, a
council being convened, those customs were proposed which the king
pertinaciously required to be confirmed by the signatures as well of the
archbishop as of his suffragans. The archbishop with constancy refused,
asserting that in them was manifest the subversion of the freedom of the
Church. He was in consequence treated with immense insults, oppressed
with severe losses, and provoked with innumerable injuries. At length,
being threatened with death, (because the case of the Church had not yet
become fully known, and the persecution seemed to be personal,) he
determined that he ought to give place to malice. Being driven,
therefore, into exile, he was honourably received by our lord the pope
Alexander[72] at Senon, and recommended {205} with especial care to the
Monastery of Pontinea (Pontigny).

[Footnote 72: Pope Alexander III. was at this time residing as a
refugee at Sens, having been driven from Italy a few years
before by Frederick Barbarossa.]

Malice, bent on the punishment of Thomas,
Condemns to banishment the race of Thomas.
The whole family goes forth together.
No order, sex, age, or condition
Here enjoys any privilege.

_Lesson the Second._

Meanwhile in England all the revenues of the archbishop are confiscated,
his estates are laid waste, his possessions are plundered, and by the
invention of a new kind of punishment, the whole kin of Thomas is
proscribed together. For all his friends or acquaintance, or whoever was
connected with him, by whatever title, without distinction of state or
fortune, dignity or rank, age or sex, were alike exiled. For as well the
old and decrepit, as infants in the cradle and women lying in
childbirth, were driven into banishment; whilst as many as had reached
the years of discretion were compelled to swear upon the holy
[Gospels][73] that immediately on crossing the sea they would present
themselves to the Archbishop of Canterbury; in order that being so
oftentimes pierced even by the sword of sympathy, he would bend his
strength of mind to the king's pleasure. But the man of God, putting his
hand to deeds of fortitude, with constancy bore exile, reproaches,
insults, the proscription of parents and friends, for the name of
Christ; he was never, by any injury, at all broken or changed. For so
great was the firmness of this confessor of Christ, that he seemed to
teach all his fellow exiles, that every soil is the brave man's country.

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