to him, he had been tyrannically condemned
to a grievous penalty; a new and unheard-of claim was since started,
in which he could expect no justice; and he plainly saw that he was
the destined victim, who, by his ruin, must prepare the way for the
abrogation of all spiritual immunities: that he strictly prohibited
them who were his suffragans from assisting at any such trial, or giving
their sanction to any sentence against him; he put himself and his see
under the protection of the supreme pontiff; and appealed to him against
any penalty which his iniquitous judges might think proper to inflict
upon him; and that, however terrible the indignation of so great a
monarch as Henry, his sword could only kill the body; while that of the
church, intrusted into the hands of the primate, could kill the soul,
and throw the disobedient into infinite and eternal perdition.[*]

Appeals to the pope, even in ecclesiastical causes, had been abolished
by the constitutions of Clarendon, and were become criminal by law but
an appeal in a civil cause, such as the king's demand upon Becket, was
a practice altogether new and unprecedented; it tended directly to the
subversion of the government, and could receive no color of excuse,
except from the determined resolution, which was but too apparent to
Henry and the great council, to effectuate, without justice, but under
color of law, the total ruin of the inflexible primate. The king, having
now obtained a pretext so much more plausible for his violence, would
probably have pushed the affair to the utmost extremity against him;
but Becket gave him no leisure to conduct the prosecution. He refused
so much as to hear the sentence which the barons, sitting apart from the
bishops, and joined to some sheriffs and barons of the second rank,[**]
had given upon the king's claim; he departed from the palace; asked
Henry's immediate permission to leave Northampton; and upon meeting with
a refusal, he withdrew secretly, wandered about in disguise for some
time, and at last took shipping and arrived safely at Gravelines.

[* Fitz-Steph. p. 42,44,45,46. Hist. Quad. p. 57.
Hoveden, p. 495, M. Paris, p. 72. Epist. St. Thorn, p. 45,
195.]

[** Fitz-Steph. p. 46. This historian is supposed
to mean the more considerable vassals of the chief barons:
these had no title to sit in the great council, and the
giving them a place there was a palpable irregularity;
which, h