hesitation. He flatly refused consent to an arbitrary act of
this kind. He made no objection to the payment of the tax, but he was
determined to prevent the local revenues being seized in this way by the
king. His action seems to have been wise and patriotic, and his triumph
was complete. Henry was forced to abandon the scheme. Having awakened
the anger of the king, Thomas next alienated the whole party of the
barons by pressing his demands for the recovery of lands belonging to
his see. Tunbridge, Rochester, now in the custody of the crown itself,
Hythe, Saltwood, and a number of other manors became the subjects of
sharp contention. The archbishop urged a doubtful claim, which he had
inherited from Theobald, to appoint the priest to a church on the land
of William of Eynesford, a tenant of the king. William resisted, and
Thomas made his first false move by excommunicating him. Henry at once
appealed to the "customs" of the kingdom, which forbade such sentence on
the king's barons without the royal consent, and Thomas had to withdraw
his excommunication. "I owe him no thanks for it!" cried the angry king.

A more serious strife was raised when Thomas came into direct collision
with Henry on the inevitable question of the punishment of clerks for
crime against the common law. If the king was determined to bring about
a fundamental reform in the administration of justice, the Primate was
equally resolute that as archbishop he would have nothing to do with
reforms which he might have countenanced as chancellor. He prudently
sought at first to divert attention from the real issue by increasing
the severity of judgments in the ecclesiastical courts. A clerk had
stolen a chalice; he insisted on his trial in the Church Court, but to
appease the king ordered him to be branded,--a punishment condemned by
ecclesiastical law which considered all injury to the person as defiling
the image of God. Such devices, however, were thrown away on Henry. When
another clerk, Philip de Broc, who had been accused of manslaughter, was
set free by the Church courts, the king's justiciar ordered him to be
brought to a second trial before a lay judge. Philip refused to submit.
The justiciar then charged him with contempt of court for his vehement
and abusive language to the officer who summoned him, but the archbishop
demanded that for this charge, too, he should be tried by ecclesiastical
law. Henry was forced to content himself with sending a deta