Page images
PDF
EPUB

if I have not. I will quote from Becket's biographer, William of Canterbury. This writer, speaking of the scruples which Becket

felt, says :

Sciebat quia regem vel regum omnium Dominum cogeretur offendere. Eo usque dividuo animo fluctuabat ut eligeret potius regem amicum privatus habere quam privilegiatus adversarium. Itaque ei aliisque eum promovere volentibus aliquamdiu reluctatus est. Cæterum providens Dominus domui suæ quam novo sole apud occidentales mundi partes illuminare disposuit, viri venerabilis Henrici Pisani presbyteri, cardinalis Apostolicae Sedis legati, spiritum excitavit, qui eum hortaretur et induceret ad regimen suscipiendum.

From this passage it appears clearly

(1) That Becket had not given the king notice of what his conduct would be. If he had done so, he would have had no reason to fear the king's displeasure.

(2) That he had made up his mind to oppose the king in the event of his appointment, and that he had scrupled to accept it in

consequence.

(3) That his reluctance was overcome by the advice of the

cardinal.

[ocr errors]

So much for the whole account' being 'pure fiction.' The only question is, what Cardinal Henry said to him. Did he advise Becket to warn the king? Certainly not. Such advice would have increased Becket's scruples rather than have removed them, and if Becket had acted upon it the appointment would not have been made. The cardinal therefore advised him to accept without giving the king warning, and the only imaginable ground for such advice was the interest of the Church, as William of Canterbury indeed virtually says. I admit that my conclusion is an inference, but it is an inference the force of which is only short of a mathematical demonstration.

3. The third point is a more intricate one. Why were not Becket's murderers prosecuted? They had been guilty of a crime of the darkest kind-why were they not arrested and tried? I myself said that the king took the responsibility upon himself, and I repudiated the explanation that they owed their escape to the ecclesiastical character of the person whom they had killed. Mr. Freeman insists that they were saved by the privileges for which Becket was contending; that, though it was altered soon after, the law at the time of the murder gave the clergy the cognisance of every cause which concerned themselves, and that crimes committed from which the clergy were the sufferers, as well as crimes which were committed by the clergy themselves, were reserved for their own courts. this be really true? So extraordinary an application of the theory of benefit of clergy could scarcely have formed part of the law of England without leaving its traces in legal history. Yet it is un

known to the old jurists. Bracton is silent about it. There is not a word upon the subject in the Constitutions of Clarendon-not a word in the long and angry debates to which the Constitutions gave occasion. During the whole time that Becket was alive, while the protracted struggle was going on between the archbishop and the Crown on this very question of the clerical pretensions, half the matter, and not the least important half, was left entirely without notice, if Mr. Freeman is correct in his account of the state of the law. Yet in those violent times cases must have been continually occurring where clerks had been killed and injured by laymen. And if the law had stood as Mr. Freeman says that it did, how is it possible that nothing should have been said about it at the Council of Clarendon? especially as the writer to whom Mr. Freeman refers allows that the claim was not admitted by the king. Let us look at Mr. Freeman's authority.

Archbishop Richard, Becket's successor at Canterbury, speaking of such offences, says :

I should be content with the sentence of excommunication if it had the effect of striking terror into evil-doers. But through our sins it has become ineffective and despised. The slayers of a clerk or bishop are sent to Rome by way of penance. They enjoy themselves by the way, and return with the Pope's full grace and with increased boldness for the commission of crime. The king claims the right of punishing in such cases, but we of the clergy damnably reserve it to ourselves, and we deserve the consequence of our ambition in usurping a jurisdiction with which we have no rightful concern.

[ocr errors]

In the Council of Westminster, held under a cardinal legate in 1176, these pretensions, whatever they amounted to, were abandoned, and among the resolutions was a clause That the murderer of a clerk, on conviction or confession before the king's justiciary, should undergo the usual punishment for his crime.'

How much do these passages prove? Certainly not that it could in any true sense be said to have been the law of England that all causes which concerned the clergy were left to the clergy to decide. They do prove that among the extravagant pretensions which were beginning to be put forward by the ecclesiastical order, this among others had been heard of, and that it was formally abandoned in the legate's presence at the Council of Westminster. A right denied to exist by the king could never have been allowed in the Crown Courts. A priest accused of a crime pleaded his clergy in court, and, if he could prove his status, was handed over to his ordinary. What was a layman to plead who was charged with a crime against a priest? That the person whom he had killed or robbed was a clerk? Or did the ordinary himself step in and claim him? I venture to think that nothing of the sort was ever seen in an English court of justice. What I suppose to have happened is no more than this that in some instances the extreme upholders of ecclesiastical

fictions really considered their order to be of so sacred a character that even to kill a priest was to enter into a supernatural condition; that they neglected in consequence to apply for justice to the officers of the Crown, and contented themselves with excommunication, till they found their folly recoil upon themselves. There is nothing to show that any criminal actually prosecuted in court ever was, or ever could have been, taken out of the hands of the Crown authorities under the plea of the clerical immunities. The Council of Westminster merely put an end to an absurdity which was beginning to grow. Even if the law had been as Mr. Freeman says that it was, the Constitutions of Clarendon were in force at the time of Becket's murder. Priests at that moment were liable to be tried and sentenced as felons, and it is not conceivable that the reverse side of ecclesiastical privilege from which the clergy were sufferers should have been left practically standing. That Henry, who was threatened with excommunication, and was most anxious to make his peace with the Church, should have availed himself of such an excuse for neglecting to bring the murderers to their answer, is wholly incredible. The only rational conclusion is, that he declined to lay blame on others which he felt to attach more properly to himself. Such at least is my own opinion, which I believe myself entitled to hold, without being bespattered with mud by Mr. Freeman.

For the present I shall say no more. If I have not succeeded in showing that Mr. Freeman in bringing his charges against me has been more rash in his own statements, more mistaken in his facts, more unfair in his inferences, than he has shown me to be, nothing that I can add will be of the least avail. Mr. Freeman talks of an 'incurable twist.' To me it seems that there is an 'incurable twist' in Mr. Freeman whenever he has to speak of myself, and that where every object appears to him distorted the cause is in the eye which sees and not in the thing which is seen. If I were to argue from his own language as he has argued from mine, I should suppose him influenced by fanatical hatred' of me.

[ocr errors]

Here, so far as there is any personal controversy between myself and Mr. Freeman, the matter must end. His friend the Saturday Reviewer has pursued me for twenty years, secure in his coat of darkness, with every species of unfounded insinuation. He has himself appeared at last on the field in his own person, and I have desired him to take back his imputations. For the future he will take his own course; I shall not be a party in any further controversy with him.

No one is more conscious than I am of the faults of my literary work. No one is less anxious to defend them. But, after thirty years of severe and I believe honest labour, I will not suffer a picture to be drawn of me in such colours as Mr. Freeman has been pleased to use without entering my own protest with such emphasis as I can command.

J. A. FROUDE.

[ocr errors]

RECIPROCITY THE TRUE FREE TRADE.

As

It is usually said that the English are a practical people; that they
prefer experience to theory, and will seldom follow out admitted
principles to their full logical results. But this hardly represents
them fairly, and many facts in their history might lead an outside
observer to give them credit for exactly opposite qualities. He
might even say that the English race are more guided by principles
than any other, because, though it takes them a long time to become
satisfied of the truth of any new principle, when they have once
adopted it they follow it out almost blindly, regardless of the con-
tempt of their neighbours, or of loss and injury to themselves.
an example, he might point to the English race in America, who,
having at length seen that slavery was incompatible with the princi-
ples of their own declaration of independence, not only made all the
slaves free, but at once raised the whole body of those slaves,
degraded and ignorant as they were, to perfect political equality with
themselves, allowing them not only to vote at parliamentary elections
but to sit as legislators, and to hold any office under Government.
In England itself he would point to our action in the matter of
education and free trade. Till quite recently, public feeling was
overwhelmingly in favour of leaving education to private and local
enterprise; it was maintained that to educate children was a
personal not a public duty, and that you should not attempt to
make people learned and wise by Act of Parliament. At length a
change came. Public opinion and the legislature alike agreed that
to educate the people was a national duty; and so thoroughly is this
idea now being carried out, that food for the mind is looked upon as
of more importance than food or clothing for the body, and parents
who cannot earn sufficient to keep their children in health are fined,
or at all events made to lose time, which is to them often the cost of
a meal, because they do not send their children to school, and either
themselves pay the school fees or become paupers. An even more
remarkable instance of devotion to a principle might be adduced in
our action with regard to free trade. Till a generation ago we put
heavy import duties on food of all kinds, as well as on many other
raw products and manufactured articles. On this question of the

free import of food for the people, the battle of free trade was fought, and, after a severe struggle, was won. The result was that the principle of universal free trade gradually became a fixed idea, as something supremely good and constantly to be sought after for its own sake. Its benefits were, theoretically, so clear and indisputable to us, that we thought we had only to set the example to other nations less wise than ourselves, who would be sure to adopt it before long, and thus bring about a kind of commercial millennium. We did set the example. We threw open our ports, not only to food for our people, but to the manufactured goods of all other nations, though those goods often competed with our own productions, and sometimes produced immediate misery and starvation among our manufacturing classes. But, firm to a great principle, we continued our course, and notwithstanding that after nearly twenty years' trial other nations have not followed our example, we continue to admit their manufactures free, while they shut out ours by protective duties.

These various instances do not support the view that we are especially practical in our politics, but rather that we are essentially conservative. We possess as a nation an enormous vis inertia. A tremendous motive force is required to set us going in any new direction, but when once in motion an equally great force is requisite in order to stop or even to turn us. After spending so much mental effort and so much national agitation in deciding to adopt a new principle, we hate to have to review our decision, to think we have done wrong, or even that any limitations or conditions are to be taken into account in the application of it. This rigid conservatism is well shown in the treatment of the demand of many of our manufacturers and some of our politicians for a fresh investigation of the subject of free trade by the light of the experience of the last eighteen years. They put forward 'reciprocity' as the principle on which we should act, and they are simply treated with derision or contempt. They are spoken of as weak, or foolish, or ignorant people, wanting in self-reliance, and seeking to bolster up home productions by a return to protection; and this is the tone adopted by the press generally, and by all the chief politicians, both Liberal and Conservative. Little argument is attempted; the facts, of increased imports and diminished exports, and of widespread commercial distress, are explained away, as all facts in such a complex question can be, and the names of Adam Smith and Cobden are quoted as having settled the question once and for ever.

Now this mode of treating an important subject which affects the well-being of the nation is not satisfactory. No one believes more completely than myself in the benefits of free trade, or the impolicy of restricting free intercourse between nation and nation any more than between individual and individual; but, like most other principles, it must be subject in its application to the condiVOL. V.-No. 26.

TT

« PreviousContinue »