ist. Quad. p. 88,167. Hoveden, p. 496. M.
Paris, p. 73,]

[** "Quis dubitet," says Becket to the king,
"sacerdotes Christi legum et principum omniumque fidelium
patres et magistros censeri," Epist. St. Thom. 97, 148.]

Principle, therefore, stood on the one side, power on the other; and
if the English had been actuated by conscience more than by present
interest, the controversy must soon, by the general defection of Henry's
subjects, have been decided against him, Becket, in order to forward
this event, filled all places with exclamations against the violence
which he had suffered. He compared himself to Christ, who had been
condemned by a lay tribunal,[*] and who was crucified anew in the
present oppressions under which his church labored: he took it for
granted, as a point incontestable, that his cause was the cause of
God:[**] he assumed the character of champion for the patrimony of the
divinity: he pretended to be the spiritual father of the king and all
the people of England:[***] he even told Henry that kings reign solely
by the authority of the church,[****] and though he had thus torn off
the veil more openly on the one side than that prince had on the other,
he seemed still, from the general favor borne him by the ecclesiastics,
to have all the advantage in the argument. The king, that he might
employ the weapons of temporal power remaining in his hands, suspended
the payment of Peter's pence; he made advances towards an alliance with
the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, who was at that time engaged in violent
wars with Pope Alexander; he discovered some intentions of acknowledging
Pascal III., the present antipope, who was protected by that emperor;
and by these expedients he endeavored to terrify the enterprising though
prudent pontiff from proceeding to extremities against him.

{1166.} But the violence of Becket, still more than the nature of the
controversy, kept affairs from remaining long in suspense between
the parties. That prelate, instigated by revenge, and animated by the
present glory attending his situation, pushed matters to a decision, and
issued a censure excommunicating the king's chief ministers by name,
and comprehending in general all those who favored or obeyed the
constitutions of Clarendon: these constitutions he abrogated and
annulled; he absolved all men from the oaths which they had taken to
observe them; and he suspended the spiritual thunder over Henry himself
o