ecclesia ad omnipotentis Dei gratiam, eodem Domino largiente, et te laborante, perducta est, usum tibi pallii in ea ad sola missarum sollemnia agenda concedimus : ita ut per loca singula duodecim Episcopos ordines, qui tuae subjaceant ditioni, quate- nus Lundoniensis civitatis Episcopus semper in posterum a synodo propria debeat consecrari, atque honoris pallium ab hac sancta et apostolica sede percipiat. Ad Eburacam vero civita- tem te volumus Episcopum mittere, quem ipse judicaveris ordi- nare ; ita dumtaxat, ut si eadem civitas cum finitimis locis verbum Dei receperit, ipse quoque duodecim Episcopos ordinet, et metropolitani honore perfruatur ; quia ei quoque, si vita fuerit comes, pallium tribuere Domino favente disponimus, quem tamen tuae fraternitatis volumus dispositioni subjacere; post obitum vero tuum ita Episcopis quos ordinaverit praesit, ut Lundoniensis Episcopi nullo modo ditioni subjaceat. Sit vero inter Lundoniae et Eburacae civitatis Episcopos in posterum honoris ista distinctio, ut ipse prior habeatur qui prius fuerit ordinatus: communi autem consilio et concordi actione quae- quae sunt pro Christi zelo agenda disponant unanimiter ; recte sentiant, et ea quae senserint, non sibimet discrepando perficiant. Tua vero fraternitas non solum Episcopos quos ordinaverit, neque hos tantummodo qui per Eburacae Episcopum fuerint ordinati, sed etiam omnes Britanniae sacerdotes habeat sub- jectos; quatenus ex lingua et vita tuae sanctitatis, et recte credendi et bene vivendi formam percipiant, atque officium suum fide ac moribus exsequentes ad coelestia regna pertingant (Bade, Historia Ecclesiastical i. 29). 22 The Primacy of England. Aeduino Regi Anglorum Honorius, A.D. 634, Duo pallia utrorumque metropolitanorum, id est, Honorio et Paulino direximus, ut dum quis eorum de hoc seculo ad Auct- orem suum fuerit arcersitus, in loco ipsius alter episcopum ex hac nostra auctoritate debeat subrogare .... (Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica^ ii, 17). 1 APPENDIX II. The accord entered into by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York concerning the supremacy of the former see in the year 1072. From the Historical Manuscripts Commission, 5th Report, p. 452. In the muniment room at Canterbury are two manuscripts setting forth this accord. The first (MS. A i) is attested by the signatures of the King, the Queen, Hubert the legate, thirteen bishops and eleven abbots, and for further corroboration the King's great seal is affixed to the lower end of the instrument. The seal in this case is not suspended in the usual manner by strings, but is attached, or, as it is termed, ' appliqu6 ' to the membrane itself A circular piece as large as a sixpence was cut out of the parchment ; then two pieces of wax having been softened, one was applied to each side of the membrane, touching and adhering to each other at the hole ; after this the seal being impressed on one side and the counter seal on the other, the wax spread out into a flat surface on either side of the parchment. The document (MS. A i) is written in a clear clerkly hand upon fine parchment, the body of the deed and the signatures being all executed by one pen. This composition and the MS. itself have been known to historians from very early times, and in all cases where it is quoted, the attesting bishops and abbots are reported to be in number thirteen and eleven respectively. Now another MS. has been found, A 2, a duplicate of A I ; and this, which the historians appear never to have inspected, is the deed actually executed by the royal and dignified per- sonages whose names are subscribed to A i. Here the ■'-rUfT. A_' SJ" -'-. '^' i 24 The Primacy of England. signatures all appear to be in autograph ; even the bold cross of the King and the more delicate one of the Queen seem to have been traced by the royal hands, the pen of Lanfranc being employed to verify them by the words * signum uuilelmi regis ' and ' signum] Mathildis regine ' respectively. In this case the attesting witnesses are only four in number. The Accord. Anno ab incarnatione Domini nostri Jesu Christi MLXXII, pontificatus autem domini Alexandri papae undecimo, regni vero Willelmi, gloriosi regis Anglorum et ducis Normannorum, sexto, ex praecepto ejusdem Alexandri papae, annuente eodem rege, in praesentia ipsius, et episcoporum, et abbatum, ventilata est causa de primatu, quern Lanfrancus, Dorobernensis archi- episcopus, super Eboracensem ecclesiam jure suae ecclesiae proclamabat; et de ordinationibus quorundam episcoporum, de quibus ad quem specialiter pertinerent, certum minime constabat, et tandem aliquando diversis diversarum scriptu- rarum auctoritatibus probatum et ostensum est ; quod Ebor. ecclesiae Cantuarensi debeat subjacere, ejusque archiepiscopi, ut primatis totius Britanniae, dispositionibus in his quae ad Christianam religionem pertinent, in omnibus obedire. Sub- jectionem vero Dunelmensis, hoc est Lindisfarnensis episcopi, atque omnium regionum a terminis Lichifeldensis episcopi et Humbrae magni fluvii usque ad extremos Scotiae fines ; et quic- quid ex hac parte praedicti fluminis ad parochiam Ebor. ecclesiae jure competit, Cantuarensis metropolitanus Ebor. archiepiscopo ejusque successoribus in perpetuum obtinere concessit ; ita ut si Cantuarensis archiepiscopus concilium cogere voluerit, ubicunque ei visum fuerit, Ebor. archiepiscopus sui praesentiam cum omnibus sibi subjectis, ad nutum ejus exhibeat, et ejus canonicis dispositionibus obediens existat. Quod autem Ebor. archiepiscopus professionem Cantuarensi archiepiscopo facere etiam cum sacramento debeat, Lanfrancus, Dorobernensis archiepiscopus, ex antiqua antecessorum con- suetudine ostendit ;' sed, ob amorem regis, Thomae Ebor. archi- episcopo sacramentum relaxavit, scriptamque professionem recepit, non praejudicans successoribus suis, qui sacramentum Appendix II to Chapter I. 25 cum professione a successoribus Thomae exigere voluerint. Si archiepiscopus Cantuar. vitam finierit, Eboracensis archiepisco- pus Doroberniam veniet, et eum qui electus fuerit cum coeteris praefatae ecclesiae episcopis ut primatem proprium jure con- secrabit. Quodsi Ebor. archiepiscopus obierit, is qui ei succes- surus eligitur, accepto a rege archiepiscopatus dono, Cantuariam, vel ubi Cantuar. archiepiscopus placuerit, accedat, et ab ipso ordinationem canonico more suscipiet. Huic constitutioni consenserunt praefatus rex, et archi- episcopi Lanfrancus Cantuarensis, et Thomas Eboracensis, et coeteri qui interfuerunt episcopi et abbates. The contracting parties and the subscribing witnesses affixed their signatures in the following order : — Signum uuilelmi regis. Signum Mathildis regine. -fEgo hubt see romane lector et dom. Alexandri papa legat. subscripsi. + Ego lanfranc' dorobernensis Archieps. subscripsi. -J-Ego uualchelin' uuentan' eps. subscripsi. -f"Ego Thomas eboracensis Archieps. concede. + Ego remigius dorcacestrensis eps subscripsi. + Ego Erfastus tetfortensis eps subscripsi. -|-Ego uulstanus uuigornensis eps. subscripsi. There is so much variety of character in the personality of these signatures, that it is impossible to resist the conclusion that each of them is the work of the person whose name it expresses, except that of Erfastus, whose tremulous hand was only able to delineate his cross. An examination of the bold upstanding autograph of the Bishop of Worcester tempts one l«WMteM«ii* 26 The Primacy of England. to believe that, as his certainly expresses the transparent and firm character of the writer, so the other witnesses may have furnished in their signatures some material for estimating their moral qualities. One clause, 'ventilata est autem haec causa,' etc., which occurs in MS. i, is not found in MS. 2; but as this passage is rather a note than a part of the contract, neither of the con- tracting parties being in any way affected by it, there is no reason why the clerk should not have added it when, after the signatures had been subscribed to A 2, the original, he made the copy which was plainly intended for public exhibition. ^T. Ji"?— .h faAiauUhi^^Zk^Baau: ieaob: lOTi I Mm^cmrccrii rhcmc ii^i^ftwaiii arc ht o^ c» Licfumcr ru re la^Mutr-lcpp^ r^rnupmncntyccc^ vuncmu citm pmtTon r a luccAicinb% rh( ^ tTTCtudicinl lucccllo[*iU lull crut uct^amemu citmp J ^ tJmurtcnU ura Ktiicjnr ' e/x^tucmtKirc hicil cfcpotq^nu ucnicr- ce w qui Accni{Lr-tT4^c€Ttnf ccr)«l cCccm'i out ii«crliicrunr epil I vJnivtf'fjf -*-• 4. •Si ■ T r*- '-X. FACSIMILE OF SIGNATURES ATTACHED TO MS. A 2 t j CHAPTER II. YORK STOMACHS A SUPERIOR. Authorities : Hugh the Chantor and Eadmer (Rolls Series). Aspiration rather than acquiescence was the spirit of the age. Thomas of Bayeux was but biding his time. In one of its aspects, the Norman invasion had been a crusade against the moral stagnation and stolid in- dependence of the English Church. William had led his army to battle under a banner blessed by the Pope, and ecclesiastical reforms naturally followed close on the success of his enterprise. Progressive Normans, versed in all the wisdom of Hildebrand, supplanted easy-going Saxon bishops; clerical celibacy was par- tially enforced ; National Synods were held with greater frequency ; while causes of a spiritual nature relating to the cure of souls were no longer heard in the Hun- dred Court, but were removed from the cognizance of secular men to a separate court of the bishop. Such measures, introduced with the idea of moulding the English Church according to the Roman fashion, re- sulted presently in the increase of papal power at the expense of royal prerogative. For a time, indeed, this tendency was not noticeable. As long as William 28 The Primacy of England. York stomachs a Superior 29 lived, he stoutly refused homage to the papal see. He 'starkly' maintained that no pope should be acknow- ledged, no papal letters enforced, without his permission. Save by his leave and licence, no vassal should be ex- communicated. No synod should legislate without his previous consent and subsequent confirmation of its decrees. But when the great king, 'William Bastard de graunt vigour,' was gone, the weapons with which he had maintained so effectively the independence of his realm and the supremacy of his crown against papal and ecclesiastical attack, fell into the hands of his weaker or more embarrassed successors. ' No one but the Conqueror could bend the Conqueror's bow.' The island-church was drawn into the general tide of ecclesi- astical politics, and its clergy became members of a privileged caste with the Roman bishop at their head. In the wild times of the Red King and the first Henry, in the chaos of Stephen's reign, and until it culminates in the mortal duel between Henry II and Thomas of Canterbury, the struggle between temporal and spiritual powers is the most marked feature of English history. In this contest Archbishops of York found the oppor- tunity they sought. While the steady progress of the Church from strength to strength supplied them with additional incentive, they now received additional en- couragement to re-assert their full primatial claims ; at one time from popes, who in the southern metropolitan of the day discovered an Imperialist rather than a Papist ; at another from kings, who sought a courtier at Canterbury and found a churchman. The local wave of rivalry between the archbishops of England was now to add to the confusion of mightier waters, and to swell the tumult of the same. ' While 1 live, equal in my realm I will not endure,' said Rufus, remembering Lanfranc ; and for five years following the death of the Primate of Britain, the see of Canterbury lay vacant. Meanwhile, Thomas adminis- tered the government of the southern province, conse- crating bishops therein, and placing the crown on the king's head at the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. In 11 90 he established the chapter of his own cathedral with a dean, chantor, chancellor, and treasurer, as chief officers ; and superin- tended the constitution of sister foundations at Lincoln and Salisbury, which were destined to serve as patterns for secular chapters subsequently erected. If at any time through fear or desire for life he had subjected himself to anyone, he now felt a free man once more. Yorkist chroniclers supported him with stout assertions that the whole story of the national council and its decision was a fiction, and the charter of Lanfranc a forgery, of the monks of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, ' those skilled artificers,' who, by the testimony of Ger- vase, one of their own historians, ' could counterfeit in gold, wax, lead, and all metals.' 'You have heard,' writes Hugh to his readers, ' the tale of their vast and overweening ambition. Now mark the base and treach- erous wickedness of these monks. They actually stole the royal seal and affixed it to a charter which they forged, where it was falsely stated that our cause was \ M i I ;) ] ! ! ' I . 30 The Primacy of England, York stomachs a Superior. 31 heard before the king, bishops, and nobles of England, and that it was held that a profession of obedience with an oath thereon was due from our Church to Canterbury ; but that Lanfranc, for the love he bare the king, agreed to dispense with the oath for that once. Why, when the existence of the document was brought to the knowledge of the Conqueror, just before his final de- parture from England in 1086, he expressly denied its authenticity before notable witnesses, and promised to do justice to York, should he be permitted to return.' Pope Urban II moreover, in view of the marked indif- ference displayed by Lanfranc towards his claim to the papal throne, had severely reprimanded Thomas for making profession of obedience to Canterbury ; and the Archbishop was determined, should occasion arise, to reassert the dual primacy of the British Church (Hugh the Chantor). His opportunity soon came. In the beginning of the year 1093 Rufus was seized with a severe illness; and, fearful of dying with the vacant Archbishopric in his possession and on his conscience, he nominated Anselm to the see. Instead of two strong oxen, there were yoked in the plough of the Church the untamable bull and the old and stubborn sheep. Even before he had received consecration, the Archbishop-elect had irritated the king by insisting on the inalienability of Church- lands, and the recognition of Urban II as rightful Pope. When the time for the ceremony arrived, Thomas came to Canterbury to officiate. The service commenced with the reading of a formal petition for consecration, wherein a request was made that Anselm might be hallowed * Primate of Britain.' No sooner did Thomas hear these words than he departed from the altar, and, entering the vestry, put off his robes. Then fol- lowed him the Archbishop-elect and Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, and falling on their knees they besought him not to take offence. And he answered them, * Since there are but two metropolitans in Britain, one cannot be primate thereof, unless he be above the other. I will hallow no one " Primate of Britain." ' Then said they, * Be it even as thou wilt. We seek naught save peace and charity.' Appeased by these words, Thomas robed himself afresh, and the objectionable title being omitted and erased from the petition, he hallowed Anselm * Metropolitan of Canterbury.' Such is the account of Hugh, the Yorkist Chronicler, differing, as may be ex- pected, from that of Eadmer, the historian of the rival Church. According to the latter, Thomas took objection to the description of the Church of Canterbury as * the metropolitan Church of all Britain ' ; * If this is the case,' said he, * then the Church of York, which is well known to be metropolitan, is stript of her honours. We admit that Canterbury is the primatial Church of all Britain, but we deny it to be the metropolitan Church of the same.' Accordingly the document was amended, and Anselm consecrated as ' Primate of all Britain.' The Worcester Annals, however, seem to support the York- ist account by an entry under the year 1093, to the effect that * then for the first time were the primates of Canterbury styled " archbishops," whereas before they \ I 32 The Primacy of England. had been called " Metropolitans of Britain " ' {Annales Monast.y 373). The days of the Conqueror and Lanfranc, when the subjection of York to Canterbury was deemed necessary for the safety of England, were gone. The maintenance of some balance of power between the two archiepis- copal sees was now recommended by royal advisers as a security for the peace of the crown. On the morrow of Anselm's consecration Thomas forbade him to 'hal- low' Robert Bloet, Elect of Lincoln, save as Bishop of Dorchester. The claims of the Church of York over Lincoln and great part of Lindsey had been frequently raised before this, but had hitherto been completely ignored. Now, however, the consecration was delayed until the dispute was finally settled by the King in a compromise, under which the Church of York was com- pelled to surrender its claim over Lincoln in exchange for the patronage of Selby Abbey in Yorkshire and the Church of St. Oswald, Gloucester.^ ^ The claim of York over Lincoln and Lindsey was of old standing. In the year 1061 Nicholas II had 'confirmed to the Bishop of Dor- chester and his successors the parish of Lindsey and the Church of Stow and the appendages thereof which Alfric, Archbishop of York, had unjustly invaded' (Wilkins, Cona'lia, i, 315). About the year 1086 Remigius, Bishop of Dorchester, had transferred his see to Lincoln, 'thus manfully securing all the land between the rivers Widhem and Humber for his diocese and the province of Canterbury ' {Giraldus Cambrensis Vita Rentigii, chap. iv.). The argument of Thomas of York that Lindsey had been converted by Paulinus, and had formed part of Egfrith's kingdom, was then utterly disregarded. All the bishops of England were bidden to attend the dedication of the church built by Remigius at Lincoln, but two days before the date appointed for the ceremony the Bishop died, ' struck down by God's York stomachs a Superior. 33 In yet one more instance did Thomas maintain with some measure of success the privileges of his Church. Old and infirm though he was, he hurried from Ripon to London on the death of the Red King, in order to crown his successor ; and when on arrival he found that the ceremony had been already performed by Maurice, Bishop of London, he forthwith complained of the in- fringement of his right. * It was contrary to all prece- dent that a king should be hallowed save by one of his archbishops, and^in the absence of Anselm the privilege undoubtedly belonged to him.' His claim was admitted, Henry I making apology that in the disturbed state of the kingdom it would have been dangerous to postpone the ceremony till his appearance (Hugh the Chantor). The dispute about the right of investiture between the King and Anselm had already arisen, when Thomas died at the close of the year iioo, and Gerard, Bishop privy doom ' ; and the actual dedication was delayed until the days of his successor. The Charter of Rufus settling the dispute runs as follows : — In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti Amen. Summi Patris fuit consilium ut sanctam civitatem suam, coelestem scilicet Jerusalem, quae diaboli superbia divisa erat, morte dilectissimi Filii sui interce- dente, redintegraret ; et per redemptionem humani generis angelica damna repararet. Hac consideratione ego Willelmus, videns ecclesiam Anglorum ex parte divisam et discordantem, resarcire concupivi quod male scissum fuerat, et ad unitatem verae civitatis revocare quod diu indiscussum sub discordia manserat. Redemi igitur de meis propriis possessionibus calumpniam quam habebat ecclesia Eboracensis super Lincolniam et super Lindissim et super mansiones Stow et Ludham,et dedi pro eis ecclesiae Sancti Petri Eboracensis jure perpetuo possi- dendas, abbatiam Sancti Germani de Selebi, et ecclesiam Sancti Oswaldi de Glocestra, &c. {Histor. of York, Rolls Series, iii. 21). '. 1 34 The Primacy of England. York stomachs a Superior, 35 of Hereford, was appointed his successor. A notorious king's-man, the new Archbishop had already repre- sented Rufus at the papal court, and was now destined to plead again the royal cause before the Pope. Imme- diately after his appointment he was despatched to Rome, as Henry's advocate, to request that Anselm might be permitted to comply with the hereditary usages of the Crown, and receive his pastoral staff of the King. When a written answer was sent to Henry and Anselm, refusing this request, Gerard on his return to England declared that in a private interview Paschal II had assured him that the letters were a mere matter of form ; and that so long as the King acted well, and appointed good and pious prelates, papal decrees about investiture would not be enforced. Another deputation to Rome became necessary; and valuable time had been gained for the royal cause before the Pope's indignant disclaimer of any such verbal message reached England. Without yielding in any way, Henry had been enabled by Gerard's in- ventive powers to postpone a quarrel, which at the moment of his accession he had not dared to risk. The Archbishop of York deserved well of his master. 'About the election, life, morals and miserable death of this prelate/ wrote Archbishop Ralph to Calixtus II in later days, * I prefer to keep silence, rather than to shock the ears of Christian piety by the record of them.' Nor did Gerard find favour with the clergy and people of his own province. During his life he was suspected of meddling with magical arts, and when he died sud- denly in the garden of his palace, unhouseled and unaneled, a book on judicial astrology was found under the cushion on which he lay. As the funeral procession entered York, the bier was pelted with stones ; and the body was refused interment within the cathedral walls. To the Yorkist chroniclers the one redeeming point in his career was his resistance of the claims of Canter- bury. Lest the title *Pope of another world and Patriarch of the Lands beyond the Seas,' with which Urban II had saluted Anselm, should become some- thing more than a name, Gerard defied both Pope and Primate, and withheld oath of obedience. Nor could pressure be brought to bear upon him, for he had already received consecration on his appointment to Hereford ; and, by a vague [promise ' to pay, when he came back from Rome, all that could be justly demanded of him,' he had induced Anselm to give him letters to Paschal II, which secured him the gift of a pall. *How noble and manly was his behaviour at the Council of Westminster' (1102), wrote the Canons of York to his successor, ^ for when the monks built up an exception- ally high throne for Anselm, he called in the vulgar tongue for the wrath of heaven to fall on the perpetra- tors of such an insult, and applying the archiepiscopal foot to the structure, overthrew it ' (Hugh the Chantor). Not only at Rome did he represent the royal cause, but on Anselm's refusal to officiate he was prepared to consecrate in the southern province prelates who had received ring and staff of the King ; and the loyalty of the suffragans-elect to their metropolitan, and their D 2 36 The Primacy of England. refusal 'to bend the neck to such infamy/ alone pre- vented this open encroachment of York on the right of Canterbury. While Gerard's rough and ready methods on these occasions seem totally at variance with the description given of him by Hugh the Chantor and William of Malmesbury, as 'a refined and accomplished man, second to few or none in knowledge and eloquence, and but little inferior to Virgil as a poet, and to Cicero as a writer of prose,' the letters on the other hand which he wrote to Anselm are of a courteous and even romantic character. 'As a thirsty stag pants to the water-brook, and a way-worn traveller yearns for a place of rest, so I, parched and weary, seek the fountain of thy wisdom and the peace of thy counsels,' are the opening words of a letter, in which he entreats his rival's assistance in enforcing rules as to concubinage and non-residence against the Canons of York. On another occasion, when he finds himself in trouble, he assures the 'Archbishop of Canterbury' that he is 'pleading his cause not only among their common friends, but even in the presence of the King and Court. Enemies are speaking against him; but if he has been somewhat lacking in zeal for the Church, his want of enthusiasm has resulted from the impression that Anselm did not sympathize with him in his misfortunes.' Finally, towards the close of Anselm's three years of exile, Gerard apparently came to the conclusion that his presence was indispensable to the English Church (Migne, Patrolog. Cursus. Anselm^ Lib. iii. 121, iv. 39), York stomachs a Superior, 3'7 and joined the Bishops of Chester, Norwich, Chichester, Worcester and Winchester in praying him to return, declaring himself ready to follow him, and, if necessary, to perish with him. The independence of his archi- episcopal see was not allowed to stand in the way of a reconciliation; for when Anselm, immediately aftef his return in 1107, demanded from the reluctant King the submission of the Church of York, he for his part does not seem to have raised any objections, but will- ingly renewed the oath of obedience he had made to Canterbury on his appointment to the see of Hereford (Eadmer, Hist. Nov,^ 187). Under Norman kings the position of archbishops depended more on their personal relations to the sovereign than on legal grounds. In spite of the de- cision of a national assembly in favour of the supremacy of Canterbury, and the precedents of the oaths of obedience taken by Thomas of Bayeux and Gerard, the latter's successor, Thomas II (1108), was encouraged to temporize with Anselm's peremptory summons to come to Canterbury for consecration, and 'pay his dues.' * Whether the King was really on our side,' says Hugh the Chantor, 'or acted thus simply because he had quarrelled with Anselm, was uncertain at the time, but has been made clear since.' Henry's policy towards the papacy was directed to the strict maintenance of such privileges of the Crown as he had inherited from his father ; and, with so advanced a churchman at Canterbury, discretion urged him to support an inde- pendent ally in the see of York. When therefore 38 The Primacy of England, Anselm threatened to undertake the management of the northern province himself, if the Archbishop-elect remained unconsecrate, Thomas answered : * Many and grave reasons have prevented me from coming to you. The money I had collected for the expenses of the journey, has been spent during an unexpectedly long visit to Winchester. I am now raising funds to send to Rome for a pall, but find it extremely difficult to borrow money save at a very high rate of interest, owing to the way in which my predecessor drained the province of all spare cash.' The letter concludes with a request that the limit of time laid down for his appear- ance at Canterbury may be extended, and that Anselm will send him necessary letters which he may take with him to Rome in support of his claim to a pall. Anselm in answer granted extension of time, but declared he could not accept the excuse offered for delay. * No one should have a pall before he had received consecration. As to the letters, it will be time enough to give them when I have seen you, and talked the matter over with you.' At the same time he took the precaution to obtain from Paschal a promise to withhold the pall from his rival. After a short while Thomas wrote again: 'On the eve of my departure to come to you, my chapter forbade me in the name of God, St. Peter, and Holy Church, to unduly submit my see to yours. Furthermore they forwarded letters after me by special messenger, threatening to withdraw their allegiance, should I make profession to you. I am set about with cares on every hand. It would be a disgrace to come York stomachs a Superior, 39 to you for consecration "and then to depart unhallowed ; yet I fear that, if it stands much longer, the milk of your loving-kindness may turn sour. My Church prays you are in good health and happiness.' The Canons of York Cathedral 'knowing well,' says Eadmer, 'the great age and infirmity of Anselm, and thinking he would soon die, now wrote to him : " We are of opinion that you employed too much severity in summoning our elect to come to you within a stated time and ' pay his dues.' Of course we know well enough that he ought to receive the imposition of your saintly hands, but we do not understand what are 'the dues' he ought to pay. Perhaps you or your monks will an- swer 'the profession of obedience is meant.' We, however, rely on your reputation for holiness to de- mand nothing but the things which are of God. Now we are willing to allow our elect to shew you respect by rising and bowing and by giving place, but we mean to disown him should he subject our Church to yours. It is expedient that one of wisdom and holiness should be independent, and follow out his own ideas. Though there are some clerks and monks who are actuated by pride rather than expediency, we ourselves are con- scious that we are doing nothing through strife, emulation, or vain glory, but all things in the name of God and our right. May heaven keep you in body and soul.'" Anselm continued to press his demands, and Thomas in reply protests, ' No one can be more eager for consecration than I, but you know well how dan- gerous it would be for me to break through the rules of 40 The Primacy of England, York stomachs a Superior, 41 the Church over which I am to preside. How terrible would it be under the cloak of a blessing to put on a curse.' When the Bishop of London came to him, and reminded him of the treatment of Thomas I by Lan- franc, he retorted by stating how Thomas in his turn had treated Anselm. The King, to whom the matter was now referred, promised to settle all disputes on his return from Normandy; but shewed his continued partiality to the cause of York by requesting the Pope to send a legate to England bearing a pall for Thomas. Paschal II in reply despatched Cardinal Ulric, but gave him instructions to bestow the pall as Anselm should direct (Hugh the Chantor and Eadmer). So matters stood, when on April 21st, 1109, the Saint, who had withstood two kings, passed away. On his deathbed, mindful of the rebellious Thomas, he wrote as Primate of all Britain, forbidding him under pain of excommunication to attempt to discharge any archi- episcopal function until he had submitted himself to Canterbury, and threatening the like penalty on any bishop who should consecrate him without exacting profession of obedience. Henry's countenance now changed towards York. *Our gentle Favonius gave place to boisterous Aquilo,' laments Hugh the Chantor. At the following Whitsuntide Court, when the Count of Meulan suggested that any bishop, who had dared to receive Anselm's letter, had been guilty of treason, the King sympathized with the suffragans of Canterbury in their determination to obey the last command of their late metropolitan. 'Whatever others may think,' said he, ' I for my part would not wish to be subject even for an hour to the curse of so great a father.' Then did the bishops cry aloud that Anselm was present him- self, and, as a spirit, had won for his Church the victory which ill-health had denied him, while in the flesh. The charters and privileges of Canterbury were pro- duced. * What need is there of further evidence ?' cried the King. 'Shall I allow privileges granted by the Holy See, defined in the presence of my father and mother by the testimony of bishops and nobles of the realm, to be brought in question and upset by new devices ? Thomas shall make profession, or resign the archbishopric' Protests that the curse of Anselm was a fiction, and the charter of Lanfranc a forgery, were unavailing. Vain was the bribe offered by the Bishop of Durham of one thousand marks to the King, of one hundred to the Queen, for the Canterbury party had already promised to raise no objection, should the King wish to keep the vacant metropolitical see in his hand, and receive the profits thereof; 'and Henry,' adds Hugh, ' was no bad judge of the value of a bribe.' All turned against Thomas. His father Sampson, Bishop of Worcester, his brother Richard of Bayeux, urged him to submit. The papal legate refused to advise on the case. At length, overwhelmed by the threat of banishment of himself and his family, Thomas gave way. 'Harassed and distracted,' says the ever-loyal Hugh, * he consented to do what I really think he never would have done, had he been physically capable of undergoing the fatigue of exile. But he was corpulent and inconveniently stout.* 42 The Primacy of England. On June 27th, 1109, in St. Paul's Church, he was consecrated by Richard, Bishop of London, after making profession of obedience to the Church of Canterbury and to the primates of the same, saving his fealty to King Henry and the Holy Roman See. In order to protect the rights both of York and Canter- bury against any possible claims of the Bishops of London in the future, proclamation was made that the present consecration was not to form a precedent, but had been performed in St. Paul's by the King's com- mand, and had been celebrated by the Bishop of London, as dean of the province of Canterbury. ' Thus was Thomas hallowed,' writes the triumphant Eadmer, 'receiving from a servant what he had refused to accept from the hand of the master. As long as he lived, this was a source of regret to him, and he would declare himself to have been unfortunate and unworthy the blessing of so great a man.' Further mortification was in store for him. At the following Christmas Court, Richard of London claimed precedence over him' placed the crown on the King's head, and led him to church by the right hand. Moreover, when the two prelates came to meat at the king's table, dispute arose between them as to order of session, and Henry in disgust promptly dismissed them both to take their meals in their respective hostels (Eadmer). APPENDIX. Subjection of Archbishops of York to Canterbury. (1) Profession of Thomas of Bayeux. •Ego Thomas, ordinatus jam Eboracensis ecclesiae metropo- litanus antistes, auditis cognitisque rationibus, absolutam tibi Lanfrance, Dorubernensis Archiepiscope, tuisque successoribus de canonica obedientia professionem facio, et quidquid a te vel ab eis juste et canonice injunctum mihi fuerit, servaturum me esse promitto' {Historians of York (Rolls Series), iii. 13). (2) Profession of Gerard, made on his appointment to the see of Hereford, and renewed in 1107 after his translation to York. 'Ego Gerardus Herefordensis ecclesiae electus et a te reverende pater Anselme, sanctae Cantuarensis ecclesiae archi- episcope, et totius Britanniae primas, antistes consecrandus, tibi et omnibus successoribus tuis canonicam obedientiam me per omnia servaturum promitto' {Histor. of York, iii. 15). (3) Profession of Thomas II. • Ego Thomas, Eboracensis ecclesiae consecrandus metropoli- tanus, profiteor subjectionem et canonicam obedientiam sanctae Dorobernensi ecclesiae et ejusdem ecclesiae primati canonice electo et consecrato, et successoribus suis canonice inthronizatis, salva fidelitate domini mei Henrici regis Anglorum, et salva obedientia ex parte mea tenenda, quam Thomas antecessor meus sanctae Romanae ecclesiae ex parte sua professus est* {Histor. of York, iii. 33). Hugh the Chantor sets out a letter which he asserts King Henry gave to Thomas II, testifying that the profession was made by his command for that turn only, that it was personal, and not intended to prejudice the Church of York in the future. I' ^a CHAPTER III. THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. Authorities : Hugh the Chantor and Eadmer (Rolls Series). Thurstanus, quasi turris, stans contra mala mundi, Exponit nomen per sua facta suum. Vita Turstini auctore anonynto. — Ht'stor. of York (Rolls Series, vol. ii). Though the Northern Church had now these three times been reduced to obedience, the days of her bond- age were numbered. In I II 4, Ralph d'Escures succeeded to the see of Canterbury, which since Anselm's death had been kept in the king's hand. In the same year, Thurstan was appointed to York ; * A man of prudence was he,' writes Hugh, * fervent in business both civil and military ; one in whom both WilHam the younger and Henry had con- fided as a trusty friend ; given moreover to the enter- tainment of strangers, were they clerks or la3mien. And these good qualities were destined to stand him in good stead in many places on convenient occasions.' The Elect of York lost no time in bringing the question of the profession to the notice of the King, urging that the submission of one metropolitan to the V The War of Independence, 45 other was uncanonical and without a parallel in other countries. Moreover, should any dispute arise between the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the northern metropolitan would be bound by his oath to obey the latter. Henry, though impressed by this argument, made no definite decision at the time; but a year later, he directed Thurstan to present himself before Ralph and request consecration at his hands; promising to submit any difficulties that might arise to the decision of the Pope : and the Elect of York accord- ingly, in company of the Archbishop of Rouen and others, repaired to Canterbury. His journey was fruit- less. * I will speak clearly to you,' said Ralph ; ' I will never hallow you until you have rendered oath of obedience to me'; and when Thurstan proposed to refer the question to the papal court, he answered, *A journey to Rome is too great an undertaking for one of my age and infirmity ; and even though the Pontiff should stand before me face to face, and bid me give you unconditional consecration, I would refuse to obey him.' Now though *many who heard these words, considered them neither canonical nor wise,' this declaration of the Archbishop seems to have satisfied the King that at Canterbury was a man after his own heart. On the other hand, the evident desire of Thurstan to seek consecration of Paschal II, and submit the dispute to the decision of Rome, suggested a further extension of that control over archiepiscopal appointments, which Popes already exercised in conferring or withholding the pall. Accordingly, at the Council of Salisbury I ^ — i \ 46 The Primacy of England, (11 16), Henry determined to employ again the methods which had reduced Thomas II to submission. Royal messengers were sent from the council chamber to the Elect of York, who sat alone in a neighbouring chapel. * The King/ said they, * will not argue on these matters. Choose then either of these two things. Make the profession ; or endure the King's wrath, and banishment of your family from the realm.' Such threats *if men be of fearful heart, may do well ; but if they be stout and daring, they but precipitate their designs and prove dangerous;' and Thurstan after a pause answered, 'Terrible is it for me to anger the King; but far more terrible would it be to offend knowingly against God and Holy Church. Rather than do this, I will render back his gift to the King.' Now when the messengers were come back to the council chamber, and the Arch- bishop of Canterbury and those of his party would not believe their report, Count Robert of Meulan said, ' If I rightly know the man, he will not hesitate to do as he has said. Let him come and speak for himself.' Thur- stan accordingly came, and confirmed what had been told by the messengers ; and placing his hand in that of the King, he surrendered to him the Archbishopric. ' Those who saw it,' says Hugh, ' burst into tears ; the King himself sighed and wept ; Ralph alone was un- moved, for his heart was hardened. But Thurstan shewed no sign of bitterness, and bare himself with his wonted gaiety of heart, as though no evil had befallen him. And throughout England and Normandy all mar- velled that a clerk, who had been a courtier and fed at The War of Independence. 47 the King's table, should have so withstood him; and men of noble mind bear witness to his courage.' Now after his resignation, Thurstan departed with the court into Normandy; and doubts arose in the King's mind whether the surrender of the Archbishopric was good. The Canons of York Cathedral declared that from the Pope alone they could obtain absolution from the oath of obedience they had made to their Archbishop-elect. Thurstan himself remembered that, though he had rendered to the King the temporalities of his office, he could be acquitted by the Pontiff alone of the sacred charge which the Pontiff had confirmed. In vain, however, did he seek permission to go to Rome, for his path was barred by * golden nets and silver bolts * supplied to the King by his rival. Ralph himself, saying ' all things at Rome have their price,' mortgaged part of the property of his see, and set out to purchase papal authority for the profession of obedience to be made. But all attempts on the conscience of the Supreme Pontiff were unavailing. * Not for his chamber full of gold and silver' would Paschal give the required per- mission ; and the only result of a troublesome journey was a vague * ratification of all such privileges as had been duly and canonically possessed in times past by Archbishops of Canterbury.' 'Such rights,' remarks Hugh, 'no one ever thought of denying or disputing.* * If only,' sighs William of Malmesbury, * the Pope had expressly stated what dignities our Church possessed, and then confirmed them, he would have put an end once and for all to the whole dispute; but when he v^ L, 48 The Primacy of England, said, "We in no way lessen any privileges you may possess," he left the whole matter undecided, regarding not the labour of others so long as he consulted his own advantage' {Gesta Pont, 130). In the course of the next few years, strongly-worded letters passed between the various parties engaged in the dispute. The Chapter of York indignantly demanded their Elect ; Paschal and his successor Gelasius ordered instant and unconditional consecration to be given, but were too much embarrassed by their conflict with the Emperor to be able to enforce their commands; Henry and Ralph remained stubborn; and Thurstan continued unhallowed, an archbishop in name alone. So matters stood when, in January, 11 19, Calixtus II ascended the papal throne, strong in the alliance of France and the recognition of the German prelates, and proceeded forthwith to summon a great council to meet at Rheims in the following October. Thurstan after some difficulty obtained permission to obey the papal summons ; but whether he gave the King an express promise not to accept consecration from Calixtus, is a point on which Eadmer and Hugh naturally agree to differ. Most probably both he and Calixtus gave some such indistinct undertaking, as is mentioned by William of Malmesbury, 'to injure in no way the dignity of Canterbury' (GesL Pont., 264). In the half-year pre- ceding the council, however, the Pope seems to have been persuaded that the right of the southern Church to exact obedience from York was not conclusively estab- lished. The letters of Gregory the Great and Honorius The War of Independence. 49 had pronounced equality between the two sees; while Urban II had reprimanded Thomas of Bayeux for the submission of himself to Lanfranc ; and Paschal, though in the lifetime of the trusty Anselm he had commanded the obedience of Gerard and Thomas II, called the latter prelate to account for the profession he made to Canterbury after the Saint's death (Histor. of York, ii. 103, 126). An opportunity moreover was now offered of dealing a blow at the independent attitude maintained by Henry in Church matters. Of late, vain protests had been made that papal letters and papal nuncios were refused admittance to England, save at the King's good will and pleasure ; that appeals to the papal court had been disallowed; and that all business relating to bishops and the celebration of councils and synods had been settled without reference to Rome. A fitting reply could now be given to one, who boasted himself 'patriarch, papal legate, and whatever else he pleased, in his own dominions;' whose bishops, now on the road to Rheims, had been cautioned 'to lay no com- plaints before the Holy Father, and to bring back none of his superfluous innovations into the realm.' Two days before the Council opened, in the presence of archbishops, bishops, and countless other ecclesiastical dignitaries, was Thurstan hallowed, 'receiving conse- cration, as it were, from the hands of St. Peter himself/ The English bishops were not yet come to Rheims, and Archbishop Ralph had pleaded ill health as an excuse for non-attendance. 'John, Archdeacon of Canterbury, alone made protest, but in a manner that was neither fit 50 The Primacy of England. nor seemly. "I am acting without prejudice to the right of Canterbury, if any such right exist," the Pope modestly answered ; and had not the Archdeacon been within a sacred edifice at the time, he would not have escaped insult. As it was, he was driven out by the Romans with reproaches and loud abuse.' When the Council met, the newly hallowed Archbishop took his seat therein with his suffragan, the Bishop of Orkney ; but the prelates of England and Normandy, who had been charged by the King to prevent the consecration, kept aloof from him, and the Bishop of Durham even feared to sit near his metropolitan. When the news of what had taken place reached Henry, he swore that Thurstan should never set foot in England until he consented to take oath of obedience to Canterbury. The Archbishop's estate was seized ; and his suffragan, the Bishop of Orkney, who had been present at the consecration, fell into disgrace. For two years the King was relentless, disregarding all the efforts made by Calixtus to bring about a reconciliation ; while, in reply to an offer of absolution if he would take back his word and recall Thurstan, he declared * such an act would be unworthy of his honour ; for who would afterwards place reliance on any promise, were they to see from his example how easily it could be made worthless.' The deeper his disgrace at home, the higher the favour found by the offending Archbishop at the French and papal courts. Eminent scholars claimed Thurstan as their comrade ; he associated with cardinals as their equal ; and when the Pope was crowned, rode The War of Independence, SI in the procession beside the Bishop of Ostia, the chief of the order. Useful friends rallied round him where- ever he went. Calixtus invited his assistance at conse- crations, presented him with valuable relics and holy oil, 'nor would he have denied him his blood had he required it of him'; while as a mark of special favour, Thurstan was allowed to wear his pall in exile, although by ordinary rule no metropolitan might wear this vest- ment outside his province. Finally a papal privilege was granted to his Church, declaring it to be free, and forbidding any oath of obedience to be made in the future. Should Canterbury still refuse unconditional consecration, York might have recourse to his own suffragans or to the Pope himself (Appendix to Chapter III). The Archbishop, meanwhile, had been enabled to render invaluable services to Church and State at home. He had been instrumental in bringing about peace between England and France; and when the bishops and abbots of Normandy failed to attend a coun- cil at Beauvais summoned by Conon, the papal legate, his intercession had saved them from excommunication. The King indeed had declared he would rather have lost five hundred marks than have been deprived of his assistance. At the close of the year 1 121, in order to reward these services, and at the same time to avoid sentence of excommunication threatened against him- self, and of suspension against Archbishop Ralph, Henry allowed Thurstan to return to England. After visiting the King at Windsor, the victorious prelate E 2 wem 52 The Primacy of England. hurried northwards. A triumphal procession awaited him at York, people on foot and on horseback, knights and nobles, canons and monks, meeting him, and escorting him to the Minster. Seated in St. Peter's chair, he recited to his congregation the charter of freedom he had won for his Church. Never again were southern primates to exact express acknowledgement of their ecclesiastical superiority from their rivals of the north. This challenge provoked speedy renewal of the pri- matial war. Ralph, disappointed in his hope of securing obedience from York, proceeded to put forward some- what vague claims of patriarchal jurisdiction over the whole of Britain and Ireland. When Henry and Adela de Louvain were married at Windsor (1121), he de- clared that wherever the court might be, the King and Queen were always special parishioners of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury; and for this reason compelled the bishop of the diocese, who expected to officiate at the ceremony, to make way for his nominee, the Bishop of Winchester. The following day, when he found the King seated in the royal chapel wearing his crown, and recollected that he had not crowned him himself, he delayed the service until he had carefully removed the royal emblem, and replaced it after a pause with his own hands. Chroniclers threw themselves into the fray with increased partisanship. In these days Eadmer, who had been selected to fill the see of St. Andrew's, declined to accept consecration from any but Ralph, asserting that the jurisdiction of Canterbury • The War of Independence, 53 extended over the whole island of Britain ; and such was his obstinacy, that he preferred to resign the appointment rather than give way on the point. Hugh the Chantor, on the other side, attributes Ralph's broken health to the wrath of heaven at his continued hostility to the northern Church. * There were those who said that the claims of Canterbury were manifestly unjust, because, as often as the Archbishop attacked us, he was smitten of God; and it seemed to them that some good angel watched over the Church of York. We shewed however no unseemly exultation when he died, for we recollected the words of Solomon, ** Rejoice not over a fallen foe." ' Matters were not mended by the accession to Canter- bury of William of Corbeuil : * William de Turbine,' * of Turmoil, not of Corboil,' as he was nicknamed ; whose merits Henry of Huntingdon 'could not cele- brate, because they did not exist ' (* Cujus laudes dici nequeunt, quia non sunt,' De Contempt. Mundt) p. 314). The new Archbishop caused himself to be consecrated by his suffragans 'Primate of Britain,' after Thurstan had declined to ' hallow ' him ' Primate of all England ' (Simeon of Durham, ii. 269 ; Hugh the Chantor, Histor, of York, ii.). Simeon of Durham and the Saxon Chroni- cler suggest that when William went to Rome after his pall, he found that the Archbishop of York had already arrived there, and had so prejudiced the Curia against him, that he was there full seven nights ere he could come to speech of the Pope ; and that then his pall was refused to him for the reason, among others, that he had 54 The Primacy of England, not received consecration from his brother metropolitan. In the end, however, * that overcame Rome which over- cometh all the world, which is gold and silver;' and on the intercession of King Henry and his son-in-law, the Emperor Henry V, the Pope at length granted the pallium. Hugh the Chantor will naturally have none of this ; but represents his hero as a veritable * deus ex machina,* bearing generous testimony to the excellent character of his rival, and pleading on his behalf with the Curia. In full court the Pope declared that *on account of the love he bore towards his good friend, the Archbishop of York,' he was willing to relent, and to confirm William's election. Thurstan thereupon threw himself in gratitude at the feet of the Pontiff. Southern chroniclers state that the Canterbury party produced before Calixtus conclusive evidence of the pre-eminence of their Church; and that the Yorkists made unsatisfactory answers to the challenge, pleading that they had not anticipated a lawsuit when they came to Rome, and had left many important documents at home. Hugh tells a very different tale. He asserts that the writings put forward by the enemy, which are given at length by Eadmer, and are probably the same as those with which Lanfranc produced such an im- pression on the Councils of Windsor and Winchester in 1072, 'though entitled with the names of various popes, were not couched in the Roman style.' The Canterbury witnesses broke down under cross-examina- tion. They were asked whether the privileges they put in evidence, bore seals ; and answered that the originals NM« The War of Independence. 55 had been left at home, and that copies only were pro- duced. They were then pressed to swear that the originals were sealed. On this they held a private consultation, at which every man tried to induce his fellow to perjure himself on behalf of his church ('Sanum quidem consilium et legale!'); but as no member of the party would consent to become * splen- dide mendax,' they were fain to return with the answer that the seals had either been lost or else worn away by time. After this ridiculous explanation the docu- ments were laughed out of court, as flagrant forgeries. (' Quibus sic dicentibus alii subriserunt, alii nares corrugaverunt, alii cachinnum emiserunt, illudendo dicentes mirum esse plumbum consumptum fore vel perditum, et pergamenum durare.') * This story,' adds Hugh, * may seem to some people to be very improbable. The writer may even appear to be trifling. But I can assure them that it is in reality as true, as in appear- ance it seems fictitious.' The discomfiture of the Canterbury party was complete, when Thurstan pro- duced copies of the letters of Gregory and Honorius, of Urban, Paschal, Gelasius, and Calixtus himself, all supporting the theory of equality between the two Churches; and these were accepted in evidence as being within the common knowledge of all. The victory of York now seemed secure, when the court, evidently unwilling to give any definite decision on the point, held that no due notice of action had been given, and that the trial must take place at some future date, to be determined by the parties, if that were possible. 56 The Primacy of England. Inconclusive results followed the many attempts and various suggestions which were subsequently made to determine the dispute, and the countless vain journey- ings of the archbishops and their envoys to and from the papal court. On one occasion Thurstan agreed to obey Henry's command that the Churches should stand to one another, as they had stood 'in the days of his father'; but when a discussion arose as to the exact meaning of this expression, the Archbishop declared he took it to refer to that period of the Conqueror's reign when Aldred of York was practically sole metropolitan in England, while the King protested he had intended the days of Lanfranc's ecclesiastical supremacy. At another time, both Archbishops started for Rome, in order to obtain papal sanction of an agreement, under which the bishoprics of Chester and Bangor and a third see were to be transferred to the province of York, in return for a verbal acknowledgement of the primacy of Canterbury. 'By an unlucky chance, a papal legate, carrying with him many bags and chests full of gold, attached himself as a travelling companion to Thurstan;' and urging the principle that 'a man simply courts robbery, who carries treasure along a highway,' in- sisted that the whole party should ' avoid regular roads, and go across country, up hill and down dale, by a route no one ever took to reach Rome from England ' (per avia, per ardua, per aspera, per abrupta, per vias quibus de patria nostra nemo Romam ambulavit'). After they had been lost, imprisoned and ransomed Cvagabundi, disturbati, capti, redempti'), Thurstan, wiin The War of Independence. 57 whose one support in these trials had been the thought that he was suffering in defence of the rights of his Church, at length reached Rome ; only to find that William repented the bargain, and disputed the terms of the agreement. In portraying the indomitable cour- age displayed by his hero, and the magnanimity shewn by the Yorkists on this and on similar occasions, Hugh does not forget to paint his southern enemies in what appear to him to be their true colours. In his pages is preserved the record of their double-dealing, and the bitter regret they felt for the lost profession of obedi- ence ; of the revolt of John of Glasgow and the Scotch bishops, made at their instigation against the primacy of York; and of the gross breach of professional etiquette committed in the papal court by the cele- brated advocate Gilbert Universalis, who after being specially retained by Thurstan, suddenly threw up his brief for York, and appeared for Canterbury, in the hope of securing a larger fee. There too is told how Providence protected the cause of the helpless, and brought the learned counsel to confusion ; and how the supreme Pontiff smiled and shook his head, when some enthusiastic partisan of Canterbury claimed the whole of Britain as the province of his Church. In the year 1125, a new element of discord was intro- duced into the quarrel by a grant to William of legatine authority over England. Hitherto visits of legates, that is, delegates of the visitatorial jurisdiction of the Roman see, had been rare, and reserved for special occasions. The Conqueror ruled that no legate should 1 58 ^ The Primacy of England, be allowed to land in this country, unless he had been sent by the Pope at the request of the King and clergy ; and on several occasions Henry I made practical asser- tion of this right of independence. Partisans of Canter- bury, moreover, maintained that their archbishops possessed ex officio all powers which a Pope could confer on a legate {Anselm^s Letters^ iv. 2 ; Eadmer, Hist. Nov.y 126); but though Anselm secured recogni- tion of this alleged privilege from both Urban II and Paschal II, the claim had never been fully admitted at Rome. In the year 11 23, Henry, as a matter of policy, submitted to the landing of John of Crema; and the country gazed in wonder and indignation while the legate presided at the Council of Westminster over both the metropolitans of England, and on Easter Day took precedence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own cathedral. In order to prevent the recurrence of such a scandal, and in the hope of settling, once and for all, questions of precedence and obedience between Canterbury and York, Henry now permitted William of Corbeuil to go to Rome, and to accept on January 25, 1 126, a commission as legate with jurisdiction over the whole island of Britain. But in both points his ex- pectations were doomed to disappointment. In the first place, although there was henceforward established in the kingdom a resident representative of the supreme jurisdiction of Rome, popes reserved the right to super- sede his authority by the mission of extraordinary * legates a latere.' In the second, the ordinary legatine commission was not bestowed invariably and exclu- The War of Independence. 59 sively on Archbishops of Canterbury, but was held up as the reward due to zealous services in the interests of the papal see; and given now to Canterbury, now to York, and on some occasions even to one of their suffragans. Another century had passed away, before southern primates became *legati nati,' and received the ordinary legatine commission as a matter of course, as soon as their election to the see of Canterbury was recognised at Rome. On the present occasion, Thurstan, according to the Yorkist account, magnanimously assisted William in his application for this honour, but shewed at the earliest opportunity that he had no mind to accord to the legate the precedence he had denied to the archbishop. ' On Christmas Day, 1126,' writes Florence of Worcester, 'Henry, King of the English, held high festival at Windsor. Then did the Archbishop of York wish to crown the King after the custom of his predecessors ; but in the judgment of all it was agreed that the coro- nation, in no way pertained to him. Moreover his cross- bearer, who had borne his cross aloft before him in the Royal Chapel, was cast out ; for it was held by those versed in ecclesiastical law that it was not lawful for a metropolitan to have his cross borne before him outside his own province.' ^ In the following year the outraged ^ The use of a cross, which after the ninth century became a dis- tinguishing mark of papal legates, and was later granted as a personal favour to certain primates, was permitted to metropolitans, who had received palls, about the beginning of the twelfth century. The pri- vilege was finally extended to all archbishops by Gregory IX, as a distinguishing mark of their dignity ; and the cross is placed in pale J' 60 The Primacy of England. - • prelate refused to obey his rival's summons to a legatine council, and Henry, considering the affront which had been put upon him, approved his action. Honorius II, moreover, reprimanded William for his behaviour, and confirmed the right of Archbishops of York to share in the coronation of kings. In reply to the declaration of ecclesiastical independence now made by Scotland, and to the claims of patriarchal authority throughout Britain raised by Canterbury, Thurstan revived the see of Witherne and founded that of Carlisle (i 133). In later days, however, his generous disposition led him to seek reconciliation with his enemy. He attended his legatine councils, and, in a letter pointing out the advantages of common council between the Heads of the Church he requested Corbeuil's advice as to certain dissensions then going on in the Abbey of St. Mary, York. The Battle of the Standard (,138), with which his name is associated in history, was a fitting termination behind their arms. Long before this, both in Britain and on the Con- tinent ,t was the custom for archbishops to use a staff headed with a small cross instead of the ordinary pastoral staff; and such a suff Dubir 'a '. ""' of Canterbu^. York (ancient), Armagh, a^d Dublm. According to modern usage, the cross borne before an arch- b.shop ,s a crucifix placed on a staff, and in processions the figure of he Saviour ,s turned towards the prelate. The archiepiscopaf cross IS borne before, and not carried by the archbishop ; and in the sacred office the prelate uses the ordinary crozier or pastoral staf, l!ke a^y diocesan b.shop; but it became the custom in the thirteenth century .c?a" H°K k' '"'r'"'"" ^^ '■°"'"« '" "'^ '^ft "-"1 - cross. S .250 Archbishops of Canterbury are always so represented wWte Y^rk :t? T'^' Y''r '"5«— 65) fs the first Arch^ f / The War of Independence, 61 to the active life of this stalwart champion of York. Infirm and old though he was, by his commands the forces of the north rallied round the standards of St. Peter, St. Wilfred, and St. John, and under the com- mand of the Bishop of Orkney, routed the Scotch at Northallerton. In the description given by a northern chronicler, Thurstan is regarded rather as a principal than as the Lord Lieutenant of an English King ; * In the year 1138 there was war between David, King of Scotland, and Archbishop Thurstan. Then did the Archbishop cause to be made on Cowton Moor near Northallerton, in subterranean passages, certain terribly- sounding instruments called '* petronces," which, with their horrible din, so terrified the beasts and cattle which went before the Scottish army, that they rushed madly back upon the forces of King David, and threw them into disorder. Thus did the Archbishop with the royal forces put the enemy to flight, and slay many, and carry off great spoil ' (Histor. of York, ii. 266). 'Surely is this man rightly named Thurstan,' con- cludes the admiring Hugh, 'who ever as a "turret stands" before us in the face of the enemy.' APPENDIX. Confirmation of the privileges and possessions of the Church of York by Calixtus II. Gap., March ii, 1120. Calixtus episcopus servus servorum Dei venerabili fratri Tur- stino Ebor. archiepiscopo ejusque successoribus canonice substi- tuendis in perpetuum Antiquam praeterea Eboracensis ecclesiae dignitatem integram conservari, auctore Domino, cu- pientes, et praedecessorum nostrorum sanctae recordationis, Urbani Pascalis et Gelasii, Romanorum pontificum, sententiis adhaerentes, auctoritate apostolica prohibemus ne ulterius aut Cantuarensis archiepiscopus ab Eboracensi professionem quam- libet exigat, aut Eboracensis Cantuarensi exhibeat ; neque, quod penitus a Beato Gregorio prohibitum est, ullo modo Eboracensis Cantuarensis ditioni subjaceat ; sed juxta ejusdem patris consti- tutionem 'ista inter eos honoris distinctio in perpetuum con- servetur, ut prior habeatur qui prior fuerit ordinatus.' Sane si Cantuarensis archiepiscopus ab Eboracensi electo consecrationis manum subtraxerit, quam videHcet, juxta ecclesiarum suarum morem ab Honorio Apostolicae sedis pontifice institutum, in- vicem sibi debent, Hceat eidem Eboracensi secundum commu'nem ecclesiae consuetudinem et praedicti patris nostri Gregorii sanc- tionem et domini nostri sanctae memoriae Pascalis papae man- datum, a suis suffraganeis consecrarl— Historians o/VorJ^ (Rolls Series), vol. iii. 42. N CHAPTER IV. THOMAS BECKET AND ROGER OF PONT L'EVEQUE. Authorities : Materials for the Life of Bechet (Rolls Series). PlLKwov aiMvov etirt, rh 5' cS viKdru. — Aeschylus. In the pell-mell of Stephen's reign both archiepiscopal sees suffered in dignity. While the disputed elections of William FitzHerbert and Henry Murdac, following the death of Thurstan (11 40), paralyzed church govern- ment at York, the northern province was at the same time harassed by Scotch raids on Cumberland and Northumberland. Canterbury saw herself eclipsed for a season by her suffragan of Winchester ; for in the year II 39 Bishop Henry of Blois, the King's brother, secured for himself the Roman legation in England ; and, three years later, attempted to exalt his bishopric to metro- political rank, with the sees of Salisbury, Exeter, Wells, Chichester, Hereford, Worcester, and another in Hyde Abbey, as a province. He is said to have actually received a pall in 1142 from Innocent II {Ralph de Diceto^ i. 225); and the death of the Pope and conse- quent termination of the legatine commission, alone 64 The Primacy of England, prevented this threatened dismemberment of the south- ern province. When comparative quiet followed the accession of Henry II, anxiety to regain their lost prestige quickened the traditional rivalry between the successors of Augus- tine and those of Paulinus. Ambition was at the same time stimulated by desire to wield those almost un- limited powers, which so lately had been shewn to lie to the hand of an able ecclesiastic. In the hurly burly of the civil war, the Church, sole vindicator of order in a distracted land, *had climbed the throne and almost clutched the crown.' For a time her councils had taken the place of national assemblies, while due respect for her privileges was the condition, under which in turn Stephen was permitted to reign, and Matilda to be * lady ' of England and Normandy. At her head Henry of Blois, legate of the Holy See, had been Mord' of England, 'a king and more than a king.' And now in the year 1 163, as though by conspiracy of circumstances, keen personal animosity was to embitter the war between the two primates. In the days when Roger of Pont I'Eveque and Thomas Becket first met as youths in the household of Archbishop Theobald, the former could not bear with patience the favour which his younger rival obtained. * He not only was consumed internally with envy, but would often break out into contumely and unseemly language, calling Thomas "clerk Baille- hache," for so was named the clerk with whom he first came to the palace.' Twice did he secure his dismissal from the household {Roger of Pontigny; Grim; Fitz- Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 65 Stephen). On his promotion to the see of York in 1147, Roger refused to accept consecration from Archbishop Theobald save as legate of the Holy See, and withheld the oath of obedience to Canterbury ; and when for this reason in 1162 his claim to 'hallow' Thomas was dis- allowed, his ancient hatred revived. In July of the same year he obtained from Alexander III a privilege to crown kings, and to have his^cross borne before him throughout all England, ' after the manner of his prede- cessors,' and forthwith proceeded to parade the ensign of his metropolitical power in the southern province (Materials, etc., V. 21, 67). At the Council of Tours, May, 1 163, the rivals met, and Roger claimed prece- dence by right of prior ordination, arguing his case before the dismayed assembly at such length, that the wearied Pope was fain to stop the discussion by seating the rivals in precisely equal positions \ Meanwhile troubles were gathering round Thomas from another direction. In the new Archbishop, Henry had hoped to find an ally in his scheme of sweeping away clerical privileges and remedying the abuses of the Church according to his own unembarrassed discre- tion. No sooner, however, was Becket established in the see of Canterbury, than he showed himself the 1 The Council of Tours, an assembly of seventeen cardinals, a hun- dred and twenty-four bishops, four hundred and fourteen abbots, and clergy without number, was summoned to declare on behalf of Pope Alexander III against Cardinal Octavian, who in 1 159 had been elected in opposition to Alexander, and as Victor IV was acknowledged as Pope by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. How time was wasted in preliminary sermons and discussions owing to the exuberant F 66 The Primacy of England. determined defender of his Order, the resolute oppo- nent of that system under which all government, ecclesiastical as well as civil, was to be concentrated in the strong hands of the King. In his opinion, the reform of the Church must be the work of the Church herself. His friendship with Henry, strained by attempts to recover property alienated from the see of Canterbury, by assertions of the immunity of Church lands from the payment of imperial dues, of criminous clerks from responsibility to secular courts, was finally verbosity of the preachers and disputants, before the Council could proceed to business, is described in the ^ Draco Normannicus* (Chronicles of Stephen^ Henry II and Richard I (Rolls Series), vol. ii. p. 743)- Primus Alexander, Romano more politus, Incipit, eloquium fluminis instar adest ; Dicta David pandens, sanctos quod congregat illi Summo, multiplici verba tenore regit. Willelmus sequitur, verbis radians, Papiensis. • ••••• Post hunc Henrici Pisani sermo coruscat, Rhetoricis clarus floribus atque locis. Hinc Rodomi praesul loquitur, post Eboracensis. • ••••• Hie siluit Thomas antistes Canturiensis, Ut minus edoctus verba Latina loqui. Cessit apostolicus Arnulfo Lexoviensi Concilium verbis irradiare suis ; Sed fluvius torrens emergens fontis ab imo, Vix reprimi valuit vocibus atque manu. Arnulf himself, in a letter preserved by Labbe, declares he stopped speaking because his audience could not hear him. Hos post sermones causarum turba subintrat : Hie Digesta sonant, Codicis atque vigor. Orditur causam praesul post Eboracensis ; Contra quem geritur Canturiensis adest. Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque, 67 -uptured at the Council of Westminster (October, 1163). Then was it that, rallying round him the wavering prelates of England, he refused to subordinate clerical privileges and immunities to the alleged customs of the realm. War between crown and mitre was declared. Throughout the great duel which followed between these champions of temporal and spiritual powers, the honour of Canterbury was the joint in the harness A puero doctus studiis legisque peritus, Concilio coram tres tenet inde dies. Primatem regni se judicat esse debere Ut prior electus necne sacratus ibi. Roger sets out the whole history of the dispute from the times of Thomas I and Lanfranc. Haec renovare volens Rogerius Eboracensis Turbine verborum cuncta sonare facit. Se Dorobernensi Thomae proponit ubique Verbis ingenio culmine sede loco. Causam pertractans, banc tantis viribus auxit, Judicis ut papae mens stupefacta foret. V Pluribus absumptis haec pertractata diebus, ^ Tandem fine suo clauditur, hocque modo Terminat banc praesul Romanus ; dividit ambos ; Sedibus aequales sunt in honore pares. Causa diu dilata venit nunc Octaviani. Ralph de Diceto, however, states that Alexander placed Thomas and his suffragans on his right hand, Roger with the Bishop of Dur- ham on his left (Rolls Series, i. 310). It appears that, owing to the small size of the church of Tours, the regular order of session could not be observed ; and as for this reason there were many disputes among the prelates in attendance, Alexander declared that their position on that occasion should not prejudice their rank in the future. In June, 1 163, he wrote to Roger a letter as evi- dence of this ruling {Historians of York (Rolls Series), iii. 72). F 2 68 The Primacy of England. through which the King smote the Primate. By th< advice of Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, Henry forthwith^ set himself to win over certain of the prelates from the compact line of his opponent's forces (William of Can-i terbury). At the head of these renegades stood Roger of York. Gilbert Foliot, who, disappointed in his aspirations to the primacy, had alone opposed the promotion of Becket thereto, readily lent himself to the scheme. Hilary, Bishop of Chichester, who had already yielded to the King's wishes at the Council of Westminster, joined the band, and attempted to per- suade Thomas to give way. *You will never lead me astray,' was the answer of the Archbishop to 'this Judas among his brethren,' ' I know well that you and the Archbishop of York have consented to the royal customs, in order that others may be induced to followi your example ; but rest well assured that I will never] share in your guilt' (Grim). Acts of insubordination' directed against the primacy of Canterbury quickly^ followed ; and the denial of archiepiscopal jurisdiction by Clarembald, Abbot of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, the refusal of Foliot to renew oath of obedience on his translation from the see of Hereford to that of London, the parade of Roger's cross in the southern province, rather than the graver questions at issue between Church and Crown, are the subjects of the correspon- dence which passed at this time between Thomas and his agents at the papal court (MaterialSy etc.^ v. 55-61). In January 11 64 was held the Great Council at Clarendon, when the alleged 'ancient customs' and Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 6g 'royal dignities' were reduced to writing in sixteen articles known as the Constitutions of Clarendon, and produced for confirmation. English Temporal Law was then for the first time authoritatively drawn up> and arrayed for the struggle against Roman and Canon Law. That no royal vassal should be excommunicated, nor his land placed under interdict, save with the king's knowledge and consent; that no bishop or beneficed clerk should leave the kingdom without royal license; that the election of bishops and abbots should be in the king's chapel with his assent, and the elect, paying homage and fealty before consecration, should hold his possessions as a barony subject to feudal dues, were indeed but enactments of time-honoured customs. Others of these 'ancient dignities' were, however, manifestly the invention of one determined to establish a despotism by crushing down clerical to the same level as he had reduced feudal privilege ; to break down the stronghold of the Church even as he had demolished the castles of the baronage. Disputes concerning the advowson and presentation of churches were now to be tried and concluded in the king's court. There, too, clerks accused of any offence were to be subject to trial if the matter were one belonging to its cognizance ; and should the case be referred to the ecclesiastical court, the king's justiciar was given the right to send an officer to watch the proceedings, and to remove convicted clerks from the protection of the church. Appeals in ecclesias- tical matters were no longer to lie in the last resort to Rome, but their course was to run from archdeacon to 70 The Primacy of England. bishop, from bishop to archbishop; and if the arch- bishop should fail to do justice, then to the king, tjhat by his precept the controversy might be ended in the archbishop's court, and go no further. The Constitutions, in fact, made the king's courts and the king's jurisdic- tion superior to those of the archbishop, and final ; and their effect is summed up in the two lines of the old chronicler ; ' That the king be in the Pope's stede, And amend the archbishop's dede.' With such measures Becket passionately refused to comply, and the bishops were at first inclined to suppcWt him. Then Henry gave way to one of his savage fits of temper. On the third day of the Council king's- men burst into the ecclesiastical conclave, threw back their cloaks, and holding forth their hands, exclaimed, < These arms, these bodies of ours, are the King's ; and they are ready at his nod to avenge his wrongs, and to work his will whatever it may be. Submit therefore before it is too late.' The Earls of Cornwall and Lei- cester warned the bishops of severe treatment in store for them unless they gave way ; and at length Thomas, intrepid himself, yielded to the fears and entreaties of others, and gave his consent to the Constitutions. It was while the Archbishop was openly repenting his momentary weakness, * afflicting himself with fasting and rough garb, and suspending himself from the office of the altar,' that Henry struck his first direct blow at the honour of Canterbury. He had been advised to request a grant of the Roman legation over England for Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque, 7 1 the Archbishop of York, being assured that by this means his opponent would be shaken in his resistance (Grim). Alexander, who had already declined to con- firm the Constitutions of Clarendon, fearing now to enrage the King by further refusals, sent him a legatine commission for Roger; but exacted from the royal envoys a promise that it should not be delivered to the Archbishop of York without his further consent {Materials^ etc., v. 87). At the same time he assured Becket, that, in the event of the King handing the commission to Roger, he would straightway exempt his person and church from all jurisdiction of the legation. The heart of Thomas was heavy within him when he heard that powers, which Anselm had once declared to be inherent in Archbishops of Canterbury by virtue of their office, were about to be conferred on the rival primate. His spirits rose again, when the King, im- patient at the condition attached to the grant, returned the commission to the Pope, and failed to secure its reissue (MaterialSy v. 91-94)- When the time for the great council at Northampton was come (Oct., 11 64), Henry had resolved to ruin his former favourite. In the words of the Icelandic Thomas Saga, *he set himself to seize upon the primacy of Canterbury, to drag her foreman before the doomstool, and with violence to bring shame upon him.' Before the council was half over, Thomas stood practically alone. Each day of that memorable week brought forth some new charge, some new claim against him either as Chancellor or Archbishop; and compromise 72 The Primacy of England. became impossible. Friends and foes alike realised his impending disgrace; and while * barons and knights came no more to see him at his house, for they under- stood the mind of the King,' and of those who had fed at his table was scarcely one left to bear him company, the triumvirate of his enemies redoubled their efforts to discourage and undo him. Gilbert Foliot, in his jealousy, advised that, in consideration of past favours and of the dangers which threatened the Church, the Primate ought to resign his see, even though it were ten times as much, and submit himself to the King ; * Every tree which my Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up ' prophesied Hilary of Chichester ; and Roger of York, usurping the constitutional office of Arch- bishops of Canterbury, was become the confidential adviser of the Crown. Rumours of conspiracies to take his life, of torture and imprisonment in store for him, were in the air, when, on the last day of the council, Thomas was summoned to receive judgment ; and early that morning, in antici- pation of death, he went to the altar of St. Stephen in the monastic church, and there celebrated the mass of the proto-martyr. He then started to go to the court. Enthusiasm ran high in his favour among the ranks of the people, prepared, as they were, by memories of Rufus and Stephen, to put no trust in the despotism of princes, and eager in their recollection of Anselm and Theobald to support the present champion of the Church. The privileges, moreover, for which the Archbishop was now contending, transferred not only priests and Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 73 ecclesiastical officers, but many of the most helpless in the community also, from the bloody grasp of the royal courts to the more merciful jurisdiction of the bishop : one of those very Constitutions, against which he was hazarding his life, would have shut the one gate of promotion which lay open to the lowest class in the state. But beside and above the attraction of his cause was the magnetic personality of the man himself, which throughout his career drew to him the intense love, not only of his immediate followers, but also of men of all sorts and conditions at home and abroad ; and now, as he rode to Northampton Castle, there went with him a multitude to see the end of the matter. At the gate Thomas dismounted, and taking his cross from his cross-bearer, entered the court-yard. And as he approached the great hall where the prelates were assembled, one of his household, Hugh de Nunant, said to the Bishop of London, * My lord, will you permit the Archbishop to carry his cross himself?' 'A fool he always has been, and will ever abide in his folly ' was the reply ; but, a little later, when Thomas was seated in the great hall, still sheltering himself beneath the sanctuary of the cross, Gilbert made a vain attempt to wrest the sacred emblem from his hands. Roger of York was the last prelate to enter the hall. ' He came late to court,' says Fitz-Stephen, ' that he might be the more conspicuous, and not seem to be of the King's counsel. He had his own cross borne before him, though it was outside his province, ''like dart threaten- ing dart." He had been forbidden, indeed, by the Pope, 74 The Primacy of England, to have his cross carried before him in the province of Canterbury ; but when he received the prohibition, he interposed an appeal, and thereby considered himself safe.' Such a direct affront to their Primate would at any other time have called forth an active protest from the suffragans of the south, but now passed with- out rebuke ; and Roger forthwith proceeded to upbraid his rival because he came, as it were, armed, to court ; warning him that the King held a sharper sword, and that it would be wise to lay aside his cross (Hoveden). Then one of those who stood by, said : Crede mihi, si credis ei tu decipieris ; Fistula dulce canit volucres dum decipit auceps ; Impia sub dulci melle venena latent. {Ovid,) Thomas therefore refused to lay aside his safeguard, saying, ' If the King's sword slay the body, my sword strikes the spirit and sends the soul to Hell '; and when Roger still persisted in his entreaty, he detected the guile in his tongue. 'Get thee hence, Satan!' he replied ; and Roger followed the rest of the bishops into the inner room where the King was. L'archevesque Roger de eel conseil eissi ; Fet Tarchevesque ' Aiez de vus merci, De nus tuz ensement, kar maus sumes bailli, Se ne fetes del tut le voil al Rei Henri.' ' Vade retro Sathanas ! ' sainz Thomas respundi. {Gamier de Pont St. Maxence.) The Archbishop of York had not been long upon the scene when the inner room was thrown into a state of wild confusion. Henry had been informed that Thomas declared the trial in the royal courts of an Archbishop 1 Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 75 of Canterbury, *the spiritual father of the King and of all who were in the realm,' to be without precedent; that he had complained still more strongly of a judg- ment passed upon him by the bishops earlier in the week, and had appealed against it to the Pope ; while he forebade his suffragans to take any further part in the proceedings against him. The King's fury rose as he listened, and threats of vengeance reached the hall where Thomas sat, significant voices telling of oppres- sions and barbarous acts committed by the King's ancestors upon obstinate ecclesiastics, and of the man- ner in which 'William, who subdued England, had tamed his clerks.' Becket's murder seemed imminent. At this crisis Roger re-entered the hall. ' Let us go hence,' said he to his clerks. * It is not fitting for us to see what is shortly to be done to him of Canterbury ' ; but one of them answered, ' I will not go until I see what is God's will in this matter. For if the Archbishop should strive for the right even unto death, he could not die better' (Alan). In vain did the Archbishop of York seek to conceal his responsibility for the violence threatened to his rival. To him came the bishops, fearing that, if injury were done to the popular tribune, they would be cast out of their offices and honours, and dreading the everlasting shame that would fall upon them should he be made prisoner or killed. * If we fear such consequences for ourselves,' said they, 'what will be your fate if you procure and suggest such things ' (Roger of Pontigny). Then went he to the King and dissuaded him from 76 The Primacy of England. using violent measures when there was so mighty a concourse of the people, suggesting instead, that, when the council had been dismissed, the Archbishop should be summoned, and sent to prison without witnesses (William of Canterbury). This advice seems to have been accepted. The bishops, who in view of Becket's prohibition still refused to join in any judgment upon him, were excused, on condition they appealed against him to the Pope for violation of the oath he had sworn at Clarendon ; and the duty of announcing the appeal fell to Hilary of Chichester. Then the nobles entered the hall ; but when the Earl of Leicester would have delivered judgment, Becket charged him to proceed no further. With cross erect he departed from the court amid a clamour of abuse and tumult, which Grim asserts was no less than if the four quarters of the city were on fire, or had been entered by the enemy. But as he rode from the castle to the monastery where he lodged, con- demned by the barons and deserted by the bishops, he scarce could manage his horse and carry his cross, for in the streets and ways were throngs of people wor- shipping him and craving his blessing as he went. Throughout the six years which Thomas spent in exile after his 'fight with beasts' at Northampton, Foliot is the most conspicuous of his enemies; fore- most in demands for the surrender or deposition of the fugitive, fiercest in the confiscation of his property and the persecution of his friends. In dreams of his own martyrdom which vexed the troubled spirit of Thomas, all bitterness of death passed away at the pendent vision Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque, 77 of this * standard bearer of iniquity undergoing future torment, his flesh rotting from his bones and falling to pieces.'^ All ecclesiastical censure the rebel avoids by the interposition of appeal, legatine commissions of inquiry, and suspension of sentence; and sets the example of disobedience to Thomas both as metro- politan, and later as papal legate. Finally, when ex- communication is pronounced upon him, he denies that * Et a seinte Columbe un autre feiz sonja ; El consistoire esteit en plet, ce li sembla, E encuntre le Rei d'Engleterre pleida ; E li Reis en sa cause durement le greva. Elaires de Cicestre le greva durement, Gileberz Foliot de Lundres ensement, Li cardinal se tindrent al Rei communement ; Si qu'en tute la curt n'out nul maintenement, Fors de Pape Alissandre, qui 1' maintint solement Mes tant cria vers els et vers lui autres, Que tut fu enroez de la noise et del cri. Elaires de Cicestre en la cause amui. Al evesque de Lundres tute la char purri, Si ke par pieces jus tut ses cors dechai. Dune fist saint Thomas prendre li Reis, sans nul demur, Et escorchier le chief a cutels tut entur. Mfes li ber ne senteit anguise ne dolur, Et pur CO qu'il s'en rist, fut li Reis en irur ; Et li sainz s'esveilla idunc en effreur. En la cause v^imes I'apostoille afeiblir K'il ne put I'archevesque cuntre tuz maintenir ; Elaire de Cicestre v6imes amuir Et repentir del mal qu'il ont fait al martin Or se guard c'il de Lundres, ne vienge al dechair. Gamier de Pont St. Maxence. Fitzstephen {Materials, iii. 53, etc.) states that before the recall of Thomas to England, Hilary of Chichester, ' as though struck by God, died.' The fulfilment of the dream in the case of Foliot is described later in the text. /V 78 The Primacy of England, he owes any obedience to Canterbury, asserting that the see of London ought of right to be archiepiscopal, as it was in the days of early British Christianity ; and that he will get the primacy transferred thereto. Roger plays a minor part to him during this period. From the legatine jurisdiction over all England conferred on Thomas in the year ii 66, the Archbishop of York, as legate for Scotland, and his diocese, were expressly exempted (John of Salisbury, ep. 185) ; nor was it until the King aimed his last and fatal blow at Thomas through the privileges of Canterbury, that the primates were again in collision. On June 14, 1 170, Henry caused his son to be crowned at Westminster by the Archbishop of York, assisted by the Bishops of London and Salisbury. * Terrible results,' says the chronicler of Margan, * followed this ill-omened consecration, or rather execration ; namely, the ana- thema of Becket on the officiating prelates ; the murder of the Archbishop ; and also the quarrels between the King and his son; and the premature death of the young prince' {Annales Monast.^ i. 16). No privilege was more keenly contested between primates than that of crowning and consecrating kings. In Germany, where by the golden Bull the coronation of emperors was to be performed at Aix-la-chapelle, the chaplains of the church erected there by Charlemagne, the arch- bishops of Cologne, long maintained against the Electors of Mentz, primates of Germany, the exclusive right of performing the act of consecration. In France, arch- bishops of Rheims claimed that St. Remy had won for Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 79 them the like privilege to the exclusion of the arch- bishops of Aries and Lyons. So also in England extreme partisans of Canterbury asserted that the sole ministry in hallowing the sovereign had belonged to their see since the days of Augustine. Northern primates, however, claimed to exercise a corresponding right within the limits of their own province. They could cite numerous occasions when, in the days of the Hept- archy, archbishops of York had * blessed and raised to their cynestole' kings of Northumbria. The oldest order of service for such occasions now on record, is the * Missa pro regibus in die Benedictionis,' contained in the Pontifical of Abp. Egbert of York. Their right of crown- ing had received repeated confirmations from Rome, the last being granted by Alexander III to Roger of Pont I'Eveque himself, as late as July, 1162. However, since the union of the seven crowns, this privilege had become valueless, for with the ascendancy of Wessex, the places of coronation, Winchester, Kingston-on-Thames, and finally Westminster, had been fixed within the jurisdic- tion of Canterbury; and archbishops of York now claimed, and frequently with success, that, their pro- vince being, as it were, half the royal diadem, they were entitled to assist southern primates when present, and to officiate in their stead when absent. Thus the co- operation of Archbishop Oswald of York with Arch- bishop Dunstan of Canterbury in the coronation of Edgar at Bath in the year 973 had been deemed neces- sary for the complete and perfect 'enunciation of the consummation of English unity.' The same two prelates /■ . y p^i: ,,^»-u»v 80 The Primacy of England, had officiated at the hallowing of Edward (975), and Ethelred (978). On these occasions the king entered the church wearing his crown, and laid it aside as he knelt at the altar. Dunstan began the 'Te Deum/ at the conclusion of which the bishops raised the king from his knees, and at Dunstan's dictation he took a threefold oath. Consecration prayers followed, and then both archbishops anointed him ; after which Dun- stan invested him with ring and sword, and placed the crown on his head, and sceptre and rod in his hands. Both archbishops then assisted to enthrone him. In like manner, at a later date, Aelfric of York had assisted Archbishop Eadsige to consecrate Edward the Con- fessor; and Roger himself is said to have taken part with Archbishop Theobald and the Archbishop of Rouen in the coronation of Henry II. As to the second part of the claim of northern primates, that of officiating in the absence of archbishops of Canterbury, precedents were to be found in the coronations of Harold and William the Conqueror by Aldred, Archbishop of York, when Stigand's right to his see was called in question ; and in the admission made, as mentioned above, to Thomas of Bayeux at the coronation of Henry 1. On the present occasion, that of the coronation of the young Prince Henry, in addition to the fact of Becket's absence from England, papal letters, ascribed to the date June 17, 1167, justified Roger in his action by bidding him crown the Prince should the King require him to do so ; and though this direction had since been withdrawn, and a final prohibition issued on February Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque, 8 1 26, 1 1 70, to forbid the ceremony during the exile of Becket, this last command of the Pope apparently failed to reach the officiating prelates in time. Even after the event, Alexander III, when reprimanding Roger, by no means admits the exclusive claims of Canterbury ; but allows that, if the coronation had been celebrated within the province of York, the northern Archbishop would probably have been acting within his right (Materials, etc., vii. -if^d). It was the intrusion into the province of another that deserved rebuke. The privilege of crown- ing and consecrating kings moreover, granted to Becket's successor Richard, in 11 76, by the Pope, is limited to coronations performed within the limits of the southern province (Rymer's Foedera, sub anno 11 70); and the conclusion seems to be, that at this time the right of Archbishops of Canterbury in the hallowing of kings amounted to little more than that of playing a leading part in those ceremonies when they took place within the limits of their metropolitical jurisdiction. To Thomas, however, the maintenance of the ex- clusive privilege to crown and consecrate the sovereign seemed more than ever precious. In addition to the original dual signification of the ceremonial rite, namely, the popular election of kings and their investment with that sanctity whereby they styled themselves rulers ' Dei gratia,' there was to his mind implied in the gift of the crown by the head of the national Church, the power of that head to withhold it also, to set up or put down whomsoever he would in the kingdom of men. A few months later, when Henry and Thomas were » f V X. 82 The Primacy of England. apparently reconciled at Freteval, this last blow at the alleged privileges of Canterbury was remembered, when other injuries were forgotten. * Among all the sundry and manifold proofs of your anger and indignation, which have been directed against me and mine,' said the Archbishop to the King, * there is one which moves me more than all the rest, one which I cannot pass over without mention and redress. You have caused your son to be crowned by the Archbishop of York, and have thus bereft that Church, which with the unction of God's mercy anointed you to be king, of the peculiar privilege of hallowing the sovereign, which has been preserved to it since first Augustine founded the metro- political see' (Fitzstephen). And Henry answered, *I have always understood that by royal prerogative a king, who wishes to crown his son, may cause the ceremony to be performed by any archbishop or bishop he will. Did not an archbishop of York crown my great-grandfather, William, who conquered England for himself? Was not my grandfather, Henry, hallowed to be king by a bishop of Hereford ? ' Thomas in reply explained that, in the first instance, Canterbury lay as it were vacant, owing to the fact that Stigand was not recognized as lawful archbishop ; while, in the second, Anselm was in exile at the death of Rufus, and it was deemed dangerous to delay the coronation of his suc- cessor until the Archbishop's return. Henry then pro- duced papal letters authorizing him to employ such prelates as he chose for the ceremony, but was forced to admit he had procured them when the see of Canter- I 11 iw "» Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 83 bury was empty, after Theobald's death; and that he had then declared he would rather see his own son beheaded than polluted by the heretical hands of Roger. Finally the King yielded : * I doubt not that the Church of Canterbury is the most noble of the western Churches, nor do I wish to deprive her of her right. Rather will I, by your advice, strive to give her relief, and restore her ancient dignity. As for those who up to this time have betrayed us both, I will, with God's help, give them such answer as traitors deserve.' According to the accounts of Fitzstephen, Herbert of Bosham, Ger- vase of Canterbury, and others, Becket then obtained permission to punish the offending prelates ; and subse- quently sought from Alexander those fatal letters which imposed sentence of suspension on Roger of York, of excommunication on the Bishops of London and Salis- bury. Throughout this interview, the easy compliance of the King, his studied avoidance of such dangerous topics as the Constitutions of Clarendon and other contentious matters, his unnatural control of temper, had been sus- picious ; nor was it long before the hollow nature of this pretended reconciliation became clear. Fitzstephen, in- deed, asserts that the coronation of the prince and this pacific interview, closely following one another, were the preliminary steps in a plot to allure Thomas to England, and there murder or imprison him. *The King,' he asserts, 'had this question put to him by someone, either in a letter or by conversation, "Why is the Archbishop kept out of the country ? He will be G 2 84 The Primacy of England, far better in than out." The hint was given to one who understood it. The King, therefore, arranged a con- ference to treat of a peace, and then conceded every thing which before he had refused ; but first he caused his son to be crowned with despatch, on account of a certain result which might possibly take place; so that if a crime were committed, the kingdom could not be punished on his account, seeing that he would be no longer king.' In spite of Henry's refusal to seal the reconciliation with a kiss of peace as security for good faith, in spite of the warnings of his friends abroad and the hostile attitude of his foes in England, Thomas, though con- scious of his impending martyrdom, stood firm in his resolution to return to Canterbury. ' Though I be torn limb from limb, I will not hesitate,' said he on the beach at Witsand. ' Has not the flock been without a shep- herd long enough? One only request I make, that in death I may rest in that Church to which in life I am denied admittance.' One of his last letters to the Pope describes what followed; *It is known to you, Holy Father, with what just and honourable conditions I made peace with the King of England, and how he has withdrawn from his promises. This breach, however, must be imputed not so much to him, as to those authors of discord of whom the chief are the Arch- bishop of York and the Bishop of London. These standard-bearers of the Balaamites so far succeeded in their endeavours to break the peace, that by their advice the King detained all my revenues from the feast of St. I Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 85 Magdalene to that of St. Martin, then handing over to me vacant houses and demolished barns. But though in this matter, and in the failure to restore to us many possessions of our Church, he acted contrary to his promises, I determined to return to my distracted Church, so that if I could not raise her, I might perish with her. Now when those enemies of mine knew thereof, they plotted with the officials of the King and that son of perdition, Ranulf de Broc, to guard with armed bands all the ports at which I might land, so that my baggage might be thoroughly searched on arrival, and the letters you gave me taken away. But by the Divine will it happened that their plans were made known to me ; and I accordingly, on the day before I myself crossed, sent over your letters, in which the Archbishop of York was suspended and the Bishops of London and Salisbury replaced under sentence of ex- communication. On the following day I sailed myself, and reached my place after a prosperous voyage, taking with me by the King's command, John, dean of Salis- bury, who saw not without some grief and shame the armed men I have mentioned, hastening to our ship that they might do us violence. And the said dean, fearing lest if any evil happened to us or ours, it should bring infamy on the King, advanced towards them, and de- clared in the King's name that any who should hurt us would be guilty of treason, and thus persuaded them to lay aside their arms.' A still stronger reason prevented them from opposing the Archbishop's landing. As the vessel approached the harbour, a multitude of the people 86 The Primacy of England, flocked forth to greet their spiritual protector. Many rushed into the water to meet him ; others knelt on the shore where he would pass, to receive his blessing. Then followed his triumphant procession to Canterbury. 'Though the way was short, yet among the thronging and pressing crowds scarce in that day could he reach the city. As he approached, he was awaited by the poor of the land as an angel of God with prayer and ovation ; wherever he passed, small and great, old and young, ran together, throwing themselves in his way and strawing their garments before him as he went, crying and exclaiming, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Priests with their parishioners met him, bearing their crosses and begging his blessing ; and at his entry he was received with trumpets and hymns and spiritual songs.' * It was as though the city were one voice about a king returning from the wars.' * His holy monastery greeted him with reverence and veneration. Proceeding to the cathedral he stood upon his episcopal throne, and received to the kiss of peace each brother, one by one, with many sighs and tears from all' The victory of the Church was won. * My lord, it matters not now when you depart from us,' said his disciple, Herbert of Bosham. * To-day in you Christ's bride has conquered ; Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ rules.' * On earth peace to men of good will ' was the text of the sermon, in which, on Christmas Eve, Thomas fore- told his approaching martyrdom to his weeping flock at Canterbury. 'But, save to men of good will, there Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque, 87 should be no peace ' ; and he repeated his denunciations of the prelates, and thundered excommunication against all who had dared to injure the property of his see. His enemies were in dismay. When he had first reached Canterbury, officers of the King, on the inform- ation of the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Salisbury, had asked of him absolution for the offenders. This request he at first refused to grant, on the ground that no man could venture to invalidate what the Apos- tolic See had decreed ; but, on further pressure, he had promised that, if the Bishops of London and Salisbury would swear to obey the order of the Pope, he would incur the responsibility of absolving them. It was Roger of York, who, in fear, now dissuaded his fellow culprits from yielding, and seeking absolution of their victorious primate: *I have, by God's grace,' said he, * eight thousand pounds in my treasury. This I am willing to expend to the uttermost farthing in curbing the rebel nature of Thomas, and scattering his pride, which is greater than his courage. Let us seek help of the King ' (William of Canterbury). When the three prelates were come to the King in Normandy, it was Roger who constituted himself their spokesman. * My companions,' said he, *have been forbidden fire and water, and no one may communicate with them without sharing the sentence passed upon them for assisting to crown your son. At the present moment, that thankless fellow, whom you permitted to return to England, for- getful of your clemency, is making a circuit of the kingdom with seditious intent, at the head of an armed as The Primacy of England, force. We have suffered trouble and loss, we have been held guilty when conscious of our innocence, yet all these vexations count for nothing with us if we still retain your favour.' And the King said, * If all who took part in the coronation are to be excommunicated, then I myself am not safe.* * The storm must be endured which cannot be escaped,' said Roger; and when the King asked advice of him, he answered, * It is not for us to say what should be done ; ask rather of your men of war ' ; adding, after a pause, * As long as Thomas lives you will know no peace, and enjoy no quiet seasons.' On hearing this, such fury got hold on the King, and was noticeable in his wild look and gestures, that it was immediately understood what he wanted. *A fellow,' he cried, * who has eaten my bread, dishonours my race and tramples down my kingdom, while you, the com- panions of my future, look on unmoved.' According to Garnier, it was Roger who now suborned four knights of the King's household, supplied them with money, and suggested what manner of speech they should use when they were come to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rogiers del Punt I'Evesque les aveit conveiez Et 4 fere le mal les a mult enticiez : ' Par Thomas est 11 rdgnes trublez et empeiriez ; ' S'il esteit morz, co dit, tut serreit apeisiez.* De quant qu'il ferunt prent sur sei sul les pecchiez. La cause et tous les moz lur al dit et formez Qu'il unt puis I'archevesque en sa chaumbre mustrez. A chascun des quatre a LX mars donez La fu li justes sane venduz et achatez. As Gieus est Judas li coveitos alez. (jGamier.) Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont rEveque. 89 Absolution of the prelates was made the condition of life and death. ' It was through you,' said these ruffians, when they first spoke with Thomas in the palace, * that those, by whose ministry the King's son was crowned, were suspended. Absolve them.' And he answered, * It is beyond my power and utterly incompatible with my position to do so. Those whom the Pope hath bound, must seek absolution of the Pope. Let them go to him, on whom redounds the contempt they have shown towards me and their mother, the Church of Christ at Canterbury.' And when they bade him depart with all his men from the realm, for that thenceforward peace with him would be impossible, he steadfastly refused : ' From this day forward no one shall place the sea between me and my Church. I came not to fly; here he who wants me shall find me.' And again, at the last, when the murderers sought him in the cathe- dral, they repeated, * Restore to communion those whom you have excommunicated, and give back their power to those you have suspended'; and when he replied, * There has been no satisfaction, and I will not absolve them,' those avengers of York cried, * Then shall you die'; and slew the unconquerable martyr, as he main- tained to the end the dual cause for which he had lived — the privileges of the Church; the primacy of Can- terbury. Like Samson, Becket by his death brought down on his foes discomfiture more signal than any he had dealt them in his life. Not only at Montmirail, when he refused * to deny the honour of God for the face of two ■ ^ s 90 The Primacy of England. kings/ had the eyes of all men been fixed upon him. For six years past the courage of the Archbishop, who fought the battle of the Church almost single-handed against the richest and most powerful potentate of the time, had absorbed the attention of Europe. *The place, the time, the manner of his martydom,' writes Daniel, * now aggravated hatred of the deed, and made compassion and opinion to be on his side.' Vengeance against the King as his murderer was demanded on all sides. Sentence of excommunication and interdict was threatened. Henry's envoys could scarcely gain audience of Alexander, and with great difficulty induced him to fix terms of reconciliation. In obedience to these, on May 22, 1 1 72, at the Cathedral of Avranches, in the presence of legates appointed for that special purpose, Henry, among other promises, swore to restore the possessions of the Church of Canterbury as they had been a year before the primate's exile, and to reinstate those who had suffered exile for their adherence to Thomas ; that appeals should be free; and that customs introduced during his reign against the liberty of the Church should be abrogated. Freedom of election to bishoprics and abbacies was restored. The Constitution of Clarendon relating to the trial of criminous clerks, if not absolutely renounced, was so far modified, that, in 1 1 76,Henry agreed that no clerk should thenceforth be imprisoned or brought before a secular tribunal for any criminality or trespass, except trespass of the forest, and questions of lay fees for which lay services were due. By the same act the murderers of clerks were to incur forfeiture of inheritance Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 91 over and above the customary penalties, and clergy were not to be compelled to ordeal by battle. On July 12, 1 1 74, when half England was in a state of insurrection, when the Scots had crossed the border, and his eldest son, professing himself the avenger of the martyr's death, the vindicator of the Church's liberties, had risen in rebellion, Henry made further and fuller penance at Canterbury. Walking barefoot from the outskirts of the city to the cathedral, he prayed at the scene of the murder ; he made rich offerings of silk and gold ; he gave lands to the Chapter. Then in the crypt, placing his head and shoulders in the tomb, * at his own petition, though he was so great a man, yet was he beaten with rods by each bishop and abbot present.' Roger of York, if guilty of a mistake as a statesman in aiding and abetting the murder, had also blundered as an archbishop jealous for the position of his see. There was nothing which served more effectually to raise the Church of Canterbury to an eminence beyond reach of rivalry, than the possession of the martyr's relics. Immediately after the death, miracles began. *At first,' said Gervase, * they were done round his tomb, then through the whole of the crypt, then through the whole cathedral, then throughout all Canterbury ; then England; then through Normandy, France, Ger- many, and in short through the whole Church of Christ which is spread throughout the world. And that he might the more fully confirm, by renewing them, the ancient miracles of the saints, which had in some meas- ure been blotted out from men's hearts through unbelief, •II ■;=«: V li 92 The Primacy of England. he at first, as if by way of prelude, began with moderate miracles; and so, ascending by little and little, as the fame of his sanctity increased, he arrived at the highest, and in a short time ran through all the wonderful deeds of the Gospels and the Apostles.' At the beginning of Lent, 1 1 73, the Pope, at the request of the French clergy and people, pronounced the canonisation of St. Thomas. Peoples and nations and languages flocked to reverence his remains. On the anniversaries of his death, Decem- ber 29, 1 1 90, and of the translation of his remains from the crypt to the shrine, July 7, 1220, on the occasions of the jubilee festivals every fiftieth year, tens of thousands of pilgrims enriched the Church of Canter- bury with their offerings. Roger would hear of the celebrated visit of Henry and Louis VII of France, when the oblations of gold and silver were so vast that Brompton would not record the amount, lest he should seem to write what was incredible; when the French king presented a golden cup at the tomb and promised a rent of one hundred measures of wine yearly ; parting, moreover, before he left the cathedral, with that won- drous ruby, the Regal of France, worth a king's ransom. Roger himself, before he died, would keep repentant vigil, and make an offering at the tomb; and it was there, that, in after years, his successors would pay tribute, in acknowledgment of the supereminence of Canterbury. Meanwhile, the Church of York was starv- ing for the spiritual and temporal advantages which resulted from the possession of attractive relics. The Saints of the northern Church lay buried elsewhere ;i Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 93 than in the cathedral of the province. Paulinus rested at Rochester; Wilfrid at Ripon; John at Beverley; Oswald at Worcester. Thurstan, by his own request, was buried in the priory of St. John at Pontefract. When at length, in 1227, William Fitzherbert was canonised and adopted as the patron saint of York, the efforts of the York clergy secured him merely a local celebrity. Many notable miracles wrought by him were scrupulously recorded in the official books of the cathe- dral, none probably with more pride than the wondrous healing of Albreda, a woman of Gisburne, who had previously sought relief in vain at Canterbury {Histor, of Yorky ii. 537). But his shrine was never a centre of great popular pilgrimages ; nor could it be mentioned in the same breath with that of the martyred Thomas, whereof the meanest part was gold, and that gold scarcely seen for the precious stones and sculptured gems with which it was studded. Roger, until his death, lay under suspicion of murder. John of Salisbury and William, Archbishop of Sens, charge him directly with the crime ; the former declar- ing that, like Caiaphas, he had suggested that * it was expedient that one man should die for the people,' and had rejoiced over his dead rival as a * Pharaoh cut off in his pride' {Materials^ vii. 433-527). His contemporaries generally lay the sin to his charge. For a year, the sentence of suspension, already passed upon him, re- mained in force; but in December, 1171, this was removed, after he had sworn that he had not bound himself to obey the Constitutions of Clarendon, that he I M . 94 The Primacy of England, y had not received the papal prohibition of the prince's coronation, and that he had not connived at Becket's murder (Ralph de Diceto). Nevertheless, both he and Foliot, who was absolved in May, 1172, were forbidden to take part in the coronation of the younger Henry's queen in the following August (MSS. Lansdowne, Materials^ iv. 1 74). * Foliot, overwhelmed with vexation, fell sick and lay nigh unto death, until, by the advice of friends, he sought pardon of God and the holy mart}^. At Canterbury, by signs, for he had lost the power of speech, he craved a draught of water from the well of St. Thomas. Scarcely had he tasted it, than his speech returned to him and his health was restored ; and in a loud voice he magnified the Saint he had once perse- cuted.' So also Ihe Bishop of Salisbury, fearing the judgment of God both here and hereafter, made repentant pilgrimage to Canterbury, and kept vigil before the mart3n*'s shrine. Roger went on longer in his wicked- ness. At the Council of Westminster, May, 11 75, his clerks claimed for him the right to have his cross carried before him in the southern province; asserted the su- premacy of York over Lincoln, Chester, Worcester, and Hereford ; and summoned Archbishop Richard of Can- terbury to Rome for suspending the officials of St. Oswald's Church in Gloucester. In October of the same year, a truce was concluded at Winchester, to bind the archbishops till the following Michaelmas, but by January, 11 76, they were again in dispute over the right to the primacy of Scotland. Matters came to a crisis in the following March. At the Council of Lon- Thomas Becket and Roger of Pont VEveque. 95 don, Roger attempted to thrust himself into the place of honour on the right hand of the papal legate Hugutio, with the result that he seated himself in the lap of Richard of Canterbury. Then fell upon him the assem- bled monks and clergy, with Galfrid, Bishop of Ely, at their head, and, casting him to the ground, belaboured him with fists and sticks. Rescued by Richard, he fled dishevelled from the council-chamber, amid cries * Depart from us, thou that betrayed'st St. Thomas. Thy hands still reek with his blood ' (Gervase ; Benedict ; Hoveden ; and William of Newburgh). In the same year, Garnier de Pont St. Maxence began to recite in Canterbury Cathedral his recently-completed * Life of St. Thomas,' wherein the Archbishop of York was directly charged with aiding and abetting the murderers; a proceeding which would seem almost impossible if Roger's guilt had not been generally admitted at the time. Guarnier, li clerc del Punt, fine ci sun sermun Del martyr St. Thomas et de sa passiun, Et meinte feiz le list a la tumbe al barun ; Ci n'a mis un sol mot, se la verity non. De ses mesfez li face Jhesu li pius pardon. The Thomas Saga tells the tale of the culprit's tardy repentance ; * Among the many miracles wrought by the martyr Thomas, it is recorded that Archbishop Roger of York grew blind of both eyes, in consequence of which affliction he made vows to the holy Thomas for the healing of his hurt. Then proceeded he to Canter- bury, and humbly kneeling at the shrine, offered up prayer for pardon. And forthwith he was heard ; and i i 96 The Primacy of England, on him was bestowed the great boon that the sight of his eyes was restored to him. Henceforth, he turned towards the martyr with love instead of persecution, with worship in place of manifold enmity.' CHAPTER V. ARCHIEPISCOPAL AMENITIES. *Hic praeesse, ille non subesse, et neuter prodesse contendit' ' > I With the close of the great struggle between Church and Crown, the story of the rivalry between York and Canterbury, which had hitherto formed a chapter of its history, loses value in the eyes of the chronicler. While the theory of the supremacy of ecclesiastical over secular power was gradually growing into acceptance; while old men saw visions, and young men dreamed dreams, of a Church triumphant throughout the world, of a Supreme Pontiff, the infallible and irresponsible arbiter of right and wrong, a ruler of princes, governing Chris- tendom by clerical subordinates ; the position of every officer in the hierarchy seemed of vital interest. Quar- rels, 'which should be first' in the future spiritual kingdom, were worthy subjects for the pen of the ready writer ; and cloistered chroniclers, jealous for the honour of province or see, gathered up every fragment of its history, and found or forged evidence of its freedom or supremacy. To the War of Independence with Canter- m 98 The Primacy of England, bury, the records of York owe their existence; and many northern historians expressly state that they were induced to write, simply by the wish to bear witness to the rescue of their Church from an illegal yoke, * that the generations to come might know it, and the children who were yet unborn.' Southern writers, though usually of wider views, religiously set out every occurrence which could possibly tend to the honour and glory of the Church of Canterbury, and religiously suppress or underrate any event furthering the cause of her rival. Moreover, from the days of Bede to the end of Stephen's reign, chroniclers, with very few exceptions, were either monks or clergy ; Anglo-Saxons, recording chiefly leg- ends, miracles, and lives of saints ; Normans, identified with the supremacy of the Church, entering heart and soul into theological discussions, the relations of king and clergy, of kings and popes, of popes and anti-popes. With the advent of the Angevins, a new school of historians arose. Many lived in closer connection with the court than the monastery; the court of Elinor of Acquitaine, with its minstrels, soldiers of fortune, and adventurers, with its fruitful crop of scandals ; the court of Henry II, who, by his marriage and those of his children, brought England into close connection with all the great powers of the Continent. Many of them held high official positions in which they were drawn into contact with the leading men of action of the day, and where they were able to secure valuable and ac- curate information as to affairs at home and abroad. Literature ran in fresh channels of romance and satire, Archiepiscopal Amenities, 99 and was directed into new fields of law, government, and finance. And while such subjects were distracting the atten- tion of writers from what had been lately their one absorbing theme, the branch of the Catholic Church in England was being gradually drawn into the secular quarrels of the time. Deserted by the papacy, which in the search for wealth and political power had become the ally of princes, it could no longer afford to hold aloof, a privileged class, the interests of which were centred all in self; but was compelled to throw in its lot with the people in defence of their common liberties against pope and king. In the days of Stephen Langton, Edmund Rich, and Robert Winchelsey, primates were become politicians, and archbishops popular leaders, while ecclesiastical affairs seemed worthy of record only so far as they affected the political situation. Not that disputes as to clerical precedence and the like, were less rife than before, among all ranks and orders of the Church. *In my time,' says William of Newburgh, writing at the close of the twelfth century, * the apostolic rule "in honour preferring one another" is so utterly set at nought, that bishops have laid aside all pastoral cares, and contend one with another for precedence with a folly equal to their persistence. Almost every question which arises among them turns on place and prerogative ' (Chron. of Stephen^ Henry 11^ and Rich- ard /, 203). Self-respecting prelates and heads of wealthy religious houses supported resident advocates at the papal court, and watchful agents, whose duty it H 2 100 The Primacy of England. Archiepiscopal Amenities. lOI was, when apostolic letters were granted, to take care to get assurances of warranty and indemnity, if there were the remotest chance that the interests of their clients might be effected. Appeals as to disputed elec- tions to sees, the authority of bishops and abbots in cathedral and conventual churches, and the construction of statutes of precedence and customs of rank and the like, helped to establish an abuse by which eventually all ordinary jurisdiction at home was paralysed. But the dangerous results of such quarrels, the waxing power of Rome, the waning independence of the island- church, escaped the notice of chroniclers; and the struggle for the primacy now appeared to them but * a vain and frivolous matter,' remarkable only for the vast expense and wasted labour in which it involved the disputants. Though York had found liberty, equality and frater- nity with her powerful rival were still far to seek. Her archbishops might be indeed great personages in the north. In recognition of their services as military guardians of a province which was for long the battle- ground of England and Scotland, they might be privi- leged to exercise extraordinary civil and criminal juris- diction in their seignorial courts, to have mints for coining money within the city of York without the royal license, to take prizage of wines and merchandise upon the river of Hull, and broken wreck of the sea and waif at Patrington, and to hold their land free from suit in Otley, Shireburn, and Cawood. They might exercise jura regalia in Hexhamshire; and, in (I Ml appointing officers for the trial and correction of all manner of felonies and trespasses within their fran- chises of Beverley and Ripon, they might claim *to be as free, as heart may think or eye may see ' (Rotuli parliament. Petitiones et Placita, 3 Henry V, 48). But with Canterbury lay usually the favour of king and court; and the more submissive tone of the letters which passed from York to Rome, and the nearer approach of the York service-book to the Roman stan- dard, shew that the northern Church was compelled to to look further afield for support. The landmarks of the southern province stood un- moved; the suffragans thereof were a comparatively docile body. If Wales was occasionally restless under the rough attempts made to anglicize her, if St. David's put forth frequent claims to metropolitical honours, such fitful and fruitless insubordination was as nothing com- pared with the disorder which often paralysed the northern province. Primates of York saw, with dismay, the gradual contraction of a jurisdiction which had once stretched from Humber to the Firths of Forth and Clyde. In the year 11 54, by decree of Anastasius IV, the allegiance of the Bishops of Man and Orkney was transferred to the newly constituted Archbishop of Drontheim, a change which resulted in the loss of more than one prelate-elect in the wild Norwegian seas {Register ofArchbp. Gray (Surtees Society), pp. 198-199)- Although the right of northern metropolitans to exercise spiritual jurisdiction over Scotland had been recognized at the Councils of Winchester and Windsor (1072), and 102 The Primacy of England, had been confirmed since by Paschal and Calixtus, Innocent II and Hadrian IV; although many prece- dents were to be found in the eleventh and twelfth centuries of professions of obedience being rendered by Scotch bishops at consecration ; the primacy of York had never been effectually established in the kingdom, and, from the days of Thurstan, spiritual control Trom without had been actively resented. The question had been further complicated by the claim of Canterbury to exercise patriarchal jurisdiction over the whole of Brit- ain, so that, in the year 1 1 76, each primate had claimed for himself powers which Scotland denied to both alike. At length in the year 1191, this longstanding dispute was closed by a Bull of Celestine III, under which the Scottish Church was declared to be immediately depen- dent on the papal see. A little later, Anglo-Scotch wars effectually checked any attempts of archbishops of York to crown or consecrate north of the Tweed (Calend, Rot Patent^ p. 16), until their claim was finally extinguished by the elevation of the See of St. Andrews to metro- political rank (1472). Raids from the north accounted also for the disappearance of the Cumbrian Bishopric of Witherne about the middle of the fourteenth century, and for the fact that the allegiance of Carlisle to York was frequently rendered by bishops who were fugitives from their see. It was, however, in dealing with her suffragans of Durham, that the metropolitical see found sorest diffi- culty. These powerful earl-prelates occupied within their county a position little less than kingly. As para- Archiepiscopal Amenities, 103 mount seigneurs of all lands within the palatinate, they waxed rich in the exercise of rights of escheat and for- feiture, of wardship, and the possession of mines, forests, chaces, and wastes. Prescriptive privilege permitted them to hold their own courts of Chancery, Exchequer, and Admiralty, and to appoint officers thereto ; to hold pleas of the Crown and all other pleas; to pardon treasons and felonies. Theirs was the supreme juris- diction as well military as civil, the power of array of ships and of soldiers. Possessed of practically unlimited temporal powers, they frequently disowned any spiritual superior but the Pope ; and in their behaviour towards metropolitans of York, they often acted up to the device engraved on the seals which they used as counts pala- tine, that of a mounted knight in full panoply, who, bearing the arms of the bishopric in one hand, yet bran- dished a naked sword in the other. Thus, Bishop Hugh de Puiset refused to recognize the election and conse- cration of Geoffrey of York (1189), and, declaring him- self custos of the northern Church, withheld, in face of anathema, due oath of obedience. When, again, Archbishop Romanus attempted to hold a visitation at Durham in 1283, he was refused admittance to the Cathedral; and, in the Church of St. Nicholas, was threatened by a body of young men in so violent a manner, that he fled from the pulpit and escaped from the city by a private road. So too, ten years later, clerks bearing letters of citation and canonical mandates from York were imprisoned with the approval of Bishop Anthony Bek. *As a snake stoppeth her ears to the 104 The Primacy of England, Archiepiscopal Amenities, los voice of the charmer, so the suffragan listened not to lawful expostulations of his metropolitan, and refused to set them at liberty.' * Obedience hath no reward, if insubordination of such sort go scot free,' argued Ro- manus ; and, after due warning, he pronounced anathema on Anthony. But, unfortunately, the Archbishop forgot that Bek was a baron as well as a bishop, and paid heavily for his haste ; for he was compelled to withdraw the curse, and to pay a heavy fine into the Exchequer for excommunicating a royal vassal (Placita Parlia- mentarian Ryley, p. 136). And they also tell the fol- lowing ingenuous tale of the * hallowing ' of Louis de Beaumont to the see of Durham (13 18). *The bishop- elect, though chaste, was unlearned. Indeed, so slight was his acquaintance with Latin, that he found diffi- culty even in pronouncing it, and was fain to study the language under a private tutor for many days before his consecration. Even then he read his profession of obedience with much hesitation ; and when he reached the word " metropolitical," simply gasped, and passed on, with the exclamation in French, *' Let it be taken as said" (diu anhelans, dixit in Gallico "Seyt pur dite"). And those who stood by, were amazed, and deplored the promotion of such a man to a bishopric' (Robert de Graystanes, Histor. Dunelm^ Surtees Society). The subsequent behaviour of Louis, however, points to the probability that there was a certain amount of method in thus evading an express promise of submission to York. A few years later he was reproached , by Ed- ward II for not defending his bishopric against the Ui Scots any better than if he were * a mutterer of prayers like his predecessor ' ; and, anxious to redeem his good name, he set himself to resist with force the next metropolitical visitation of Allertonshire, and raised a band of desperadoes from Tynedale for that purpose, who were ready at a word to take Archbishop Melton's life. This attempt of a suffragan church to distinguish itself from the rest of the province, survived in one of its milder forms of manifestation to a recent date. On the calling of the Bishop and clergy of Durham to the Convocation of York, the Proctor of the Dean and Chapter was wont to appear with a protesta- tion *of adhering to, and abiding by, the privileges, immunities, exemptions, and liberties, granted to the Church of Durham'; and to * insist that the same should be inserted and enacted in all and singular sessions and acts made in that Convocation.' This protest, already of old standing as early as the year 1380, was regularly presented, until by the direction of the late Dean of Durham and his Chapter it was discontinued ; as regularly was it rejected by the President unread, as * frivolous and trifling and irrelevant,' in a manner indi- cative of the wounded dignity of the metropolitan. Its origin is doubtful; but it was probably the assertion either of the privilege, enjoyed of old time in the county Palatine, of holding a separate assembly for the king's service, and of voting subsidies apart (Wilkins, Concilia^ iil 150 ; Trevor, Convocations of Two Provinces^ 202), or of the right, since recognised by the courts (Ventris Rep.^ i. 234), of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, and io6 The Primacy of England. not the Archbishop of York, to be custodians of the spirituaHties of the bishopric, sede vacante (Histor. of York (Rolls Series), iii. 212-237). Such were the more serious of the troubles which distracted the northern province. Archbishops of York found themselves in charge of a house divided against itself, between the members of which the only bond of union was too often a defensive alliance against attacks on their temporal possessions from the north, against encroachments on their spiritual dignities from the south. In the dispute with Canterbury, however, many points were now in course of settlement. It was probably on the succession of Walter Gray to the see of York (12 16), that the two archbishops agreed to adopt their present styles, 'totius Angliae primas,' and 'Angliae primas' respectively {Royal Letters^ Henry I 11^ i. 26). Until that date, metropolitans of Canterbury had enjoyed such various titles as * Dei gratia Cantuarienses Archiepiscopi, Angliae primates'; *Anglorum primates* {Litter. Cantuar. iii. 355; Madox, Forntulare Anglican. 41-46); 'Britanniae primates'; *Totius Angliae primates et patriarchae' (Will. Malmesbury, Gest. Pont.y i.). Gervase of Canter- bury (ii. 448) in the Mappa Mundi^ styles his arch- bishop * primas totius Angliae et Walliae,' and places the Archbishop of York among his suffragans. But northern archbishops, from Thurstan onwards, had like- wise laid claim to primatial rank. In a letter to the justiciar Fitz Peter, Geoffrey of York styles himself *Dei gratia archiepiscopus Eboracensis et Anghae Archicpiscopal Amenities. 107 primas' {Forntulare Anglican. 3), and in 11 99 a protest, lodged against the sole ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury at the coronation, was made in Geoffrey's name as 'primate of all England' {Hoveden^ iv. 90). William of Newburgh, indeed, declares that at the close of the twelfth century both archbishops claimed the latter title, although neither possessed the powers im- plied therein {Chron. of Stephen; Henry H; and Rich- ard^ vol. ii. 444). Those pretensions to a primacy over Britain and Ireland, for which Canterbury had once contended, had indeed long been ineffectual. A last attempt to enforce the provisions of Lanfranc's Charter was vainly made by Archbishop Baldwin against Geof- frey, Elect of York, in 11 89 {MaU. Paris, Hist. Angl.^ ii. 10); and, some nine years later, the privilege of exacting obedience from northern primates was num- bered by the convent of Canterbury among those, which, though originally established by an unchangeable decree, had in course of time been set at nought and irrevocably lost {Mem. of Rich. /, Epp. Cantuar. (Rolls Series), ii. 533). Scotland had been placed under the ecclesiastical juris- diction of the Pope; while the claim of the successors of Augustine to supremacy over Ireland had rested on a few isolated professions of obedience made by Irish bishops during the latter half of the eleventh century, and was now a thing of the past. At a national council held at Kells in the year 11 52, palls had been bestowed on the Bishops of Armagh, Dublin, Cashel, and Tuam, and the two first-mentioned prelates, in their disputes for precedence, already bid fair to surpass their brothers io8 The Primacy of England, on this side of St. George's Channel.^ Under such circumstances, Canterbury was content to accept a less ambitious style; and York no doubt willingly agreed to a settlement, wherein a distinction in name is more apparent than any difference in degree. Henceforth, in royal letters and charters, in writs for military ser- vice and summons to national assemblies, the rival I ; * The first breach between the archbishops was occasioned by con- flicting bulls obtained by them from Rome. John Comyn (1182) and Henry (1221), Archbishops of Dublin, obtained papal privileges for- bidding other archbishops to celebrate councils or display metropoli- tical crosses within their province. The Archbishops of Armagh bore themselves out in answer by producing grants of the primacy over all Ireland made to them by Celestine III and Innocent III. In 1250, after much controversy between Reynard of Armagh and Luke of Dublin, Urban IV confirmed the rights of Armagh, and the papal privilege was proclaimed at a provincial council of Drogheda (1262). In 131 1, however, the strife was renewed, when DubHn forbade Armagh to lift up his cross within the province of Leinster. Two years later, the latter prelate landed secretly in the island of Howth, and by dint of rising in the dead of night succeeded in carrying his cross to the Priory of Grace Dieu. Here, however, he was set upon by certain of his rival's household, who compelled him to lay aside his cross, and retreat in confusion. After many similar encounters the quarrel reached a climax in the days of Richard FitzRalph of Armagh and Alexander Bickmore of Dublin. The former obtained letters from the English King authorising him to parade his cross throughout Ireland (1349), and 'with the aid of S. Patrick coming to Dublin he abode there three days, publicly announcing the privileges of his primacy and fulminating anathema on all who should disobey them. Finding that the justiciary of Ireland and the Prior of Kil- mainham were hindering the business of his Church, he excommuni- cated them ; and the Prior dying soon after, remained unburied, until the Archbishop was assured of his repentance and absolved him.' The question was not finally settled in favour of Armagh till the year 1634 {Usher's Works (C. R. Elvington), vol. i. append, vi.). It may be convenient to record here the fact that Scotland was not without Archiepiscopal Amenities, 109 prelates are addressed respectively as 'Primate of all England,' and * Primate of England ' (Close Rolls^ i. 418. ; ii. 13. Calend, Rot. Patent.^ 16). The arrangement had been acquiesced in by York as early as the year 1225. In an Indulgence granted by Walter Gray on Jan. 21 of that year, to all who should visit the Church of Ripon and the tomb of St. Wilfrid, the Archbishop styles troubles of the same sort. Although the sees of St. Andrew's and Glasgow were raised to metropolitical rank at a comparatively late date — St. Andrew's in 147 1, Glasgow in 1492 — the archbishops of Scot- land displayed towards one another an active jealousy worthy of an earlier age. The peace of the whole country was disturbed, and the thrifty Scot saw with disma3' that a vast amount of money was leav- ing the country and going to support litigation at Rome. In 1493 the two prelates were bidden to leave their disputes to the decision of the King and estates, with a threat that, in case of their disobedience, His Highness would forbid payment to them of 'farms, rents and males for the sustentation of the said pleas and bearing money out of the realm ' (Act Pari., ii. 232). Knox {History, i. 145-7) describes a dispute which arose when Cardinal Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrew's, had occasion to visit Glasgow (1545). 'The Cardinal was knowin proud,' and Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow and Chancellor, ' was knowin a glorious foole . . . Cuming furth at the qweir door of Glasgow kirk, beginnes stryving for state betuix the two croce-beraris, so that from glowming thei cum to schouldering, from schouldering thei go to buffetis, and from dry blawes by neffis and nefielling ; and then they assayis quhilk of the croces war fynest metal, which staff was strongast and which berar could best defend his maisteris pre- eminence ; and that thare should be no superioritie in that behalf, to the ground gois boyth the croces. And then begane no litell fray but yitt a meary game ; for rockettis war rent, typettis war torne, crounis were knapped, and syd gounis mycht have been sein wantonly wag from the ane wall to the other.' Knox represents the conflicting pre- lates as becoming reconciled eventually through their common zeal in the martyrdom of Wishart, ' the blood of the innocent servant of God burying in oblivion all that braggine and boast' (Burton's Hist, of Scotland, iii. 201). r no The Primacy of England. s I I himself, *Dei gratia Eboracensis Archiepiscopus, Angliae Primas.' In 1226, the Dean and Chapter of York, in requesting Stephen Langton to advertise the festival of St. William throughout his diocese, addressed the Archbishop as * Dei gratia Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus totius Angliae primas ' {Hisfor. of York^ (Rolls Series), Hi. 124-133). With the close of the twelth century, the claims of York to share in the coronation were abandoned, the last assertion of this alleged privilege of the see being vainly made when John accepted the crown from the hands of Hubert Walter (11 99; Hoveden^ iv. 90). On several later occasions, however, special precautions were taken to protect the rights of Canterbury. Cap- grave states that, at the coronation of Henry III (12 16), 'Westminster being besieged by enemies with Louis of France at their head, the barons, not waiting for Stephen Langton, caused the young King to be crowned in the presence of Gualo, the papal legate, by the Bishop of Winchester at Gloucester. But lest the rights of the see of Canterbury should be prejudiced, the bishop did not lay hands on the King, and instead of the royal diadem, placed a kind of chaplet on his head. Although it was proclaimed by royal edict, that in token to the whole realm of the coronation, no lay person, either male or female, should go out of the house for a month unless they wore a wreath upon their heads,' the whole ceremony was repeated with due solemnities by Stephen Langton, in the year 1220. On this second occasion, the Archbishop of York was shut out from the service !<:■ Archiepiscopal Amenities, III because of the cross-bearing dispute then raging between the archbishops; and the same cause prevented his attendance at several subsequent coronations. At the death of Edward I, Robert Winchelsey of Canterbury was absent from England, and suspended from his office. The Pope proposed to send a cardinal to crown Edward II, and when this offer was refused, granted a com- mission authorising the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Durham and London to officiate. At this threatened invasion of his privileges, Winchelsey made such strenuous efforts to regain the Pope's favour, that he was restored to his office, and the rights of Canter- bury were ratified and augmented. It was recognised that the consecration of English kings belonged to the southern metropolitan and to no other. The previous commission granted for the coronation was revoked; and the Archbishop, who from ill health was unable to attend the ceremony in person, nominated three bishops to officiate in his place, of whom Woodcock of Win- chester actually placed the crown on the King's head {Chron. of Edw. I and II (Rolls Series), i. 259). Later in the reign, the Archbishop and prelates of Canterbury entreat the King * pur I'onour de Dieu et de I'Eglise de Canterbur. et pur I'amour de glorious Martir Seint Thomas, sauver I'estate et I'onour de meisme I'Eglise, issint q'ele ne soit mye abesse en son temps : et nome- ment de ceo qe touche le portement de la Croitz I'Erce- vesque d'Everwyk. . . . Et pur ceola par autorite de cele Eglise si prient nostre seigneur le Roy I'onour de son coronement ne nul ne il purra faire, fors que soule- 112 The Primacy of England, Archiepiscopal Amenities. "3 ment FErcevesque de meisme le lieu ' ; and secured the royal response, *Le Roy ad commaunde fa volunte' (Palgrave, Rot. Pari., i. 418). At almost all coronations since then, the Archbishop of Canterbury has officiated. Mary, the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, was crowned by Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, both the Arch- bishops and the Bishop of London being then prisoners in the Tower. Elizabeth received the crown from Oglethorpe, Bishop of Carlisle ; but the see of Canter- bury lay vacant at the time, the Archbishop of York demurred to the English Liturgy, and the Bishop of London was in prison. Compton, Bishop of London, in the absence of Archbishop Sancroft, officiated at the coronation of William and Mary ; but before that event took place, the *Act to establish the coronation oath' (i Will. & Mary, c. 6) had made provision that such ceremonies might be performed in the future by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York, or by any other bishop of the realm whom the king's majesty might appoint. The books, such as Stanley's Westminster Abbey, Phillimore's Ecclesiastical Law, Godolphin's Repertorium Canonicum, and others, attribute to archbishops of York, as queen's chaplains, the right of crowning queens-con- sort ; but this privilege, which is said to date back to the * hallowing to queen' of the Lady Matilda by Aldred, Archbishop of York (1067), if it ever existed at all, appears to have never been enforced. Of ancient coron- ations, that of Joan of Navarre (1399) is the only one in which an archbishop of York took part ; and then V' he was allowed to assist his brother primate in the coronation of the King as well as of the Queen, in order to add to the ceremony an additional sanctity which was to compensate for the defective title of Henry IV. In modern times the consorts of George III and William IV have been crowned by archbishops of Canterbury, although, strangely enough, tradition still current in York asserts that Archbishop Harcourt, the northern primate of the day, placed the crown on the head of Queen Adelaide {Annual Register, Sept. 22, 1 761, and Sept., 1831 ; Times of latter date). Another very favourite opportunity for primatial dis- putes was lost when Edward I discontinued the com- memoration of the coronation at the three great festivals of the year (Stanley, Westminster Abbey, 58). Thus a quarrel, which had once been subject for discussion to national assemblies, was fast narrowing down to a question of the precedence and insignia of one archbishop while sojourning in the province of the other; and energies, which had once been distributed over many fields of rivalry, were now to be massed on the one point of * cross-bearing.' That the assertion of this right was regarded, at York at least, as a matter of life and death, is seen from the conduct of Geoffi^ey, natural son of Henry II, who was appointed to the metropolitical see in 1189. From the first, the path of the new Archbishop was set about with cares on every side, for he found the most important posts in the province filled by hostile courtiers, the nominees of his predecessor or of King I 114 The Primacy of England. Archiepiscopal Amenities. "S Richard, intolerant of archiepiscopal control. A spirited quarrel with the canons of his cathedral followed his first appearance at York, because he refused to instal certain newly-appointed dignitaries. On the eve of the Epiphany, 1190, the dean and treasurer retaliated by beginning vespers before his arrival at the Minster; and when he interrupted them and began the service over again, they promptly ordered the lights to be put out, and left their Elect to continue his chaunting in the dark. An attempt at reconciliation ended in a riot ; the dean fled for refuge to his house, the treasurer to the tomb of St. William ; while the Archbishop pronounced anathema on both, and closed the church. Nor wa6 this the end of Geoffrey's troubles. A year and a half later, after receiving consecration at Tours, he prepared to return to his see. It was a time when the highest ranks in the Church throughout the world seemed infected with the warlike spirit of the Crusades. In a few years' time, King Richard, in reply to the Pope, who demanded the release of one of the martial prelates of the day, styling him * his beloved son,' would be des- patching to Rome a coat of mail which had been worn by the prisoner, with the query 'know now whether this be thy son's coat or no' (Genesis^ xxxvii. 32). Before the period closed, another member of the Church Mili- tant, at the Battle of Bouvines, would be plying a mace on the heads of the English, in order not to break the letter of the law which forbade the use of the sword by ecclesiastics. At the moment, in the absence of the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Crusades, i England had become the battle-ground of bishops ; and William Longchamp of Ely, Chancellor and Justiciar for the south of England, fresh from the capture of Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham, Justiciar for the district north of Humber, now issued a warrant for the arrest of Geoffrey as soon as he should touch English soil. The Archbishop of York, however, landed at Dover in disguise; was pursued by order of Richenda, the Chancellor's sister, lady custodian of Dover Castle; and, after a five days' blockade in the Priory of St. Martin, was dragged from the altar and haled in tri- umph to prison. No sooner was he free again, than he quarrelled with Hugh of Durham over the profes- sion of obedience, and excommunicated the chief of his suffragans. But though his archiepiscopal career opened with such painful experiences, and was henceforth to be chequered with the persecutions of his half-brothers, Richard and John, with embarrassments created by a mutinous chap- ter at York and a rebel bishop at Durham, Geoffrey did not hesitate to plunge into conflict with Canterbury. Disregarding the canonical rule *that an archbishop going out of his province, became subject to the metro- politan of the province where he had his abode or commorancy; and that there could not be two metro- politans in one province any more than two suns in one firmament,' in the year 1192 he proceeded with cross erect from the New Temple, where he lodged, to West- minster. The see of Canterbury lay vacant at the time, but the suffragans of the south declared that they I 2 ii6 The Primacy of England. Archieptscopal Amenities. 117 would have broken in pieces the obnoxious symbol of metropolitical power, had they not recollected that Geoffrey was the son and brother of kings, and but newly appointed to his office. Richard of London pro- nounced him excommunicate, and suspended the New Temple from services and ringing of bells. Nothing daunted, and disregarding the Scriptures, where it is written *Nemo mittere falcem debet in alienam messem,' the northern primate repeated the insult in the course of the following year, and was rebuked by the Bishop of Rochester; while the suffragans of the province of Canterbury refused to salute him as he entered the council, and summoned him to answer for the insult offered to their Archbishop-elect before the Apostolic judgment seat. *Some of the more discreet of the citizens, moreover, recommended him to conceal his cross as he went through their streets, lest angry men should run upon him, and break it in the midst.' * He was young,' adds the charitable Gervase, ' iUiterate, and spoke with a lisp and a stammer. In all his actions he was influenced by pride and impiety.' Heavy retri- bution was in store for him. When once his ancient foe, Hubert Walter, formerly Dean of York, had been enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey, in his journeys through the southern province, no longer ventured to parade his cross on the highway, but was wont on such occasions to march 'cruce praevia' through thickets and along by-roads. King Richard, who ap- parently took little interest in points of ecclesiastical etiquette, suggested that he should not provoke dis- turbance by bringing his cross with him to the coronation at Winchester in 1194; and the wounded prelate pre- ferred to stay away from the ceremony rather than to appear there at such disadvantage. When the King departed over sea soon after, Hubert took full revenge on his rival. As justiciar, he nominated the committee of justices, which heard the charges of extortion brought by the Canons of York against their Archbishop, and when Geoffrey refused to appear before the Court, ordered the confiscation of his estates; while a year later he showed his contempt for his brother metro- politan by visiting York in person as justiciar and papal legate, and presiding in triumph over the assembled clergy of the northern province. Entries in the chronicles of the time show that the quarrel was kept alive through the succeeding century. Walter Gray was shut out from the second coronation of Henry III, performed by Stephen Langton at Win- chester {Annales Monast Dunstable). 'Almost all the bishops of England were present when Edward I re- ceived the crown from Robert Kilwarby. Walter Giffard of York alone did not appear, for owing to the frivolous dispute about the cross, which was still being waged with vain trouble and vast expenditure, he was unable to come ' (Wykes). * Socialis et dapsilis,' the Archbishop, by the expense of his lavish entertainments, and of his stately progresses through the north with servants, hawks, hounds, and furniture to equip in turn his vari- ous castles and manors, together with the costs of appeals to Rome, was eventually * involved in a whirl- Ii8 The Primacy of England. pool of usury.' Time failed to moderate the passions of the combatants. In a letter written to Rome in the year 1280, rings out the exceeding bitter cry of William Wick- wane, the newly-consecrated Archbishop of York : *Holy Father, considering the letters you had sent under seal to the Archbishop of Canterbury, I fully expected to find peace in carrying my cross through England, when I re- turned from foreign parts. Instead thereof, there was in store for me treatment more harsh and severe than ever. After I had raised aloft in mid-channel the emblem of my primacy and carried it quietly through the diocese of Canterbury, Master Adam de Hales, the Archbishop's official, with the aid of Satan and his satellites, fell madly on my retinue, and brake my cross in pieces ; but, thanks to God, I procured another and caused it to be carried before me. The same official, however, not content with this outrage, was ready with a band of armed men to attack me, as I entered London, with clubs, axes, swords and all kinds of weapons ; but by the aid of friends, who bare me company, I escaped injury, and came to the King. Moreover, whenever I journey through his pro- vince on the business of my Church, the Archbishop, by his officers and servants, forbids to give me or mine food, drink or necessaries for the way, as though we were heretics and cut off under sentence of excommuni- cation; and he also places under interdict the whole country through which I pass. I therefore pray on bended knee, with deep groans, that it may please your compassion with the file of correction to smooth the rough temper of Canterbury, and to protect me in the Archiepiscopal Amenities, 119 possession of that right of cross-bearing which was enjoyed by my predecessors ' (Wilkins, Concilia). Four years later, when Wickwane was again expected to pass through the southern province on his return to York, Archbishop John Peckham prepared for his reception by directing the archdeacons of Canterbury, Winchester, Rochester and Chichester to place under interdict such places as he should pass through with cross erect. No one should bend for his blessing. Rectors, vicars and chap- lains were warned against celebrating mass, performing ecclesiastical offices, or permitting bells to be rung in his presence. The doors of churches should be shut in his face. Between the years 1280 and 1306, on ten different occasions were similar commands issued to the various archdeacons and ecclesiastical officials in the southern province {Register of Peckham and Northern Letters (Rolls Series) ). This mediaeval ' boycott/ these childish reprisals, were not without a serious side ; and added one more to the many causes which now prevented united action on the part of the Church in her courts and convocations. As the disputes of York and Canterbury had assisted the establishment of the appellate jurisdiction of the Curia, so did they also justify that of the ordinary jurisdiction of the Pope in England. Nearly all the recorded appeals made to the see of Rome during the prevalence of the Norman system of government, as well as a very large proportion of the whole number of appeals recorded in mediaeval history, were extra-judicial ; that is, appeals made by a person either oppressed by, or apprehending 120 The Primacy of England. oppression from, his immediate superior, to stay pro- ceedings to his prejudice in the court from the threat- ened action of which he appealed, before the matter in question had begun to receive judicial treatment. In entertaining such applications as these, the papal court practically acted as a court of first instance. By the time of Bracton, the ordinary jurisdiction of Rome was well-known : * Papa in spiritualibus super omnibus habet ordinariam jurisdictionem ' ; and suitors, avoiding a lengthy course of appeals, were in the habit of begin- ning their cases by 'impetrating ' a papal writ appointing judges delegate to hear their causes in England. The jealous rivalries of archbishops further encouraged such encroachments. These disputes were not confined to England, France and Germany ; but primates of Bourges wrangled with their brothers of Bordeaux, Armagh with Dublin, Compostella with Toledo. Apart from his obe- dience to the Pope, each boasted himself in all spiritual causes within his own province supreme, and exacted exclusive obedience from his subjects. *Cum Ebora- censis archiepiscopus, Angliae primas, praeter Romanum pontificem in spiritualibus superiorem non habeat, ac ipsa mater Eboracensis ecclesia honore primatiae illus- tretur ' are the opening words of a proclamation, in which Archbishop Greenfield in 1306 strictly forbade appeals to be carried from his court to that of Canterbury. Pro- cess issuing from the courts of one province did not run into the other province ; and scant courtesy was likely to be shown to those letters in which one ordinary, * for the sake of law and justice, and under promise of the like favour when thereunto required,' requested another A rchiepiscopal A men ities. 121 to examine witnesses who chanced to be out of the jurisdiction of the former, but within that of the latter, or to serve citations upon parties resident in his diocese, when such ordinaries happened to belong to rival pro- vinces. * You wish,* writes Professor Maitland, * to sue as co-defendants a man who lives at Lincoln and another who lives at York. What are you going to do ? No English prelate has power over both these men. In the judicial system Canterbury is a unit, and York is a unit, but England is no unit. But papal jurisdiction knows no bounds ' ; and the plaintiff must seek his remedy at Rome, *patria omnium,' from the Pope, * judex ordina- rius singulorum,' the judge without peer or- superior ; and thus the papal Curia became *an omnicompetent court not only of appeal, but also of first instance for the whole of western Christendom ' {Canon Law in England). * National church councils,' writes Bishop Stubbs {Con- stituiional History^ ii. 216), * became, after the indepen- dence of York had been vindicated by Thurstan, almost an impossibility. Occasionally when matters were to be discussed which touched the whole English Church, a common debate may have been held between the clergy of the two provinces {Royal Letters^ Henry III^ vol. ii. 94), but *the extant evidence points rather to an arrange- ment by letter between the archbishops in such cases, than to any common deliberation of the Churches. Only when the authority of a legate a latere superseded for a moment the ordinary authority of both archbishops, were any national councils of the Church summoned.' Nor were such special occasions, though rare, allowed 122 The Primacy of England, to pass without some dispute as to order of session, recalling the days of Roger and Richard. In 1237 came Cardinal Otho from Rome, and as papal legate sum- moned a council to meet in St. Paul's Church about the feast of St. Martin ; and against the day assigned came together the archbishops, bishops, abbots and clergy from both far and near throughout all England. * And when the assembly was met and the Cardinal would have begun his sermon, there arose a great discord between the Archbishops of York and Canterbury for sitting on the right hand and on the left hand of the glorious legate, for the which one appealed against the other. Then the Cardinal, wishing to pacify the strife so that he would not derogate from either of them, brought forth a certain bull of the Pope, in the midst of which was pictured an image of the cross. "You see here," said he, "St. Peter on the left, St. Paul on the right hand of the cross ; and yet no quarrel ever arose be- tween the two, for both are in equal glory. And yet St. Peter, for the prerogative of the keys and the pre- eminence of his apostleship, seemeth the more worthy to be placed on the right side. But yet, because Paul believed on Christ when he saw him not, he takes the place of honour, for blessed are they which believe yet have seen not. In like manner the Archbishop of Can- terbury, who presides over the elder Church and also that of St. Paul in London, shall have the seat on my right hand"' {Mait. Parisy iii.)\ ^ The learned Cardinal here supplies a novel explanation of the relative positions on coins, medals, seals, etc., of the tvto apostles. Archiepiscopal Amenities. 123 This ingenious decision effected little towards any settlement of the dispute, or the meeting of the two metropolitans in one general assembly of the Church ; and although Gregory the Great, in his letter to Augus- At the close of the seventeenth century there yf^.s set up in France the theory of an equal primacy of Peter and Paul over the Church they founded at Rome ; a suggestion which eventually drew forth a bull from Innocent XII, pronouncing heretical any proposition which should assert complete equality between the two apostles, and deny the supremacy and universal jurisdiction of the former. During the controversy, various suggestions were made to account for the fact that St. Paul usually occupies the right side or place of honour in pictures, seals, etc. Petro de Marca, Archbishop of Paris, in his ' Exercitatio de singulari primatu Petri,' lays it down that the place of honour is to be judged from the point of view of the person inspectmg the picture or coin ; and that, such being the rule, Paul will be found in an inferior position, to the left of the spectator. On the same principle, bishops sit in that part of the choir which is to the right of people entering the church, but to the left of the altar ; men sit on the right of the entrance, women on the left. Baluze, who edited the Archbishop's works, will have none of this fanciful explanation. He declares it to have been the custom of the ancients, both Pagan and Christian, to place those of authority and dignity on the left side of pictures, etc., whenever they wished to represent them in action or movement of any kind ; and cites instances where figures of Emperors holding out their hands to suppliants or addressing soldiers, of Christ giving the keys to Peter and returning sight to the blind, are placed on the left of gems, stones, or monuments. This rule held good up till the eleventh century in the case of the representations of Peter and Paul. Peter occupied the right, except when he was represented in movement of any kind. In the eleventh century the matter came under discussion, and Peter Damian decided that St. Paul should, in future, be placed on the right in all cases, giving several mystical reasons for his judgment, and pointing out that Paul was of the tnbe of Benjamin, ' quae vox filium dexterae significat.' This ruhng was accepted and followed by Innocent III, S. Bonaventura, and other theologians. {Epistola ad Desiderium oppos, Peter Damian, 111. 365 ; Sermo de Evangelistis, Innocent III.) 124 The Primacy of England, tine, had directed future archbishops of England 'to dispose their doings with common counsel and mutual concord, and to accomplish the same without variance,' ecclesiastical affairs continued to be conducted by two provincial councils, meeting, the one in London, the other in York, each carefully avoiding the least sem- blance of subservience to the other. Did York accept canons which had already received the assent of Can- terbury, it was with a distinct denial of authority in the concurrent assembly, and with express assertion of her own free will. In ecclesiastical causes the archbishops acknowledged no superior but the Pope. Woe betide clerk, proctor, or layman who endeavoured ' with wanton pretext ' to appeal from the tribunals of his own pro- vince to those of her rival ; excommunication or loss of preferment and official position effectively checking such offenders as they rushed ' with uncurbed malice to work their own irreparable ruin, and to betray the interests of their mother Church ' (Wilkins, Concilia, ii. 285). Even by minute variations in the terms or the amount of money grants the charge of a slavish imitation was avoided; and, in the year 1280, it is recorded that when the northern convocation voted the King one-fifteenth for three years. Archbishop Peckham and his clergy gave one-tenth for two, *in order that at any rate in some respect they might differ from the Yorkists^ (Annal. Monast. Osney Chron.). This division between the two provinces might have been partially remedied had the Church acquiesced in the scheme of Edward I for parliamentary representa- Archiepiscopal Amenities, 12$ tion of the clergy of the whole realm ; but this chance of reconciliation was lost when the Church, successfully maintaining that the right to tax her property, if it existed at all, lay with provincial synods, secured isola- tion for herself and the eventual exclusion of the lower clergy from Parliament. As to the higher clergy in the Upper House, the cross-bearing dispute frequently inter- fered with their attendance. The journey of an arch- bishop and suffragans through the rival province, in obedience to the royal writ, was fraught with difficulty and danger, and took the nature of an incursion into an enemy's country. In the year 1299, Robert Winchelsey wrote a triumphant letter to his chapter at Canterbury detailing how, after attending the King at Caerlaverock, he returned with cross erect through the northern pro- vince, passing close to the city of York, and by God's grace had reached his own territory again without hin- drance, safe and sound ('incolumes et robusti sine dampno ') (Litterae Cantuar.y i. 26). Probably as a tri- bute to this success, the prior of Canterbury drew up six paragraphs of arguments, still preserved in the muni- ment room of the cathedral, proving that his archbishop, as patriarch and primate, might parade his cross through all Britain, while the primate of York could exercise that privilege within the limits of his province alone {Hist. MSS. Commiss., v. 446). In 1309, Winchelsey scored a further triumph, for he refused to attend parliament at Westminster or to suffer his suffragans to appear there, if York were permitted to show his cross in London. A suggestion that the rivals should appear on alternate 126 The Primacy of England. I n days was declined, and Edward eventually solved the difficulty by dismissing the northern Archbishop from further attendance (Gervase of Cant. (Rolls Series) ). Councils, held at York in 13 14 and 13 15 during the Scotch wars, gave the Yorkists an opportunity for re- venge. Royal letters forbade Archbishop Greenfield to molest his rival as he made his way north. The Earls of Lancaster and Warrenne, and the Sheriff and cor- poration of York, were warned that certain persons had conspired to insult the prelates of the south, and were directed to give safe conduct to Walter Reynold and his suffragans on their way to the King {Litter. Cant.^ iii. 394). In such minute details was archiepiscopal jealousy displayed, that a grant of an oratory at Clifton by Greenfield to John, Earl of Surrey, to last during the continuance of the parliamentary sitting, was made conditional on the non-appearance there of the Arch- bishop of Canterbury with cross erect {Greenfield's Register). To a Parliament summoned to meet at York in 1322, there came no other of the clergy but the Arch- bishop of York, the Bishops of Lincoln and Carlisle, and the Abbots of York and Selby. In the absence of the southern prelates, the assembly declared it had neither experience nor courage sufficient to advise the King. Business was at a standstill; and Edward was requested to continue the sitting until fresh summons could be issued to the absentees, with special charge to attend, ' so that the affairs of the King and the Realm might not be longer delayed for the cross-bearing dis- pute between the Archbishops' {Rot. Pari, ii. 67). Archiepiscopal Amenities. 127 Small wonder that the prudent William de Edington declined to exchange his comfortable see for the more perilous primatial chair; * Though the rack at Canter- bury may be the higher, yet Winchester has the deeper manger,' said the philosophic prelate. It was not until too late, when the gulf fixed between the two provinces had become too wide to be bridged over by any agreement, that Simon I slip of Canterbury, and John Thoresby of York, under the King's media- tion, came to terms. By an agreement concluded in 1353, and confirmed by the Pope in 1355, wherein both Archbishops are styled papal legates, and Canterbury is designated *primas totius Angliae,' York 'Angliae primas,' it was settled that for the future each metro- politan should enjoy the free right of cross-bearing in the province of the other. In return for this privilege, Archbishops of York, within two months of their first entry into the southern province after consecration, should send by the hand of some discreet messenger to Canterbury, a golden image of the value of forty pounds sterling, wrought in the likeness of an archbishop bear- ing his cross, or a jewel of like value ; and the same should be publicly offered up at the shrine of the glorious martyr St. Thomas, after due notice given to the lord prior, subprior or precentor of the Church, if present, or to the monk custodian of the tomb. Order of session in parliamentary and ecclesiastical assemblies was next determined. In the * Modus Tenendi Parliamentum,' composed about the beginning of the fourteenth century, the order is laid down as follows ; ' The King shall sit ^ 128 The Primacy of England. \ii r in the middle of the greater Bench ; on his right hand the Archbishop of Canterbury, on his left the Arch- bishop of York ; and behind them the bishops, abbots, and priors, in rows. At the King's right foot shall sit the Chancellor, the Chief Justice of England and his companions; at his left foot the Treasurer, the Cham- berlain, the Barons of the Exchequer and the Justices of the Common Bench.' A later edition ran, * On the King's right hand shall sit the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of London and Winchester ; and behind them the other bishops, abbots, and priors ; on his left the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle ; and behind them, in rows or in succession, the earls, barons and lords ; such division being always observed.' In the present agreement this order was confirmed. In parliaments and royal councils, when both archbishops were present, Canterbury, as president of the elder and more eminent Church, was placed on the King's right hand, York on his left. For the same reason, the seat of honour in ecclesiastical councils and convocations, and on other occasions when both pri- mates were present, was awarded to Canterbury, that next in honour to York. Precedence in processions still remained to be settled. Gervase sets out the order observed at the coronation of Richard 1 at Winchester in 1 1 94, which was founded on that laid down for the coronation procession of Stephen and his Queen : * At the third hour let the King and his barons put on their apparel, and let the bishops put on albs and caps ; and as they follow the Archbishop of Canterbury to the '1 f Archiepiscopal Amenities, 129 King's chamber, let them take rank according to the order of their consecrations, except in the case of the Archbishop of York, and the Bishops of London, Win- chester, and Rochester. The Archbishop of York shall walk on the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London on his left ; or should York be absent, London shall take his place, and Winchester shall walk on the left. Behind the Archbishop of Canterbury shall be placed the Bishop of Rochester, his chaplain.' Now the rule was laid down that in processions, wherever the path was sufficiently broad, the cross-bearers of the two Archbishops should walk abreast, followed presum- ably by the two metropolitans themselves abreast ; but in doorways and other narrow places, Canterbury should have the precedence (Wilkins, Concilia). It is to be feared that this composition did not result from any previous improvement in the mutual relations of the Archbishops themselves. The confirming bull of Innocent VI does indeed state that it had been drawn up by the wish of Islip and Thoresby, in order to put an end to the endless disputes and suits which had arisen, and were likely to arise, between them ; but as the agree- ment bears date April 22, 1353, and on April i of the same year it had been found necessary to order the sheriffs of London and Middlesex to protect the King's Chancellor, the Archbishop of York, in carrying his cross while engaged in the duties of his office, it is more pro- bable that the settlement was prompted by pressure from Edward than by any reconciliation of Simon and John. In neither province were the suffragans, clergy K I30 The Primacy of England, I or chapters of the metropolitical cathedral made con- senting parties. A Yorkist chronicler (Histor. of York, ii. 419) attributes the consent of Thoresby to his * natural generosity and humility of mind ' ; but the Archbishop seems to have been in fact but a reluctant party to the arrangement, and the King appears to have won him over by bearing a portion of the expense of the oblation to Canterbury. In the Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, 161, appears the following entry : ' 28 Edward III, Oct. 9. To Richard de Grymesby, goldsmith in the Tower of London, in money paid to him for certain images made in honour of St. Thomas the Martyr, and delivered to the Rev. Father the Archbishop of York, of the King's gift for his oblation to Canterbury, &c., £^ 8s. sd.' It was perhaps a result of this settlement, that the legatine commission, that bone of contention, was now divided between Canterbury and York. During the century which followed the appointment of William of Corbeuil (1125), the office of legate had not been con- ferred invariably on southern archbishops. In 1143 it had been bestowed on Henry of Winchester ; and subse- quently, after Archbishops Becket, Richard and Baldwin had held it in turn, the gift was again diverted from Canterbury to William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely. Not until the days of Stephen Langton did archbishops of Canterbury gain the privilege to be called * legati nati,' and to receive the legatine commission as soon as their election to the see was recognised at Rome. Meanwhile their rivals of the north had been scheming to escape acknowledgment of the precedence which accompanied Archtepiscopal Amenities. 131 a grant of legatine authority, either by securing a like honour for themselves, as did Roger of Pont TEv^que and Walter Gray, or by soliciting the limitation of the jurisdiction granted to their southern enemies. Thus the grant made to Becket in 11 66 ran : *Legationem tibi totius Angliae concedimus, excepto episcopatu Ebora- censi ' ; that to his successor Richard was limited to the province of Canterbury. Geoffrey of York, too, obtained from Rome the promise that he and his province should be exempted from legatine jurisdiction ; but the privilege was destined to be of little value. * Nothing was ever so firmly established by a Pope, "qui uno, ut aiunt, spiritu sorbere et flare potest," but that he could utterly upset it by the use of that little clause "non obstante'" ; and very soon after the issue of the exemption to Geof- frey, a grant of the legation over all England was made to Archbishop Hubert Walter, 'notwithstanding any immunity of the province of York conflicting therewith.' Now, however, from the time of Thoresby, who was created legate in 1352, down to the Reformation, arch- bishops of York received legatine commissions as well and as regularly as their brethren of Canterbury. K 2 APPENDIX. Composition made between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York regarding the bearing of their archiepiscopal crosses, April 20, 1353; confirmed by Innocent VI, Avignon, I3S5 (Wilkins, Concilia: Utierae Cantuarienses (Rolls Series), iii. 217). In Dei Nomine : Amen. Anno a nativitate ejusdem mcccliii, mensis Aprilis die vicesimo, indictione sexta, sanctissimi in Christo patris Innocentii Papae sexti anno primo, in palatio regio apud Westmonasterium .... reverendi patres Dommus Simon Cantuariensis et Johannes Eboracensis Archiepiscopi quamdam compositionem super bajulationem crucium suarum inierunt, et ipsam in scriptis in forma sequenti redigi, et suis sigillis fecerunt unanimiter communiri. Universis pateat praesentes litteras inspecturis, quod cum, propter impedimenta delationum crucium reverendorum patrum Dominorum Cantuariensis et Eboracensis Archiepiscoporum, cum in suis provinciis indifferenter per eorum utrumque libere faciendarum, varia possent in futurum scandala pervenire; mediante iUustrissimo principe Domino Rege Angliae, et in ejus praesentia . . . inter reverendos in Christo patres Simonem Dei gratia Cantuariensem Archiepiscopum totius Angliae prima- tem et apostolicae sedie Legatum. ac Johannem eadem gratia Eboracensem Archiepiscopum Angliae Primatem et Apostolicae Sedis Legatum, amicabiliter sic convenit. In primis : quod idem Dominus Simon . . . et successores ejusdem . . . crucem siiam in civitate dioecesi et tota provincia Eboracensibus ante se deferri libere facient, ubicunque, quandocunque, et quotiens- cunque sibi placuerit. absque turbatione et impedimento Domini Johannis et cujuslibet successorum suorum seu alterius cujus- cunque ipsorum nomine vel mandato, clam vel palam, publice vel occulte. Item : Convenit inter eos quod idem Dominus Appendix to Chapter V, 133 Johannes et successores ejusdem crucem suam in civitate dioecesi et tota provincia Cantuariensibus ante se deferri libere faciant, quandocunque, et quotienscunque, etc. . . . Sed idem Dominus Johannes . . . infra duos menses post datum praesentium proxime sequentes, ac quivis ejus successor infra similes duos menses a tempore quo primo Cantuariensem provinciam post consecrationem suam de cetero ingressus fuerit, pro delatione crucis pacifica in civitate dioecesi et provincia Cantuarensibus . . . facienda, . . . unum nuntium solempnem, videlicet, offici- arium suum, cancellarium, auditorem causarum, vel unum doc- torem legum seu unum militem, ad ecclesiam cathedralem Cantuariensem cum una imagine aurea, valoris quadraginta librarum, sculpta ad similitudinem archiepiscopi crucem in manu sua deferentis, vel jocali altero notabili aureo ejusdem valoris . . . efficaciter mittere, et quilibet nuntius sic mittendus iter effectualiter arripere et gressus suos absque dolo et fraude versus dictam Cantuariensem ecclesiam continuare et infra dictos duos menses confirmare teneatur fideliter. Et cum hujus- modi nuntius ad ecclesiam ipsam Cantuariensem sic venerit, dictam imaginem vel jocale ad feretrum gloriosi Martyris Beati Thomae . . , praemunito ante ingressum cimiterii dictae ecclesiae Domino Priore vel Suppriore seu Precentore ipsius Ecclesiae, si praesentes fuerint, aut saltem monacho custode feretri ipsius effectualiter palam et publice ofiferet et devote ... In parlia- mento, tractatibus et consiliis regiis quando Cantuariensis et Eboracensis Archiepiscopi simul praesentes fuerint, quicunque Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus, quia Ecclesia Cantuariensis anti- quior et praeeminentior fore dinoscitur, ad Domini Regis dexteram assidebit ; et praefatus Eboracensis Archiepiscopus existens pro tempore ad sinistram. Crux autem Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi ex parte dextera lecti regii . . . et crux Eboracensis ex sinistra parte, si Cantuariensis praesens fuerit, reponetur. In consiliis vero convocationibus seu locis aliis quibuscunque in qui- bus Cantuariensem et Eboracensem Archiepiscopos convenire contingat, Dominus Cantuariensis primum locum seu sedem eminentiorem, Eboracensis verum alium locum secundum emin- entiorem, obtinere debebunt. Cruciferarii vero duorum Archi- episcoporum praedictorum cum in via lata et ampla, ubi cruce:i \\ 134 The Primacy of England. eonim simul potuerint deferri, convenerint, cruces ipsas defer- entes, incedere simul debent, sed in introitu hostiorum, vel in aliis locis strictis quibus simul cruces deferri nequeunt, crux ejusdem Domini Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi praecedet et crux Eboracensis Archiepiscopi subsequetur. In quorum omnium testimonium et fidem nos Simon Cantuariensis et Johannes Eboracensis Archiepiscopi sigilla nostra fecimus hiis apponi. Date in palatio regio apud Westmonasterium vicesimo die mensis Aprilis Anno Domini mccclii. CHAPTER VI. HALCYON DAYS. Nulla est quidem contumelia secundi, sed ex duobus gloria magna proelati. Though the way now lay open to union, isolation still marked the relation of the two provinces to one another; and that too, when union was never more sorely needed. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the claims and privileged position of the Church, and of the various ranks and orders within her, were no longer justified by the practice of those exalted principles, to which they had owed their creation, preservation, and centuries of recog- nition and observance. The theory of the papacy, which had been impressed upon Christendom mainly by the genius of Hildebrand, that of a supreme and infallible power, under whose righteous sway temporal should yield to spiritual authority, physical to moral force, had been rudely shaken when Popes, entering the arena of politics, vied with princes in extortion and oppression ; and finally collapsed in the years of the captivity of Avignon, and the days of the great schism. Of the two great regiments of the Church, the secular clergy were m^fmmm'^'^^m^^^'^'^ ■^ ■ * " > ^> 'y 136 The Primacy of England. sunk in simony and concubinage, in self-indulgence and greed for emoluments. * He came into his benefice by his brynrede, thes by covenant made bifore ; he for his servyse, and thes for moneye, came into Goddis Chirche/ They were noticeable for their pride and the breathless race they ran for promotion; for the carnal concupi- scence with which they gave themselves * to feasts and banquetting, sports and plays, to hunting, hawking, and keeping of dogs ; for the covetousness, whence came the heaping of benefice upon benefice and the suing for tithes, mortuaries, and offerings'; and finally for the 'secularitie and erthly occupations with which they did turmoyle themselves,' to the neglect of their spiritual duties. Deterioration was equally marked in the ranks of the regulars. The monk had once gone forth into solitudes and great waste places, to seek perfection in a life of ascetic self-restraint and stated exercise of work and prayer. Education, literature, and art, had flourished under his fostering care ; under his husbandry the desert had blossomed as the rose. But now the world, following him in his flight, showered upon him those very possessions he had once shunned ; and while prac- tice of true religion and virtue was postponed to the administration of vast estates, the comforts, business, and pursuits of wealthy land proprietors ousted that old-world austerity and devotion which had been charac- teristic of the cloister. Possessed in many instances of privileges and exemption from diocesan visitation and control, endowed with a great part of the tithe of the country, religious houses came to be regarded as rivals Halcyon Days. 137 by bishops, as robbers by the secular clergy. They were in perpetual conflict with rising towns as to monopolies of holding markets, enclosing fields, grinding corn, preserving game, and other local business; and monastic registers, which had once been the records of national history, were become in these latter days but a beggarly tale of petty lawsuits. The friar who had once pointed the finger of scorn at the sloth and self- indulgence of the monk, had fallen himself into the same snares. Poverty and self-surrender, the exposure of ignorance and error were no longer the mark and aim of Franciscan and Dominican. Though they had once spoken like angels, these preachers of morality now lived like men ; and members of the two great orders were become high officials in Church and State, wearers of soft raiment, dwellers in kings' palaces; while others less successful had degraded the name 'friar' into a synonym for runagate and beggar. Throughout the country the Church lacked effective supervision. Many dioceses of the time, such as Exeter, York, and Lincoln, were of so vast an area as to defy episcopal management ; many sees, which should have been centres of spiritual discipline and spiritual energy, were occupied by absentee foreigners, or by state offi- cials engrossed in political business at home and abroad. Rights of patronage were abused, ordinaries bestowing 'cures on young folks they called their nephews or kinsfolk, and keeping the profits in their own hands, so that the poor silly souls of the laity, for lack of good curates, perished without doctrine.' In many cases, 1 ■ 1 I ■ l< > ' 138 The Primacy of England. / ordination was carelessly conferred on irregular and illiterate candidates, without question of their educa- tional or moral qualifications for office ; and many an ignorant priest could be found 'holding ten or twelve benefices, and being resident on none, while well-learned scholars in the universities, which were able to teach and preach, held neither benefice nor exhibition.' Eccle- siastical courts were hot-beds of bribery and extortion, of delay and injustice, wherein unsalaried judges, scribes, apparitors, and other officials, lived upon fines and hush-money. For certificates and other processes, this hungry crowd demanded heavy money payment ; and, 'coveting their own private lucres and the satisfaction and appetites of the prelates and ordinaries,' extorted exorbitant ftts for grants of probate, and protracted causes for the sake of costs and charges. But it was probably by the abuses and tyranny which marred the exercise of her jurisdiction 'pro salute animae,' more than by all the rest of her shortcomings, that the Church eventually exhausted the good-will and longsufferance of the country ; by the system of espionage maintained over the people in their most private relations, the army of clerical spies and informers, the unjustifiable citations, and the heavy punishments inflicted for small and trivial offences ; by the secret examinations and committals of suspected persons, especially in cases of prosecution for heresy, and 'the subtle interrogatories concerning the high mysteries of the faith administered to the simple and unlearned for the purpose of trapping them.' Such were some of the evils by which the face of the Halcyon Days, 139 Church was made ill-favoured, and her state destroyed. The age was one of shattered ideals. Pope, monk, and brother, in turn, ' had set up on earth ladders, the tops of which had appeared to them crowned with angels and reaching to heaven ; but now none lifted his foot to climb them. In turn they had put forth rules for the conduct of life, but such were now become but a profit- less stain upon the parchment' (Colet, Sermon to the Convocation, 1511; The Supplication of the Commons against the Ordinaries, 1532). To those with eyes to see, the growing conviction that the tenure of vast property by the Church checked the progress of civilization, just as the influence, which she exercised in court and convocation over the lives and souls of men, hindered rightful freedom of thought, had already been clearly manifested in statutes forbid- ding the alienation of land to ecclesiastical corporations, and limiting clerical legislation for laymen and the extention of spiritual jurisdiction; in political songs and poems; in the denunciation of Wyclif and his followers ; in open suggestions of disendowment ; and, less directly, in the gradual diversion of the current of charity from houses of religion to those of education. But, though warning had been writ so large, danger was discounted and disregarded. Slight and unsustained were the efforts made to reform the Church from within, during that respite of one hundred and fifty years which followed the death of Edward III ; that period, when the temper which had prompted the passing of Statutes of Mortmain, of Provisors, and Praemunire, seemed to 'I — ?c 140 The Primacy of England, have expended itself; when Church and Crown were in alliance ; and popular attention was distracted from ecclesiastical abuses by the Conquest of France and the Wars of the Roses. In attempts to adapt eifete in- stitutions to the conditions of the time, and to avert revolution by a quiet process of steady and reasonable amendment, reformers were confronted by obstacles before which they stood powerless. They found suffra- gans disputing metropolitical control, chapters setting at nought the authority of bishops, monasteries defying episcopal visitation. They found whole ranks and orders within the ecclesiastical pale hedged round with jealously- guarded privileges, the marks of papal or royal favour in the past ; with grants of exceptional tribunals of their own and exemption from the regular jurisdiction of the Church, the growth of ages when every class, every district, every city, tried to shake off" external control, and to approach as nearly as it could to a miniature self-governing state. Conscious then of the insuffici- ency of their ordinary constitutional powers to break through such defences, they too often preferred to ac- quiesce in defeat, rather than to incur the vexatious delays and possible disappointments which must have attended the suit from pope or king of such extraor- dinary supplemental authority as would be necessary to insure success. And the prime example of this vigilant isolation of all classes within the Church, which rendered reformation so difficult, was to be found in the continued existence of the two co-ordinate judicial and legislative systems i Halcyon Days. 141 of York and Canterbury. Of what profit was it, that Dean Colet warned Convocation of Canterbury in 1512, that if they would lessen the growing * contradiction of the lay people,' if they desired * to preserve the Church's liberty, and not to be drawn before secular judges,' they must observe canons of discipline and hold more fre- quently councils for remedy of clerical abuses, when the grave and important assemblies of the Church lost half their effect from the want of united action between Can- terbury and York, and when the currency of remedial measures, sanctioned by either archbishop and his synod, was limited to one-half of the kingdom only. It was this neglect or inability to effect a judicious concentra- tion of her strength, which was to cost the Church dearly when reforms were forced upon her from without. On the abolition of appeals to Rome, the existence of two independent and rival spiritual judges in England ren- dered plausible the creation of a mixed court, as the final resort in ecclesiastical causes ; while the incon- venience arising from the fact that the process of one province did not run into the other, and the irksome obligation which was frequently cast upon suitors, es- pecially in cases of probate and administration, of instituting distinct and separate proceedings over the same matter in the courts of each province, furnished, but lately, strong reasons for taking away from the eccle- siastical courts that jurisdiction in causes testamentary and matrimonial, which they had exercised for more than seven centuries, and for vesting it in a modern and secular tribunal (20 & 21 Vict., cc. 77 and 85). The pos- '^ -Sk. IS^ ^ < J Tj'^ri y 142 77j^ Primacy of England, sibility of a conflict of opinion between the northern and southern synods supplied Henry VIII and Edward VI with good excuse for referring questions of doctrine and discipline to packed committees of bishops and divines, and Elizabeth with a reason for ignoring the right of the clergy of York to share in the work of ecclesiastical legislation. This, again, was urged by the Puritans in support of their argument that the settlement and guar- dianship of the reformed religion should be withdrawn from convocation, and entrusted to Parliament (Cobbett, Pari. Histy ii. 447). And in the present century, the plea that neither convocation was in a position to speak in the name of the whole clerical body, has been put forward in justification of their unconstitutional suppres- sion at the beginning of the eighteenth century ; and the possibility of differences between the two in the future, has been used as an argument against their revival (Macaulay, Hist, of England y Vol. Ill, chap. xiv. 423)- But under ordinary circumstances, during this critical period when it was still possible for the Church to work out her own reforms, the primates stiffly maintained their positions as defined by the agreement of 1353. As archbishops and legati nati, they were practically equal. Occasionally, indeed, the settled order of prece- dence between them would still be varied. Popes, by their control of the legatine commission, could even now shift the uncertain honour of rank, as when Martin V suspended Archbishop Chicheley from the office of leg- ate, and created Beaufort of Winchester legate a latere hi Halcyon Days. 143 and cardinal. No dispute indeed as to precedence arose on this occasion, for Beaufort was of the blood royal ; but the question was raised thirteen years later (1439), when Kemp, then Archbishop of York, was promoted to the cardinalate, and claimed a general right of prece- dence over the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was disallowed in the House of Lords, where it was ruled that cardinals, as foreign princes, could not of right possess a seat, and that Kemp appeared there solely in right of his barony; but as to precedence elsewhere. Pope Eugenius decided that, as cardinals hold the first place in the Church after the Pope, and were appointed to preside over the universal Church, Chicheley must give place, even in his own province, to his rival of York. But the only question that was raised on this occasion was that of personal precedence. Once only did an archbishop find himself furnished with influence and authority sufficient to enable him to enterprise a fusion of the two provincial systems; when Wolsey, Chancellor and Archbishop of York, and endowed, at the request of the King and with the apparent acqui- escence of Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, with the promotion of cardinal legate a latere, ' thought him- self able to surmount Canterbury, who was but an ordinary legate, in all ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; to con- vocate Canterbury, and other bishops within his pre- cincts, to assemble at his convocation in any place within the realm where he would assign ; taking upon him the correction of all matters in every diocese, visit- ing all spiritual houses^ and presenting whom he would '/ r ■ •»Mi 144 The Primacy of England. to benefices in England* (Cavendish). But hardly had the work commenced, when the Cardinal fell ; and the designs of the great minister and the very agents he had employed for the work, were utilized by his master, not for the furtherance of education or religion, but for the plunder of the Church and the dissipation of her property. Such inversions of the regular order of the English Church were, however, most exceptional. By the middle of the fourteenth century, Canterbury had established the claim to be the first subject in the realm. As such, and as * having by virtue of the dignity and prerogative of his metropolitical church, the first voice in parliament among the prelates and nobles,' Archbishop Stratford, in defiance of Edward III, claimed entrance into the painted chamber at Westminster {State Trials, i. 66) ; as such. Archbishop Arundel was called upon, first of the peers, bishops, and commons of England assembled in Westminster Hall, to declare whether the resignation of the throne by Richard II be accepted or not (Rot, Pari, iii. 417). In the spiritual sphere, primates of all England had been accorded, under the agreement of IsHp and Thoresby, a certain preeminence over their brothers, the primates of England; and the agreed acknowledgement of their superiority appears to have been regularly exacted and paid down to the Reforma- tion period, when the destruction of the shrine of St. Thomas rendered further public tender of the tribute impossible. In the register of Archbishop Bowet (1407) is entered the sum of £^q paid for the requisite image Halcyon Days. 145 or jewel, but with the protestation * that the offering is one of freewill, and not made by virtue of any pretended agreement between his predecessors and the archbishops of Canterbury.' Kemp, on his translation from London to York (1426), made the usual gift in return for the privilege to carry his cross erect in the southern pro- vince {Kemp's Register). So, too, in the year 1453, Archbishop Booth appointed Thomas Tirell, Knight, his proctor and special messenger to bear the customary image to Canterbury ; and the letter of attorney was carefully preserved in the letter-books of the monastery of Christ-Church {Litterae Cantuar., iii. 223). Archbishop Parker, in his work De Antiquitate Ecclesiae Britannicae, states that, in the year 1469, George Neville, Archbishop of York, was compelled to postpone a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Thomas, because he had neglected to offer the usual jewel; and a similar omission was probably the occasion of a dispute which arose between Archbishops Warham and Wolsey, when the latter, immediately after his appointment to the see of York, ' erected his cross in the Court and in every other place, as well in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in the precinct of his jurisdiction, as elsewhere' (15 14) {Cavendish, i. 28). Twenty-five years later, St. Thomas was declared a traitor. His shrine was cast down ; and the tribute of some fourteen archbishops of York went to swell the spoil of gold and silver, precious stones and vestments, which the Defender of the Faith carried off in cart-loads from the Mother-Church of the Realm. Of the two metropolitans, Canterbury was 'prior < T^ ^fr