,
either of death or loss of members, be given against the criminal: that
the revenue of vacant sees should belong to the king; the chapter, or
such of them as he pleases to summon, should sit in the king's chapel
till they made the new election with his consent, and that the bishop
elect should do homage to the crown: that if any baron or tenant "in
capite" should refuse to submit to the spiritual courts, the king should
employ his authority in obliging him to make such submissions; if any
of them throw off his allegiance to the king, the prelates should assist
the king with their censures in reducing him: that goods forfeited to
the king should not be protected in churches or churchyards: that the
clergy should no longer pretend to the right of enforcing payment of
debts contracted by oath or promise; but should leave these lawsuits,
equally with others, to the determination of the civil courts; and that
the sons of villains should not be ordained clerks, without the consent
of their lord.

These articles, to the number of sixteen, were calculated to prevent the
chief abuses which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to put
an effectual stop to the usurpations of the church, which, gradually
stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the civil power.
Henry, therefore, by reducing those ancient customs of the realm to
writing, and by collecting them in a body, endeavored to prevent
all future dispute with regard to them; and by passing so many
ecclesiastical ordinances in a national and civil assembly, he fully
established the superiority of the legislature above all papal decrees
or spiritual canons, and gained a signal victory over the ecclesiastics.
But as he knew that the bishops, though overawed by the present
combination of the crown and the barons, would take the first
favorable opportunity of denying the authority which had enacted these
constitutions, he resolved that they should all set their seal to them,
and give a promise to observe them. None of the prelates dared to oppose
his will, except Becket, who, though urged by the earls of Cornwall and
Leicester, the barons of principal authority in the kingdom, obstinately
withheld his assent. At last, Richard de Hastings, grand prior of the
templars in England, threw himself on his knees before him, and with
many tears entreated him, if he paid any regard either to his own safety
or that of the church, not to provoke, by a fruitless opposition