which he inflicted on it: he
daily on his knees washed, in imitation of Christ, the feet of thirteen
beggars, whom he afterwards dismissed with presents: he gained the
affections of the monks by his frequent charities to the convents and
hospitals: every one who made profession of sanctity, was admitted to
his conversation, and returned full of panegyrics on the humility, as
well as on the piety and mortification, of the holy primate: he seemed
to be perpetually employed in reciting prayers and pious lectures, or
in perusing religious discourses: his aspect wore the appearance of
seriousness, and mental recollection, and secret devotion; and all men
of penetration plainly saw that he was meditating some great design,
and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned itself
towards a new and a more dangerous object.

{1163.} Becket waited not till Henry should commence those projects
against the ecclesiastical power, which he knew had been formed by that
prince: he was himself the aggressor, and endeavored to overawe the king
by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises. He summoned the earl
of Clare to surrender the barony of Tunbridge, which, ever since the
conquest, had remained in the family of that nobleman, but which, as it
had formerly belonged to the see of Canterbury, Becket pretended his
predecessors were prohibited by the canons to alienate. The earl of
Clare, besides the lustre which he derived from the greatness of his own
birth and the extent of his possessions, was allied to all the principal
families in the kingdom; his sister, who was a celebrated beauty, had
further extended his credit among the nobility and was even supposed to
have gained the king's affections; and Becket could not better discover,
than by attacking so powerful an interest, his resolution of maintaining
with vigor the rights, real or pretended, of his see.

William de Eynsford, a military tenant of the crown, was patron of
a living which belonged to a manor that held of the archbishop of
Canterbury; but Becket, without regard to William's right, presented,
on a new and illegal pretext, one Laurence to that living, who was
violently expelled by Eynsford. The primate, making himself, as was
usual in spiritual courts, both judge and party, issued in a summary
manner the sentence of excommunication against Eynsford, who complained
to the king, that he, who held "in capite" of the crown, should,
contrary to the pract