these salvos was soon apparent; for before he landed in England, he excommunicated those bishops who had taken any leading part against him, and thus declared war at the moment when he should have been the messenger

of peace. . 59. Some angry expressions which dropped from Henry when the excommunicated bishops came to implore his protection, produced the murder of the primate. The tide of opinion now ran against the supposed author of this horrid deed; but the king made his peace with Rome by solemnly disavowing any knowledge of, or participation in the murder. St. Thomas became a most powerful advocate with Heaven, and the miracles performed at his shrine would be incredible, if the force of imagination, in curing the most inveterate disorders, had not been proved by the quackery of modern times. Henry himself paid honour to him when dead, and subjected his own person to great severities at his tomb. Louis too, with more consistency, visited his bones, and sought to obtain the heavenly aid of him whom he had protected on earth. Of the cleverness and decision of Becket's character there can be no doubt ; but it seems equally unquestionable that his object was personal ambition: he died a martyr to the cause of the advancement of his own ecclesiastical power. The violence of his letters to the court of Rome, and the vindictive persecution of his enemies, shew most forcibly how far he was from that serenity which the disinterestedness of a good cause can alone inspire.

$. 60. It was during this period (1160.) that the first punishment for heresy took place in England. About thirty Germans, under a teacher named Gerhard, appeared in this country. They were examined before a synod at Oxford, burnt in the forehead, and turned out to perish in the fields. They made no proselytes, excepting one woman, and as the only account of their tenets which remains to us is derived from those who punished them, no fair judgment can be passed on the opinions which they entertained. They are said to have rejected the use of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper, to have been adverse to marriage, and to have gloried in their sufferings *.

8. 61. The manner in which the court of Rome interfered with the concerns of this kingdom cannot be more strongly illustrated than by a quarrel which happened in 1186, when archbishop Baldwin attempted to build a convent at Hackington near Canterbury. The monks of the metropolitan church saw that any other archiepiscopal establishment was likely to interfere with their right of electing to the see; and indeed the object in the erection of this religious house seems to have been to diminish their power. They appealed therefore to Rome, and the Pope insisted on the destruction of the intended establishment, which was accomplished in 1189; and so far did this jealousy extend, that when Hubert, in 1196, attempted to found a society of canons at Lambeth, and offered every safeguard which oaths

could give, that they should not interfere with the election, the monks of Canterbury still resisted ; and the see of Rome too well knew her own interest, not to advocate the cause of those, who were always ready to fight her battles against any other authority.

In 1200, Innocent III. took the bold step of imposing a tax of one fortieth on all ecclesiastical revenues, for the purpose of a crusade; to which it was never fully applied, says Diceto, unless the church of Rome has renounced her innate rapacity.

§. 62. It was, however, in the reign of John that the papal authority rose to its greatest height; the first act of encroachment was the appointment of Stephen Langton to the see of Canterbury. On the death of Hubert, the monks, to make sure of their privilege, hastily elected Reginald, and dismissed him secretly to Rome, to obtain his investiture; but, contrary to a promise which he had given them, he disclosed the news of his election in Flanders, and brought the anger of the king on those who had been instrumental to it. Upon this the monks, out of revenge, elected another primate, and the question was referred to Rome. The suffragan bishops of the diocese, too, sent in their claim; but this was immediately rejected ; and the pope, having annulled both the elections of the monks, compelled such of their members as were then at Rome to proceed to a fresh election, absolving them from all the promises to the contrary which they had made in England. Stephen Langton, in whose favour these steps were taken, was by birth an

Englishman, had received his education at Paris, and had subsequently been made a cardinal. The intemperate warmth of the British monarch was met by the haughty firmness of Innocent, who first laid the country under an interdict, and then excommunicated John. But so little real effect had these spiritual weapons, that the only two successful expeditions which John made, against Wales and Ireland, took place during this very period.

$. 63. In 1212 the pope proceeded to depose John, and to free his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, and in 1213 committed the execution of this act to Philip of France. The secret cabals of his discontented barons, whose defection rendered all his prospects of defence uncertain, coupled with the threat of a foreign invasion, forced the pusillanimous John to surrender his kingdom ; and on May 15, 1213, at Dover, Pandulf restored the crown, which was laid at his feet: a tribute of a thousand marks was imposed, and the legate having obtained the objects of his church, forbade Philip to proceed in the invasion, and neglected the interest of even those English churchmen who had suffered in the cause. So much did the pope now consider England as his own, that when, in 1215, the barons compelled John to sign the charter, the pope espoused the cause of the king with such earnestness, that he suspended Langton for the part which he had taken in favour of liberty.

In this year the council of St. John Lateran was held, which authoritatively declared transubstantia

§. 64. The papal power had probably reached its greatest height by the surrender which John made of his crown; but its exactions and practical effects were by no means diminished under the weak reign of Henry III. A vast number of the benefices in England were filled by Italians, who resided out of the kingdom, and impoverished it by the sums which were thus withdrawn. But to what source could the oppressed inhabitants look for relief? They were little likely to obtain it from Rome itself, and the inadequacy of any such attempt they themselves experienced when the barons made a remonstrance to the council of Lyons *; for the pontiff amused them with delays, till their patience was exhausted, and their return to England was the next year followed by a further exaction of one half of the revenues of the non-resident clergy, and a third of the rest. But this demand was too great to be complied with, and the prudence of the court of Rome perceived the danger of pressing it.

§. 65. It was not, however, from the barons alone that the opposition to the court of Rome arose t, for Robert Greathead a, bishop of Lincoln, ventured

a See a life of Grossteste by Pegge, 4to. He was born 1175. In the early part of his life he resided in Oxford, and lectured there to the black friars. When elected bishop of Lincoln, 1235, he was much assisted by the friars in his episcopal duties, strongly enforced discipline, and endeavoured to reform abuses, defended the rights of the church and kingdom against papal encroachments, though he always submitted to the authority of Rome; about 1252, he put forth a sermon at Lyons, inveighing bitterly against the corruptions of the court of Rome. 1 245

+ Fox's Mar. i. 364.