diplomatist, the chancellor on his next visit was at the head of seven hundred knights, equipped at his own expense, together with twelve hundred belonging to the king, and four thousand foot soldiers, and his errand was to recover by force of arms the fair country of Toulouse, which Plantagenet claimed in right of his Queen, Elinor of Aquitaine, from the Count of St. Gilles. Mounted on his war steed, in coat of mail and helmet, Thomas led on his troops right valiantly; fighting with all the impulsive bravery of his character, and unhorsing a valiant knight, Engelram de Trie, in single combat, and leading his good steed away as a trophy. The expedition was unsuccessful as to its result; but when Henry quitted France it was to his chancellor that he committed the custody of Calais, which he had lately taken, and the defence of his possessions in the south of France.

For six years Becket, high in favour, the personal friend of the king, and having even the custody of his eldest son, held the seals as chancellor, when in April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. At this time Henry and his chancellor were at Falaise, and the latter was about to proceed to England, when Henry told him that the chief object of his journey had not been mentioned, it was that he should be Archbishop of Canterbury! We cannot but believe that this was a surprise to Becket, nor is it likely it was a pleasant one. He had vast wealth and power, and he might fairly enough look forward to the highest office in the state that of high justiciar, an office far better suited to the wholly secular chancellor, than the primacy. But the "lion-faced" Plantagenet had a right royal will; he determined to have an archbishop with no ecclesiastical predilections, and who could better fulfil that condition than Becket?-who had hunted and hawked with him, and even waged battle by his side ;who, a stranger to the cloister, would have little sympathy with the clergy in their struggles with the royal power. Becket is said to have remonstrated, even to have warned the king, but in vain; the mandate for his election was sent, and at the earnest entreaties of the legate, the unwilling chancellor became "a spiritual person."

Not, however, without delay and much difficulty was this appointment effected. Although Archbishop Theobald had died in April, 1161, it was not until the May of 1162 that the first step was taken to induct Becket into the vacant see. His biographers tell us this arose from the opposition of the monks of Canterbury, and also hint at the concealed hostility of the bishops. Viewing the treatment Becket subsequently received from them, we have little donbt that this was the case; nor can we be greatly surprised at it. The twelfth century was a learned age, and the mitre was very frequently the scholar's reward. At this time some English bishops were distinguished for their high attainments; Roger Pont l'Eveque, Becket's ancient enemy, the Archbishop of York, and the aged Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford, so celebrated as a theologian, and the boast of Clugny, where he received his education, were pre-eminent among their brethren. Can we be surprised that when they,

and almost equally learned men, were passed over for one who had lived a secular life for forty-three years, who had presided in the law courts, had led a knightly company to battle, they should feel aggrieved? What claim had this Thomas, not to equality only, but to pre-eminence over them? This royal favourite, who had never read a course of lectures in his life, never held a public disputation, never received even the lowest academical honour! he, utterly unknown to any school, and yet he was to occupy the chair of Lanfranc, and Anselm, the "prima sedes Angliæ !" We must bear in mind, too, the notions of priestly superiority, and of the mysterious powers supposed to be conferred by ordination to the episcopate, and we shall find that the clerical esprit du corps would add a peculiar intensity to the hatred of the disappointed scholar. We greatly doubt whether Ignatius Loyola himself would have been very popular with the Spanish clergy if he had been consecrated Archbishop of Toledo.

During the long delay of his appointment, singularly enough, Becket still continued a mere deacon. Was he still reluctant to enter the priesthood? perhaps he was, for not until the Saturday in Whitsun week was he ordained a priest, and then on the next day, Trinity Sunday, he received the highest dignity the English Church could bestow from the hands of Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, that prelate whose belligerent propensities were so decidedly displayed during his brother Stephen's reign, that brother whom he had discrowned that he might place the circlet on the brow of Plantagenet's mother. Towards Becket the conduct of this influential churchman was ever marked with a kindly feeling displayed by no other member of his order. The pallium on this occasion was sent from Rome without delay, and the newly-made archbishop went barefooted in procession to meet the bearers, kneeling in lowliest guise, and prostrated on the ground to receive it.

From this time Becket, as his biographers inform us, became a wholly changed man. Many tales are told of his daily mortifications; of his hair-shirt, his frequent fasts, or scanty meal of coarsest foodof the fennel and water that superseded the jewelled cup of choice wine. These stories, however, seem very apocryphal, for we find that long after his elevation, his rich dress, and his refined diet drew upon him more than once the admonition of his clerical friends, to one of whom he is said to have replied, "If I mistake not, brother, you eat your beans with more greediness than I do this pheasant." Indeed, Herbert de Bertram, describing very minutely the order of the archbishop's hall, represents him dining at the upper table, with his learned clerks round him, and the knights and laymen behind; but that the food was of the best, and that both gold and silver plate were in abundance. We think it greatly to the credit of Becket that this was so; and it disproves, too, the assertion that has sometimes been made, that he practised ostentatious austerities for the purpose of obtaining popularity; now, in respect to his popularity, that was already secured.

But, although not manifesting outward and vulgar signs of change, that Thomas might really have experienced a great change, seems to us far from unlikely. It was an age of violent impulse; men rushed in thousands to the Holy Land at the preaching of a single sermon; fierce, lawless evil-doers knelt before the convent-gate, and, confessing their sins, prayed admittance to a life of mortification; high-born women fled from the court to the cloister, emptied their jewel casket before the shrine of their tutelar saint, and even sheared off their long and beautiful hair to make a cord to suspend the lamp before the high altar. Now, in an age like this, might not Thomas, the king's chancellor, elevated so suddenly to the highest ecclesiastical dignity, believe that he was designed to some special work? Might he not feel, too, that, in being thus thrust into the priesthood, he had a special call to assert its claims? Many incidental remarks of his biographers seem to show that this was his feeling. He gave up the chancellorship, for although mostly held by ecclesiastics, it was a purely secular office; he spent much time in reading and conference with learned clerks, while, in celebrating the mass, such was the emotion of the newly-made priest, to whom it had not yet become a mere professional routine, that "he wept and sighed, as if the very sacrifice of the cross were before his eyes." How vividly does this bring before us the enthusiastic layman, to whom all was so new and so solemn.

Becket's resigning the chancellorship seems to have given the first offence to the king; and, according to most accounts, when he met him at Christmas at Southampton, there was a coolness. Henry, however, still left his eldest son in the archbishop's custody. On Christmas-day-the see of London being vacant-the born and bred Londoner, who had been so strangely elevated to the primacy, stood at the gorgeous high altar of St. Paul's; the jewelled chest that enshrined the relics of St. Erthenwald before him; the bones of "good Bishop William, the friend of Saxon men," beneath his feet ; the vast nave and choir of the fine Norman cathedral, crowded with men of Saxon race-for we can give proof that the mass of the citizens were then so-and there, in gem-blazing cope and mitre, and wearing the sacred pallium, gave his blessing to the kneeling multitude. It must have been a strange, though a proud thought to that mere clerk of Osbern Huit deniers, the usurer, that humble accountant to the sheriffs, what he had been and what he was now.

Meanwhile, Becket's vigorous measures for reclaiming the manors belonging to his see, which had been alienated during the late wars, arrayed many enemies against him; nor was the translation of Gilbert Foliot soon after to London likely to produce much good feeling. At Whitsuntide the Council of Tours was held, where seventeen cardinals and a hundred and twenty-four bishops, together with a multitude of inferior dignitaries attended, and thither repaired Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. In his ecclesiastical character, as in his former secular visit, he was received throughout his journey with little short of royal honours. He was welcomed in procession

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at Tours, all the cardinals, save two, going forth to meet him; and the Pope himself (Alexander III.) came forth from his private apartment to greet him in the hall. In the council he was placed at the Pope's right hand, and his lodging was besieged by church dignitaries, all anxious to do him honour. Strange, indeed, does this seem as contrasted with the conduct of the English bishops. Might not Alexander, shrewd, but cowardly, have discovered in Becket the very qualities that fitted him to wage the warfare of the church against kings--a warfare the holy father was right willing to wage, so that it should be without danger to himself. At this council, too, Arnulf of Lisieux asserted the unity and independence of the church in an eloquent discourse, and the effect of this upon a hearer, whose only study, as we have seen, had been the canon law, must have been great.

On his return, indications of approaching hostilities between the king and his former favourite were apparent. They came into collision on questions of right, of presentation to livings, and about this time Thomas is said to have preached a sermon-he is said to have been an elegant preacher-in which he asserted the superiority of the church, in a way that aroused his royal hearer's anger. Soon after, he stood forth, as even Canon Robertson admits, "as a sort of Hampden." The king proposed to add to his revenues certain moneys which heretofore had been paid to the sheriffs throughout England-two shillings on every hide of land. This, Becket resisted. He said the money was not paid as a due, but voluntarily ; it might be refused if the sheriffs and their officers should fail to perform their duty in the defence and police of the country, and therefore it could not be reckoned as part of the royal revenue. "By God's eyes!" cried the furious king, "it shall be paid as revenue, and registered in the king's books. "By those same eyes,' plied undaunted Thomas, so long as I live, no such payment shall be made from my lands, and not a penny of the church's rights." It is not surprising that from henceforth, "the waters of bitterness began to flow." Henry expected to find in Becket a supple tool, he found he had a spirit as haughty as his own to deal with. Some historians have indulged in a mawkish sentimentalism over the "ingratitude" of Becket toward his kind patron. Now, surely, to elevate a man of eminent talents to a high station, cannot be looked upon in the light of an almsdeed; and Becket, qualified to advance himself in any court of Europe, had no very pressing duty of thankfulness toward the monarch who chose, and who employed his servant, simply because he was best suited to his purpose.

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It was, however, on the great question of clerical immunities that the open strife began. It would occupy far more than our whole space to attempt to bring this before the reader; but that Becket sought to elevate ecclesiastical power far above its first level, every Protestant must acknowledge. Still, our allowing Becket to be wrong, can by no means prove that Plantagenet was right-nay, even had he been right, the utter contempt of justice,

and good faith in his proceedings, both at Clarendon and Northampton, go far to render the champion of the church an object of sympathy. After a preliminary meeting at Westminster, in Oct. 1163, at which much ill-will was manifested, and which was concluded by the king declaring with his usual oath, that the prelate should " agree outright and expressly to my constitutions ;" and an angry meeting subsequently at Northampton with Becket, whom he reproached with injustice, the Parliament was summoned to meet at the palace of Clarendon, in Jan., 1164. In the interval, the prelates hostile to Becket, eagerly watching the progress of the feud between him and the king, banded together to annoy him; not, it would seem, without the knowledge of Plantagenet, to whom it had been suggested by Arnulf of Lisieux-who so lately had advocated widely different views that the most effectual means of thwarting the primate, would be, to form a party for that purpose. Chief among that party, of course, were Roger Pont l'Eveque and Gilbert Foliot; with them were joined Hilary of Chichester, Robert of Lincoln, and Robert Melun, lately advanced to the see of Hereford-all learned men, and all doubtless indignant that the king's chancellor should at one bound have been raised so far above them. The methods these reverend men employed in the furtherance of their pious object were very amusing. Not only did they incite the monks of Canterbury to a squabble with the archbishop, but Roger Pont l'Eveque revived the old question of the equality and consequent independence of York with respect to Canterbury, while Gilbert Foliot asserted the independence of his see, inasmuch as London had in heathen times been the seat of an archflamen of Jupiter! Canon Robertson remarks that assiduous attempts were made, both by prelates and nobles, "to win over the archbishop to compliance with the royal wishes." We think all this opposition to a high-spirited man must have proved anything but winning.

The Council of Clarendon met in January, and is said to have lasted three days. At this Council, the sixteen articles, termed the "Constitutions," were produced in writing, and an unqualified assent to them demanded. It has pleased Church of England writers to represent these articles as valuable for their assertion of religious liberty! For ourselves, we can only discover in them the transference of spiritual power from the priest to the king. As to the people, little benefit would they derive from them; while as to the priesthood, our only wonder is that the bishops, one and all, did not join in denouncing so obnoxious a document. What can the reader think of this? "No prelate, or ecclesiastic, to leave the realm without the sovereign's license." Or this, "None of the king's tenants in chief, or members of his household, to be excommunicated, rithout his leave!" That the revenues of vacant sees and abbeys were to be at the royal disposal, might be expected, for the Plantagenets always covetted their neighbour's goods; but what will the reader say to the last sentence, which seems to have been intended as a bribe to the nobles: "The sons of villains are not to be ordained,