But this policy, by which Henry endeavored to reduce Becket sooner to necessity, lost its effect; the pope, when they arrived beyond sea, absolved them from their oath, and distributed them among the convents in Franc?
and Flanders; a residence was assigned to Becket himself, in the convent of Pontigny, where he lived for some years in great magnificence, partly from a pension granted him on the revenues of that abbey, partly from remittances made him by the French monarch.
{1165.} The more to ingratiate himself with the pope, Becket resigned into his hands the see of Canterbury, to which, he affirmed, he had been uncanonically elected, by the authority of the royal mandate; and Alexander, in his turn, besides investing him anew with that dignity, pretended to abrogate by a bull, the sentence which the great council of England had passed against him.

Henry, after attempting in vain to procure a conference with the pope, who departed soon after for Rome, whither the prosperous state of his affairs now invited him, made provisions against the consequences of that breach which impended between his kingdom and the apostolic see.

He issued orders to his justiciaries, inhibiting, under severe penalties, all appeals to the pope or archbishop, forbidding any one to receive any mandates from them, or apply in any case to their authority; declaring it treasonable to bring from either of them an interdict upon the kingdom, and punishable in secular clergymen, by the loss of their eyes and by castration, in regulars by amputation of their feet, and in laies with death; and menacing with sequestration and banishment the persons themselves, as well as their kindred, who should pay obedience to any such interdict; and he further obliged all his subjects to swear to the observance of those orders.[*] These were edicts of the utmost importance, affected the lives and properties of all the subjects, and even changed, for the time, the national religion, by breaking off all communication with Rome; yet were they enacted by the sole authority of the king, and were derived entirely from his will and pleasure.
The spiritual powers, which, in the primitive church, were, in a great measure, dependent on the civil, had, by a gradual progress, reached an equality and independence; and though the limits of the two jurisdictions were difficult to ascertain or define, it was not impossible but, by moderation on both sides, government might still have been conducted in that imperfect and irregular manner which attends all human institutions But as the ignorance of the age encouraged the ecclesiastics daily to extend their privileges, and even to advance maxims totally incompatible with civil government,[**] Henry had thought it high time to put an end to their pretensions, and formally, in a public council, to fix those powers which belonged to the magistrate, and which he was for the future determined to maintain.

In this attempt he was led to reestablish customs which, though ancient, were beginning to be abolished by a contrary practice, and which were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions and sentiments of the age.
[* Hist.Quad.p.

88,167.