in his resistance to the royal will, and again the question in dispute was
whether there was any power in England higher than the Crown. The papal
supremacy was no more under discussion than it had been under William. All
that Henry wanted was that the archbishops and bishops should acknowledge
that their authority came from the Crown; and at Henry's request Anselm,
then 70 years old, again journeyed to Rome to lay the matter before the
Pope.

Pope Paschal was fully alive to the mischief of making the bishops and
clergy mere officers of kings, and it was soon seen there could be no
dispensations from Rome even for Henry. All that the Pope would allow was
that bishops might do homage to the Crown for their temporal rights, and
with this Henry had to be content.

It was three years later before Anselm returned, and his course was now
nearly run. He died at peace on April 21st, 1109, having wrought to no
small purpose for religious liberty and the independence of the clergy.
(The demand for political and social independence always follows the
struggle for independence in religion.) Anselm spent the greater part of
his life after his enthronement at Canterbury in battling for independence
of the Crown; a century later Archbishop Stephen was to carry the battle
still further, and win wider liberties for England from the Crown.

Of Anselm's general love of liberty and hatred of all tyranny many stories
are told. One fact may be recalled. The Church Synod, which met at
Westminster in 1102, at Anselm's request, attacked the slave trade as a
"wicked trade used hitherto in England, by which men are sold like brute
animals," and framed a Church rule against its continuance.

In spite of this decree, serfdom lingered in England for centuries, but
hiring superseded open buying and selling of men. (The African slave trade
was the work of the Elizabethan seamen, and was excused, as slavery in the
United States was excused, by the Protestant Churches on the ground of the
racial inferiority of the negro.)

THOMAS A BECKET AND HENRY II.

Resistance to autocracy is often more needed against a strong and just king
than it is against an unprincipled profligate. Henry II.'s love of order
and peace, the strength and energy he spent in curtailing the power of the
barons, and in making firm the foundations of our national system of petty
sessions and assize courts have made for him an enduring fame. Henry II.
was a great lawyer; he was "th