thority of a manuscript letter, or rather manifesto of
Folliot, bishop of London, which is addressed to Becket himself; at
the time when the bishop appealed to the pope from the excommunication
pronounced against him by his primate. My reasons why I give the
preference to Fitz-Stephens are, 1. If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens
might render him partial to Becket even after the death of that prelate,
the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
rendered him more partial on the other side. 2. The bishop was moved
by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket. He had himself
to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to all,
especially to a prelate; and no more effectual means than to throw all
the blame on his adversary. 3. He has actually been guilty of palpable
calumnies in that letter. Among these, I reckon the following. He
affirms that when Becket subscribed the Constitutions of Clarendon, he
said plainly to all the bishops of England, "It is my master's pleasure,
that I should forswear myself, and at present I submit to it, and do
resolve to incur a perjury, and repent afterwards as I may." However
barbarous the times, and however negligent zealous churchmen were then
of morality, these are not words which a primate of great sense and of
much seeming sanctity would employ in an assembly of his suffragans: he
might act upon these principles, but never surely would publicly avow
them. Folliot also says, that all the bishops were resolved obstinately
to oppose the Constitutions of Clarendon, but the primate himself
betrayed them from timidity, and led the way to their subscribing.
This is contrary to the testimony of all the historians, and directly
contrary to Beeket's character, who surely was not destitute either of
courage or of zeal for ecclesiastical immunities. 4. The violence and
injustice of Henry, ascribed to him by Fitz-Stephens, is of a piece
with the rest of the prosecution. Nothing could be more iniquitous than,
after two years' silence, to make a sudden and unprepared demand upon
Becket to the amount of forty-four thousand marks, (equal to a sum of
near a million in our time,) and not allow him the least interval to
bring in his accounts. If the king was so palpably oppressive in one
article, he may be presumed to be equally so in the rest. 5. Though
Folliot's letter, or rather manifesto, be addressed to Becket himself,
it does not acquire more authority on that