severe penalties on the
marriages of the clergy.[*****] The cardinal, in a public harangue,
declared it to be an unpardonable enormity, that a priest should dare to
consecrate and touch the body of Christ immediately after he had risen
from the side of a strumpet; for that was the decent appellation which
he gave to the wives of the clergy. But it happened, that the very next
night the officers of justice, breaking into a disorderly house, found
the cardinal in bed with a courtesan;[******] an incident which threw
such ridicule upon him, that he immediately stole out of the kingdom;
the synod broke up; and the canons against the marriage of clergymen
were worse executed than ever.[*******]

[* Eadmer, p. 58.]

[** Hoveden, p. 474.]

[*** Eadmer, p. 125, 137, 138.]

[**** Chron. Sax. p. 229.]

[***** Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p. 34.]

[****** Hoveden, p. 478. M. Paris. p. 48.]

[******* M. West. ad ann 1125. H. Hunting. p. 382.]

It is remarkable that this last writer, who was a clergyman as well as
the others, makes an apology for using such freedom with the fathers of
the church; but says, that the fact was notorious, and ought not to be
concealed.

Henry, in order to prevent this alternate revolution of concessions
and encroachments, sent William, then archbishop of Canterbury, to
remonstrate with the court of Rome against those abuses, and to assert
the liberties of the English church. It was a usual maxim with every
pope, when he found that he could not prevail in any pretension, to
grant princes or states a power which they had always exercised, to
resume at a proper juncture the claim which seemed to be resigned, and
to pretend that the civil magistrate had possessed the authority only
from a special indulgence of the Roman pontiff. After this manner,
the pope, finding that the French nation would not admit his claim
of granting investitures, had passed a bull, giving the king that
authority; and he now practised a like invention to elude the complaints
of the king of England. He made the archbishop of Canterbury his legate,
renewed his commission from time to time, and still pretended that
the rights which that prelate had ever exercised as metropolitan, were
entirely derived from the indulgence of the apostolic see. The English
princes, and Henry in particular, who were glad to avoid any immediate
contest of so dangerous a nature, commonly acquiesced by their silence