stinction between
them. Such was the power of the clergy, and such the immunities, which
the king proposed to diminish.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1164.]

Becket, who had punished the ecclesiastic for his crime by
ecclesiastical law, refused to deliver him over to the secular judges
for farther punishment, on the principle of law, that no man ought to be
twice questioned for the same offence. The king, provoked at this
opposition, summoned a council of the barons and bishops at Clarendon;
and here, amongst others of less moment, the following were unanimously
declared to be the ancient prerogatives of the crown. And it is
something remarkable, and certainly makes much for the honor of their
moderation, that the bishops and abbots who must have composed so large
and weighty a part of the great council seem not only to have made no
opposition to regulations which so remarkably contracted their
jurisdiction, but even seem to have forwarded them.

1st. A clerk accused of any crime shall appear in the king's court, that
it may be judged whether he belongs to ecclesiastical or secular
cognizance. If to the former, a deputy shall go into the bishop's court
to observe the trial; if the clerk be convicted, he shall be delivered
over to the king's justiciary to be punished.

2nd. All causes concerning presentation, all causes concerning
Frankalmoign, all actions concerning breach of faith, shall be tried in
the king's court.

3rd. The king's tenant _in capite_ shall not be excommunicated without
the king's license.

4th. No clerk shall go out of the kingdom without giving security that
he will do nothing to the prejudice of the king or nation. And all
appeals shall be tried at home.

These are the most material of the Constitutions or Assizes of
Clarendon, famous for having been the first legal check given to the
power of the clergy in England. To give these constitutions the greater
weight, it was thought proper that they should be confirmed by a bull
from the Pope. By this step the king seemed to doubt the entireness of
his own authority in his dominions; and by calling in foreign aid when
it served his purpose, he gave it a force and a sort of legal sanction
when it came to be employed against himself. But as no negotiation had
prepared the Pope in favor of laws designed in reality to abridge his
own power, it was no wonder that he rejected them with indignation.
Becket, who had not been prevailed on to accept them but with inf