tes between the civil and ecclesiastical powers.]
The usurpations of the clergy, which had at first been gradual, were
now become so rapid, and had mounted to such a height, that the
contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a
crisis in England, and it became necessary to determine whether the
king or the priests, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, should
be sovereign of the kingdom [q]. The aspiring spirit of Henry, which
gave inquietude to all his neighbours, was not likely long to pay a
tame submission to the encroachments of subjects; and as nothing
opened the eyes of men so readily as their interests, he was in no
danger of falling, in this respect, into that abject superstition
which retained his people in subjection. From the commencement of his
reign, in the government of his foreign dominions, as well as of
England, he had shown a fixed purpose to repress clerical usurpations,
and to maintain those prerogatives which had been transmitted to him
by his predecessors. During the schism of the papacy between
Alexander and Victor, he had determined, for some time, to remain
neuter: and when informed that the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop
of Mans had, from their own authority, acknowledged Alexander as
legitimate pope, he was so enraged, that, though he spared the
archbishop on account of his great age, he immediately issued orders
for overthrowing the houses of the Bishop of Mans and Archdeacon of
Rouen [r]; and it was not till he had deliberately examined the
matter, by those views which usually enter into the councils of
princes, that he allowed that pontiff to exercise authority over any
of his dominions. In England, the mild character and advanced years
of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with his merits in
refusing to put the crown on the head of Eustace, son of Stephen,
prevented Henry, during the lifetime of that primate, from taking any
measures against the multiplied encroachments of the clergy; but after
his death, the king resolved to exert himself with more activity, and
that he might be secure against any opposition, he advanced to that
dignity Becket, his chancellor, on whose compliance he thought he
could entirely depend.
[FN [q] Fitz-Stephen, p. 27. [r] See note [Q], at the end of the
volume.]

[MN June 3. Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.]
Thomas a Becket, the first man of English descent who, since the
Norman conquest, had, during th