,
71. Spellm. Conc. vol. ii. p. 63. Gervase, p. 1386, 1387. Wilkins,
p. 321.]

These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent
the chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to
put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which,
gradually stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the
civil power. Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of
the realm to writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavoured to
prevent all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the
ecclesiastics. But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by
the present combination of the crown and the barons, would take the
first favourable opportunity of denying the authority which had
enacted these constitutions, he resolved that they should all set
their seal to them, and give a promise to observe them. None of the
prelates dared to oppose his will, except Becket, who, though urged by
the Earls of Cornwall and Leicester, the barons of principal authority
in the kingdom, obstinately withheld his assent. At last, Richard de
Hastings, Grand Prior of the Templars in England, threw himself on his
knees before him; and with many tears entreated him, if he paid any
regard, either to his own safety or that of the church, not to
provoke, by a fruitless opposition, the indignation of a great
monarch, who was resolutely bent on his purpose, and who was
determined to take full revenge on every one that should dare to
oppose him [s]. Becket, finding himself deserted by all the world,
even by his own brethren, was at last obliged to comply; and he
promised, LEGALLY, WITH GOOD FAITH, AND WITHOUT FRAUD OR RESERVE [t],
to observe the constitutions; and he took an oath to that purpose [u].
The king, thinking that he had now finally prevailed in this great
enterprise, sent the constitutions to Pope Alexander, who then resided
in France; and he required that pontiff's ratification of them: but
Alexander, who, though he had owed the most important obligations to
the king, plainly saw that these laws were calculated to establish the
independency of England on the papacy, and of the royal power on the
clergy, condemned them in the strongest terms; abrogated, annulled,
and re