teph. p. 38]

[*** Hoveden, p. 495.]

[**** Epist. St. Thorn, p. 315]

[***** Fitz-Steph. p. 38.]

[****** Fitz-Steph. p. 39. Gervase, p. 1390.]

After a few days spent in deliberation Becket went to church, and said
mass, where he had previously ordered that the entroit to the communion
service should begin with these words, "Princes sat and spake against
me;" the passage appointed for the martyrdom of St. Stephen, whom the
primate thereby tacitly pretended to resemble in his sufferings for the
sake of righteousness. He went thence to court arrayed in his sacred
vestments: as soon as he arrived within the palace gate, he took the
cross into his own hands, bore it aloft as his protection, and marched
in that posture into the royal apartments.[*] The king, who was in an
inner room, was astonished at this parade, by which the primate seemed
to menace him and his court with the sentence of excommunication; and
he sent some of the prelates to remonstrate with him on account of
such audacious behavior. These prelates complained to Becket, that, by
subscribing himself to the constitutions of Clarendon, he had seduced
them to imitate his example; and that now, when it was too late,
he pretended to shake off all subordination to the civil power, and
appeared desirous of involving them in the guilt which must attend any
violation of those laws, established by their consent and ratified by
their subscriptions.[**]

[* Fitz-Steph. p. 40. Hist. Quad. p. 53 Hoveden,
p. 404. Gul Neubr. p. 394. Epist. St. Thom. p. 43.]

[** Fitz-Steph p. 35]

Becket replied, that he had indeed subscribed the constitutions of
Clarendon, "legally, with good faith, and without fraud or reserve;"
but in these words was virtually implied a salvo for the rights of their
order, which, being connected with the cause of God and his church,
could never be relinquished by their oaths and engagements: that if he
and they had erred in resigning the ecclesiastical privileges, the best
atonement they could now make was to retract their consent, which
in such a case could never Be obligatory, and to follow the pope's
authority, who had solemnly annulled the constitutions of Clarendon, and
had absolved them from all oaths which they had taken to observe them:
that a determined resolution was evidently embraced to oppress the
church; the storm had first broken upon him; for a slight offence, and
which too was falsely imputed