ned in
his retinue and attendants alone his ancient pomp and lustre, which
was useful to strike the vulgar: in his own person he affected the
greatest austerity and most rigid mortification, which, he was
sensible, would have an equal or a greater tendency to the same end.
He wore sackcloth next his skin, which, by his affected care to
conceal it, was necessarily the more remarked by all the world: he
changed it so seldom, that it was filled with dirt and vermin: his
usual diet was bread; his drink water, which he even rendered farther
unpalatable by the mixture of unsavoury herbs: he tore his back with
the frequent discipline which he inflicted on it: he daily on his
knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen beggars,
whom he afterwards dismissed with presents [e]: he gained the
affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity was admitted to
his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility as
well as on the piety and mortification of the holy primate: he seemed
to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
seriousness and mental recollection, and secret devotion: and all men
of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design
and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned
itself towards a new and more dangerous object.
[FN [e] Fitz-Steph. p. 25. Hist. Quad. p. 19.]

[MN 1163. Quarrel between the king and Becket.]
Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects against
the ecclesiastical power, which, he knew, had been formed by that
prince: he was himself the aggressor; and endeavoured to overawe the
king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises. He summoned
the Earl of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever
since the Conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but
which, as it had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket
pretended his predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate.
The Earl of Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the
greatness of his own birth, and the extent of his possessions, was
allied to all the principal families in the kingdom; his sister, who
was a celebrated beauty, had farther extended his credit among the
nobility, and was even supposed to have gained the king's affections;
an