St.Thom.p.

43.] [** Fitz-Steph p.

35] Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the constitutions of Clarendon, "legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve;" but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for the rights of their order, which, being connected with the cause of God and his church, could never be relinquished by their oaths and engagements: that if he and they had erred in resigning the ecclesiastical privileges, the best atonement they could now make was to retract their consent, which in such a case could never Be obligatory, and to follow the pope's authority, who had solemnly annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and had absolved them from all oaths which they had taken to observe them: that a determined resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the church; the storm had first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and which too was falsely imputed to him, he had been tyrannically condemned to a grievous penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started, in which he could expect no justice; and he plainly saw that he was the destined victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the abrogation of all spiritual immunities: that he strictly prohibited them who were his suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving their sanction to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see under the protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against any penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict upon him; and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a monarch as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul, and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition.[*] Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law but an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket, was a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to the subversion of the government, and could receive no color of excuse, except from the determined resolution, which was but too apparent to Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without justice, but under color of law, the total ruin of the inflexible primate.

The king, having now obtained a pretext so much more plausible for his violence, would probably have pushed the affair to the utmost extremity against him; but Becket gave him no leisure to conduct the prosecution.

He refused so much as to hear the sentence which the barons, sitting apart from the bishops, and joined to some sheriffs and barons of the second rank,[**] had given upon the king's claim; he departed from the palace; asked Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton; and upon meeting with a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for some time, and at last took shipping and arrived safely at Gravelines.
[* Fitz-Steph.