ng orders for the arrest of the murderers, and sending ambassadors
to the Pope to exculpate himself. Fearing an excommunication and an
interdict, he swore on the Gospel, in one of the Norman cathedrals, that
he had not commanded nor desired the death of the Archbishop; and
stipulated to maintain at his own cost two hundred knights in the Holy
Land, to abrogate the Constitutions of Clarendon, to reinvest the See of
Canterbury with all he had wrested away, and even to undertake a crusade
against the Saracens of Spain if the Pope desired. Amid the calamities
which saddened his latter days, he felt that all were the judgments of
God for his persecution of the martyr, and did penance at his tomb.

So Becket slew more by his death than he did by his life. His cause was
gained by his blood: it arrested the encroachments of the Norman kings
for more than three hundred years. He gained the gratitude of the Church
and a martyr's crown. He was canonized as a saint. His shrine was
enriched with princely offerings beyond any other object of popular
veneration in the Middle Ages. Till the time of the Reformation a
pilgrimage to that shrine was a common form of penance for people of all
conditions, and was supposed to expiate their sins. Even miracles were
reputed to be wrought at that shrine, while a drop of Becket's blood
would purchase a domain!

Whatever may be said about the cause of Becket, to which there are two
sides, there is no doubt about his popularity. Even the Reformation, and
the changes made in the English Constitution, have not obliterated the
veneration in which he was held for five hundred years. You cannot
destroy respect for a man who is willing to be a martyr, whether his
cause is right or wrong. If enlightened judgments declare that he was "a
martyr of sacerdotal power, not of Christianity; of a caste, and not of
mankind;" that he struggled for the authority and privileges of the
clergy rather than for the good of his country,--still it will be
conceded that he fought bravely and died with dignity. All people love
heroism. They are inclined to worship heroes; and especially when an
unarmed priest dares to resist an unscrupulous and rapacious king, as
Henry is well known to have been, and succeeds in tearing from his hands
the spoils he has seized, there must be admiration. You cannot
extinguish the tribute of the soul for heroism, any more than that of
the mind for genius. The historian who seeks to pull down a