149, 229.
Hoveden, p. 499.]

The situation of Henry was so unhappy, that he could employ no
expedient for saving his ministers from this terrible censure, but by
appealing to the pope himself, and having recourse to a tribunal whose
authority he had himself attempted to abridge in this very article of
appeals, and which, he knew, was so deeply engaged on the side of his
adversary. But even this expedient was not likely to be long
effectual. Becket had obtained from the pope a legatine commission
over England; and in virtue of that authority, which admitted of no
appeal, he summoned the Bishops of London, Salisbury, and others, to
attend him, and ordered, under pain of excommunication, the
ecclesiastics, sequestered on his account, to be restored in two
months to all their benefices. But John of Oxford, the king's agent
with the pope, had the address to procure orders for suspending this
sentence: and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy reconcilement
between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of Pavia and
Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and they
endeavoured to find expedients for that purpose. But the pretensions
of the parties were, as yet, too opposite to admit of an
accommodation: the king required, that all the constitutions of
Clarendon should be ratified: Becket, that previously to any
agreement, he and his adherents should be restored to their
possessions: and as the legates had no power to pronounce a definitive
sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after came to nothing.
The Cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry, took care to
protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope, by the accounts which
he sent of that prince's conduct; and to procure him every possible
indulgence from the see of Rome. About this time, the king had also
the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third
son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Britany; a concession which,
considering Henry's demerits towards the church, gave great scandal
both to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the King of France.

[MN 1167.] The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age,
rendered the boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals,
and between one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the
crown and the mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes,
which, had there been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their
decrees, ought to