have been decided only before a court of judicature.
Henry, in prosecution of some controversies, in which he was involved
with the Count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, had
invaded the territories of that nobleman, who had recourse to the King
of France, his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a
war between the two monarchs. But this war was, as usual, no less
feeble in its operations than it was frivolous in its cause and
object; and after occasioning some mutual depredations [e], and some
insurrections among the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated
by a peace. The terms of this peace were rather disadvantageous to
Henry, and prove that that prince had, by reason of his contest with
the church, lost the superiority which he had hitherto maintained
over the crown of France: an additional motive to him for
accommodating those differences.
[FN [e] Hoveden, p. 517. M. Paris, p. 75. Diceto, p. 547. Gervase,
p. 1402, 1403. Robert de Monte.]

The pope and the king began at last to perceive, that, in the present
situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and
decisive victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than
to hope from the duration of the controversy. Though the vigour of
Henry's government had confirmed his authority in all his dominions,
his throne might be shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if
England itself could, by its situation, be more easily guarded against
the contagion of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at
least, whose communication was open with the neighbouring states,
would be much exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or
convulsion [f]. He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the
pope, while he retained such a check upon him, would formally
recognize the constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to
papal pretensions in England, and would give an example to other
states of asserting a like independency [g]. [MN 1168.] Pope
Alexander, on the other hand, being still engaged in dangerous wars
with the Emperor Frederic, might justly apprehend that Henry, rather
than relinquish claims of such importance, would join the party of his
enemy; and as the trials hitherto made of the spiritual weapons by
Becket had not succeeded to his expectation, and every thing had
remained quiet in all the king's dominions, nothing seemed impossible
to the capacity and vigilance of so great a mon