.) He has actually been
guilty of palpable calumnies in that letter. Among these, I reckon
the following:--He affirms that, when Becket subscribed the
Constitutions of Clarendon, he said plainly to all the bishops of
England, "It is my master's pleasure that I should forswear myself,
and at present I submit to it, and do resolve to incur a perjury, and
repent afterwards as I may." However barbarous the times, and however
negligent zealous churchmen were then of morality, these are not words
which a primate of great sense, and of much seeming sanctity, would
employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he might act upon these
principles, but never surely would publicly avow them. Folliot also
says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately to oppose the
Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself betrayed them from
timidity, and led the way to their subscribing. This is contrary to
the testimony of all the historians, and directly contrary to Becket's
character, who surely was not destitute either of courage or of zeal
for ecclesiastical immunities. (4.) The violence and injustice of
Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece with the rest
of the prosecution. Nothing could be more iniquitous, than, after two
years' silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon Becket to
the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of near a
million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to bring in
his accounts. If the king was so palpably oppressive in one article,
he may he presumed to be equally so in the rest. (5.) Though
Folliot's letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
it does not acquire more authority on that account. We know not what
answer was made by Becket: the collection of letters cannot he
supposed quite complete. But that the collection was not made by one
(whoever he were) very partial to that primate, appears from the tenor
of them, where there are many passages very little favourable to him:
insomuch that the editor of them at Brussels, a jesuit, thought proper
to publish them with great omissions, particularly of this letter of
Folliot's. Perhaps Becket made no answer at all, as not deigning to
write to an excommunicated person, whose very commerce would
contaminate him; and the bishop, trusting to this arrogance of his
primate, might calumniate him the more freely. (6.) Though the
sentence pronounced on Becket by the great council imp