hing less
than a battle between the spiritual and temporal powers, like that, a
century before, between Hildebrand and the Emperor of Germany. Although
the Pope was obliged from motives of policy,--for fear of being
deposed,--to seem neutral and attempt to conciliate, still the war
really was carried on in his behalf. "The great, the terrible, the
magnificent in the fate of Becket," says Michelet, "arises from his
being charged, weak and unassisted, with the interests of the Church
Universal,--a post which belonged to the Pope himself." He was still
Archbishop; but his revenues were cut off, and had it not been for the
bounty of Louis the King of France, who admired him and respected his
cause, he might have fared as a simple monk. The Pope allowed him to
excommunicate the persons who occupied his estates, but not the King
himself. He feared a revolt of the English Church from papal authority,
since Henry was supreme in England, and had won over to his cause the
English bishops. The whole question became complicated and interesting.
It was the common topic of discourse in all the castles and convents of
Europe. The Pope, timid and calculating, began to fear he had supported
Becket too far, and pressed upon him a reconciliation with Henry, much
to the disgust of Becket, who seemed to comprehend the issue better than
did the Pope; for the Pope had, in his desire to patch up the quarrel,
permitted the son of Henry to be crowned by the Archbishop of York,
which was not only an infringement of the privileges of the Primate, but
was a blow against the spiritual power. So long as the Archbishop of
Canterbury had the exclusive privilege of crowning a king, the King was
dependent in a measure on the Primate, and, through him, on the Pope. At
this suicidal act on the part of Alexander, Becket lost all patience,
and wrote to him a letter of blended indignation and reproach. "Why,"
said he, "lay in my path a stumbling-block? How can you blind yourself
to the wrong which Christ suffers in me and yourself? And yet you call
on me, like a hireling, to be silent. I might flourish in power and
riches and pleasures, and be feared and honored of all; but since the
Lord hath called me, weak and unworthy as I am, to the oversight of the
English Church, I prefer proscription, exile, poverty, misery, and
death, rather than traffic with the liberties of the Church."

What language to a Pope! What a reproof from a subordinate! How grandly
the ch