over my favours, dishonours the whole royal race, tramples down the whole kingdom. A fellow who first broke into my court on a lame horse, with a cloak for a saddle, swaggers on my throne, while you, the companions of my fortune, look on!" and again and again he loudly reproached his courtiers as thankless cowards for suffering him to be so long exposed to the insolence of an upstart clerk.a

These hasty and most unhappy words were caught up by four knights, men of high connexions and officers of the household-Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard Brito, or le Breton.b Stung by the King's reproaches, and thinking to gratify him by carrying out his apparent wish, the four set out for England and hurried to the coast, whence, em

с

a Grim, 68; Garnier, 134; Fitzst..| both Bishops. He mentions that 290; Will. Cant., 30-1; Herb., vii. 326. The effect of this had a parallel in the Iconoclastic controversy, when the popular sympathy for a zealous monk named Stephen provoked Constantine Copronymus to exclaim, Am I, or is this monk, Emperor of the world?" whereupon some courtiers hurried to the prison in which Stephen was confined, broke it open, and murdered him. Theophanes, p. 674, ed. Bonn.

66

b For Hugh de Morville, see Foss, i. 279; for all the four, Stanley, 54-6. One of Foliot's letters (Ep. 221) is an application to Bishop Cheney, of Lincoln, in behalf of one "R. Brito," who was connected by marriage with

the King had rewarded Brito's services liberally, but requests the Bishop of Lincoln to befriend a younger son, who was intended for the ecclesiastical profession (possibly Richard Brito, afterwards Archdeacon of Coventry, as to whom see Foss, i. 347). If Foliot's brother-in-law were the same person with, or related to, the Brito mentioned in the text, the connexion would have been a special cause for enmity against Becket.

c Garnier says that they were instigated by the Archbishop of York, who supplied them with money, and suggested the words which they used in their parley with Becket. 136.

barking at different ports, two of them were conveyed to Winchelsea and the others to a harbour near Dover.a "They landed," says Grim, "at Dogs' Haven-they who from that time deserved to be called dogs and wretches, not knights or soldiers." The speed and ease with which they had crossed the sea; the circumstance that, by their various routes, they all reached the same destination within the same hour,-appeared to them as signs that Providence favoured their purpose; but the biographers see in these things the speeding power of the Evil One who had suggested the enterprise." It was on Innocents' Day that they arrived at Saltwood, where they were received into the castle by Ranulf de Broc. Then, if not before, they must have learned the fresh offence committed by Becket on Christmas Day; and the night was spent in consultation.

After the departure of the knights, the King held a council of his barons to advise on the course which should be pursued towards the Primate. Thomas, he said, had entered his kingdom like a tyrant; he had suspended and excommunicated prelates for their obedience to the royal command; he had disturbed the whole country; he intended to dethrone both son and father; he had got from the Pope a legatine power over

'Portus Canum," Grim, i. 65; | the darkness of the night-the Gervase, 1414. This name does not occur in topographical books. Some writers name Dover itself.

long winter night of the 28th of December-it was believed that, with candles extinguished, and not even seeing each other's faces, the scheme was concerted." Stanley, 56.

the Crown, and privileges as to Church patronage which did away with the rights of the nobility, and even of the King himself. The general feeling was one of violent anger. "The only way to deal with such a fellow is by hanging," said Engelger de Bohun, uncle of the excommunicate Bishop of Salisbury. "As I passed through Rome, on my return from Jerusalem," said William Malvoisin, nephew of the Count of Brittany, "I was told of a Pope who was slain for his insufferable insolence and presumption." It was resolved that the Earl of Mandeville, with Richard de Humet, justiciary of Normandy, and Seyer de Quinci, should be despatched into England with a warrant to arrest the Archbishop, and with orders, if possible, to overtake the four knights, whose absence from the Court had been remarked, and had excited a fear that they might be bent on some desperate design." But this measure was too late.

a

On the morning after their arrival at SaltwoodTuesday, the 29th of December-the knights, accompanied by Ranulf de Broc and others, set out for Canterbury. By the use of the King's name they added to their party a number of soldiers from the neighbouring castles, and the force was further increased by some retainers of St. Augustine's monastery, where they held a

a Fitzst., 290-1. Was this Pope Lucius II., who was killed in chance-medley in 1145? This writer tells a story of a priest to whom a servant of the court made a confession as to an order for the Archbishop's death, written by Nigel de Sackville (277); and this

is introduced into a note in Mr. Froude's volume, p. 539. But it is too absurd even for Mr. Buss to adopt (624); nay, Mr. Morris himself does not seem to vouch for it. 294.

b Fitzst., i. 291.