CHAP. VIII. MARTYR FOR IMMUNITIES OF THE CLERGY. 527 from the temporal sovereign to Rome, and the asserted superiority of the spiritual rulers in every respect over the temporal power. There might, indeed, be latent advantages to mankind, social, moral, and religious, in this secluded sanctity of one class of men; it might be well that there should be a barrier against the fierce and ruffian violence of kings and barons; that somewhere freedom should find a voice, and some protest be made against the despotism of arms, especially in a newly-conquered country like England, where the kingly and aristocratic power was still foreign above all, that there should be a caste, not an hereditary one, into which ability might force its way up, from the most low-born, even from the servile rank; but the liberties of the Church, as they were called, were but the establishment of one tyranny-a milder, perhaps, but not less rapacious tyranny—instead of another; a tyranny which aspired to uncontrolled, irresponsible rule, nor was above the inevitable evil produced on rulers as well as on subjects, from the consciousness of arbitrary and autocratic power. Reflective posterity may perhaps consider as not the least remarkable point in this lofty and tragic Verdict of strife that it was but a strife for power. Henry II. posterity. was a sovereign who, with many noble and kingly qualities, lived, more than even most monarchs of his age, in direct violation of every Christian precept of justice, humanity, conjugal fidelity. He was lustful, cruel, treacherous, arbitrary. But throughout this contest there is no remonstrance whatever from Primate or Pope against his disobedience to the laws of God, only to those of the Church. Becket might, indeed, if he had retained his full and acknowledged religious power, have rebuked the vices, protected the subjects, interceded for the victims of the King's unbridled passions. It must be acknowledged by all that he did not take the wisest course to secure this which and Worcester were commissioned by Pope Alexander to visit St. Augustine's, Canterbury. They report the total dilapidation of the buildings and estates. The prior elect "Jugi, quod hereticus damnat, fluit libidine, et hinnit in fæ minas, adeo impudens ut libidinem, nisi quam publicaverit, voluptuosam esse non reputat." He debauched mothers and daughters: "Fornicationis abusum comparat necessitati." In one village he had seventeen bastards.-Epist. 310. might have been beneficent influence. But as to what appears, if the King would have consented to allow the churchmen to despise all law-if he had not insisted on hanging priests guilty of homicide as freely as laymen-he might have gone on unreproved in his career of ambition; he might unrebuked have seduced or ravished the wives and daughters of his nobles; extorted without remonstrance of the Clergy any revenue from his subjects, if he had kept his hands from the treasures of the Church. Henry's real tyranny was not (would it in any case have been?) the object of the churchman's censure, oppugnancy, or resistance. The cruel and ambitious and rapacious King would doubtless have lived unexcommunicated and died with plenary absolution. CHAP. IX. ALEXANDER III. 529 CHAPTER IX. ALEXANDER III. AND THE POPES TO THE CLOSE OF THE THE history of Becket has been throughout almost its whole course that of Pope Alexander III.: it has shown the Pontiff as an exile in France, and after his return to Rome. The support, more or less courageous and resolute, or wavering and lukewarm, of the English Primate, has been in exact measure to his own prosperity and danger. When Alexander seems to abandon the cause of the English Primate, he is trembling before his own adversaries, or embarrassed with increasing difficulties; when he boldly, either through himself or his legates, takes part against the King of England, it is because he has felt strong enough to stand without the countenance or without the large pecuniary aids lavished by Henry. Alexander remained in France above three years. During that time the kingdom of Sicily was restored to peace and order; the Emperor had returned to April, 1162,to Germany, where he seemed likely to be fully Sept. 1165. occupied with domestic wars; the Italian republics were groaning under the oppressive yoke of their conqueror, which they were watching the opportunity to throw off. Milan razed to the earth, if not sown with salt, given up to ruin, fire, and, most destructive of all, to the fury of her enemies. Lodi, Cremona, Pavia, had risen from her ashes; walls had grown up, trenches sunk around the condemned city. Her old allies had rivalled in zeal, activity, and devotion her revengeful foes. Her scattered citizens had returned. The Archbishop's palace towered in its majesty, the churches lifted up their pinnacles and spires, the republic had resumed its haughtiness, its turbulence. The Anti-pope Victor was dead, but a new Anti-pope was not wanting. The Emperor might, without loss of honour, * Ann. 1162. On the extent of the destruction of Milan, and its restoration, compare Verri, Storia di MiVOL. III. lano, c. vii. He gives the authorities b April 1164. In Lucca. have made peace with Alexander; but the Imperialist churchmen dared not trust a Pope whom they had denied to be Pope. The Archbishop of Cologne and the German and Lombard prelates proclaimed Guido of Crema by the title of Paschal III.; he was consecrated by the Bishop of Liege. But the Anti-pope had not dared to contest Rome; he was, in fact, a German Anti-pope overawed by German prelates. In Rome the vicegerent of Pope Alexander ruled with almost undisturbed sway; but in that vicegerent had taken place an important change. Julius, the Cardinal of Palestrina, died; the Cardinal of St. John and St. Paul was appointed in his place. This Cardinal was a man of great address and activity. By artful language and well-directed bribery, notwithstanding all the opposition of Christian, the Chancellor of the Empire, he won over the versatile people: the senate were entirely at his disposal. Sept. 1165. The Pope, at the summons of his Vicar, and lavishly supplied with money by the Kings of France and England, embarked, on the octave of the Assumption of the Virgin, at Marseilles, himself in one vessel, the cardinals of his party and Oberto, the antiImperialist Archbishop of Milan, in another. They were watched by the fleet of Pisa, in the interests of the Emperor. The vessel which conveyed the cardinals was taken, searched in vain for the person of the Pope, and then released; that with the Pope on board put back into the Early in port. Shortly after in a smaller and swift-sailing bark he November. reached Messina: there he received a splendid embassy from the King of Sicily; several large vessels were placed at his command. The Archbishop of Reggio (in Calabria) and many barons of Southern Italy joined themselves to the cardinals around him. The Nov. 22. fleet landed at Ostia: the clergy and senators of Rome crowded to pay their homage to the Pope. He was escorted to the city by numbers bearing olive-branches. At the Lateran gate the clergy in their sacred vestments, the authorities of the city and the militia under their banners, the Jews with their Bible in their hands, presented themselves; and in the midst of this festive procession he took possession of the Lateran palace. Nov. 24. CHAP. IX. FREDERICK ADVANCES TOWARDS ROME. 531 A.D. 1167. But it was not the policy of the Hohenstaufen Emperor to desert the cause of his Anti-pope, and to leave Alexander in secure possession of Rome. After Alexander had occupied Rome for a year, in the following year Frederick crossed the Alps with a great force. Rainald, Archbishop of Cologne and Archchancellor of Italy, preceded his march towards the south. Pisa received him: the Alexandrine archbishop, Villani, was degraded, Benencasa installed as archbishop. Rome was notoriously the prize of the highest bidder; it had been bought by Alexander with the gold of France, England, and Sicily; many were disposed to be bought again by the Emperor. Rainald of Cologne, an active, daring, and unscrupulous partisan, made great progress in the neighbourhood of Rome and in Rome itself in favour of the Anti-pope. The Emperor, at the head of his army, moved slowly southwards. Instead, however, of marching direct to Rome, he sate down before Ancona, which had returned or been re-subdued to its allegiance to the Byzantine Empire; for the Byzantine Manuel Comnenus had found leisure to mingle himself again in the affairs of Italy; he even aspired to reunite Rome to what the Byzantines still called the Roman Empire. Ancona made a brave resistance, and the Imperial forces were thus diverted from the capital. The feeble Romans were constant to one passion alone, the hatred of their neighbours; that hatred was now centred on Tusculum. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of the more prudent Pope, the whole militia of Rome, on whom depended the power of resistance to the Emperor, marched out to attack the detested neighbour. They suffered a disgraceful defeat by a few German troops, "Quem venerabilis Pasqualis cum cancellario, et cardinalibus gloriose recepit."-Marangoni, p. 47. d" Roma si invenerit emptorem, venalem se præberet."-Vit. Alex. III. e Cinnamus, vi. 4, p. 261, ed. Bonn. According to the Byzantine, the Pope had agreed to this. ἐς τὸ πάλαι ἔθος ἀνακεχωρηκέναι τοῦ ἐν Ρώμῃ ἀρχιερέως συνομο λογήσαντος. Alexander was well content to accept Greek gold, not Greek rule. Did Manuel fondly believe his sincerity? In 1171 (Feb. 28), Alexander, alarmed at a proposition of marriage between the son of the Emperor Frederick and the daughter of the King of France, offers to the King of France to procure for his daughter the hand of the son of the Byzantine emperor, "whose treasury is inexhaustible." "Sanè apud imperatorem (Constantinopolitanum) regnum et consanguinei puellæ ærarium indeficiens semper invenient."-Apud Bouquet, xv. 901. |