him against any
penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon
him: and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch
as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition [r].
[FN [p] Fitz-Steph. p. 40. Hist. Quad. p. 53. Hoveden, p. 404.
Neubr. p. 394. Epist. St. Thom. p. 43. [q] Fitz-Steph. p. 35. [r]
Fitz-Steph. p. 42, 44, 45, 46. Hist. Quad. p. 57. Hoveden, p. 495.
M. Paris, p. 72. Epist. St. Thom. p. 45, 195.]

Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law;
but an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket,
was a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to
the subversion of the government, and could receive no colour of
excuse, except from the determined resolution, which was but too
apparent, in Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without
justice, but under colour of law, the total ruin of the inflexible
primate. The king, having now obtained a pretext so much more
plausible for his violence, would probably have pushed the affair to
the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him no leisure to
conduct the prosecution. He refused so much as to hear the sentence,
which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to some
sheriffs and barons of the second rank [s], had given upon the king's
claim: he departed from the palace; [MN Banishment of Becket.] asked
Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton, and upon meeting
with a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for
some time; and at last took shipping, and arrived safely at
Gravelines.
[FN [s] Fitz-Steph. p. 46. This historian is supposed to mean the
more considerable vassals of the chief barons: these had no title to
sit in the great council, and the giving them a place there was a
palpable irregularity; which, however, is not insisted on in any of
Becket's remonstrances. A farther proof how little fixed the
constitution was at that time.]

The violent and unjust prosecution of Becket had a natural tendency to
turn the public favour on his side and to make men overlook his former
ingratitude toward the king, and his departure from all oaths and
engagements, as well as the enormity of those