uld be inflicted on him than
degradation; and when the king demanded that, immediately after he was
degraded, he should be tried by the civil power, the primate asserted
that it was iniquitous to try a man twice upon the same accusation, and
for the same offence.

Henry, laying hold of so plausible a pretence, resolved to push the
clergy with regard to all their privileges, which they had raised to
an enormous height, and to determine at once those controversies which
daily multiplied between the civil and the ecclesiastical jurisdictions.
He summoned an assembly of all the prelates in England; and he put
to them this concise and decisive question, whether or not they were
willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The
bishops unanimously replied, that they were willing, "saving their own
order;" a device by which they thought to elude the present urgency
of the king's demand, yet reserve to themselves, on a favorable
opportunity, the power of resuming all their pretensions. The king was
sensible of the artifice, and was provoked to the highest indignation.
He left the assembly with visible marks of his displeasure: he required
the primate instantly to surrender the honors and castles of Eye and
Berkham: the bishops were terrified, and expected still further effects
of his resentment. Becket alone was inflexible; and nothing but the
interposition of the pope's legate and almoner, Philip, who dreaded a
breach with so powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, could
have prevailed on him to retract the saving clause, and give a general
and absolute promise of observing the ancient customs.

But Henry was not content with a declaration in these general terms; he
resolved, ere it was too late, to define expressly those customs with
which he required compliance, and to put a stop to clerical usurpations,
before they were fully consolidated, and could plead antiquity, as they
already did a sacred authority, in their favor. The claims of the church
were open and visible. After a gradual and insensible progress during
many centuries, the mask had at last been taken off, and several
ecclesiastical councils, by their canons, which were pretended to be
irrevocable and infallible, had positively defined those privileges and
immunities which gave such general offence, and appeared so dangerous
to the civil magistrate. Henry, therefore, deemed it necessary to define
with the same precision the limits of