urch, gave great scandal both to Becket, and to his
zealous patron, the king of France.

{1167.} The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age, rendered the
boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals, and between
one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the crown and the
mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes, which, had there
been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their decrees, ought
to have been decided only before a court of judicature. Henry, in
prosecution of some controversies in which he was involved with the
count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, bad invaded the
territories of that nobleman; who had recourse to the king of France,
his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a war between
the two monarchs. Bur the war was, as usual, no less feeble in its
operations than it wail frivolous in its cause and object; and after
occasioning some mutual depredations,[*] and some insurrections among
the barons of Poictou and Guienne, was terminated by a peace. The terms
of this peace were rather disadvantageous to Henry, and prove that
that prince had, by reason of his contest with the church, lost the
superiority which he had hitherto maintained over the crown of France;
an additional motive to him for accommodating those differences.

The pope and the king began at last to perceive that, in the present
situation of affairs, neither of them could expect a final and decisive
victory over the other, and that they had more to fear than to hope from
the duration of the controversy. Though the vigor of Henry's government
had confirmed his authority in all his dominions, his throne might be
shaken by a sentence of excommunication; and if England itself could,
by its situation, be more easily guarded against the contagion
of superstitious prejudices, his French provinces at least, whose
communication was open with the neighboring states, would be much
exposed, on that account, to some great revolution or convulsion,
He could not, therefore, reasonably imagine that the pope, while
he retained such a check upon him, would formally recognize the
constitutions of Clarendon, which both put an end to papal pretensions
in England,[**] and would give an example to other states of asserting a
like independency.[***]

[* Hoveden, p. 517. M. Paris, p. 75. Diecto, p.
547 p. 1402, 1403. Robert de Monte.]

[** Epist. St. Thom, p. 230.]

[*