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of Grossetete is moderate, and approaches to what we shall notice in a future page, the more qualified, yet still reprehensible system of cardinal Bellarmine. The advance to truth is slow; but every step to it, however small, is important and a benefit to posterity.

Great good sense, spirit and method, appear in the letters of our prelate; the diction of them is nervous, but inflated, and, though they abound in classical allusions, the style is that of the times. The incessant introduction into them of scriptural phraseology, is very unpleasing.

The same remarks may be applied to the letters, which form the correspondence of St. Thomas of Canterbury. This deformity of their style would be less surprising, if the writers had been strangers to the Latin authors of antiquity: but we see that they were familiar with many of their works. Even the Latin translation of the Bible, which they heard and read every day, should have led them to a simpler and purer style.

VIII. 4.

Contests between bishop Grossetete and the Crown.

OUR prelate's first contest with the crown turned on the legitimation of children born before marriage, by the subsequent marriage of their parents, a point, which became soon afterwards the subject of a memorable legislative proceeding of the British parliament.

This legitimation is admitted both by the civil

and canon law in the former, by a rescript of the emperor Constantine, adopted by the emperor Justinian in the latter by a constitution of pope Alexander the third, in 1160: but, in both laws, it is allowed to extend to those cases only, in which, at the time of the marriage, it was lawful for the parents to intermarry. It prevails at this time, but with different modifications as to its effects on civil rights, in France, Germany, Scotland and Holland.

It never was received into the law of England : this is generally ascribed to the notions, which the Saxons, as all other nations of German origin, entertained of the honour and purity of the marriage tie. On the promulgation of the papal constitution of Alexander, the ecclesiastics sought to introduce its provisions into the jurisprudence of England. On this occasion, bishop Grossetete addressed a letter to William de Raby, his intimate friend, then judge of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury he discusses the point, at considerable length, and concludes in its favour. Raby replied in defence of the municipal law, and the bishop received orders to conform to it, from the king in council. He demurred, and with other prelates, endeavoured to persuade the council, held at Merton in 1236, to adopt the provisions of the canon law: "But all "the earls and barons," saith the Parliament Roll,

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answered, with one voice, that they would not "admit the laws of England, which, till then, had "been used and approved of, to be changed." This, the writers on the constitution of England

always mention as a memorable instance of the national jealousy of the civil and canon law, and the firmness of our ancestors, even when the papal power was at its height, in opposing foreign inno

vations.

Bishop Grossetete had other contests with the crown :---one, on the right of royal interference in the elections of bishops and other ecclesiastical dignitaries; one, on the immunities of the clergy, which always found in him a zealous and an able advocate; and one, on the employment of ecclesiastics in secular offices. These, he contended, the crown could not conscientiously impose on the clergy, or the clergy conscientiously accept: in this, he succeeded, so far as to procure a special mandate from Rome, in virtue of which, he promulgated a diocesan statute, which "forbad all ecclesiastics, "and all in holy orders, to exercise secular employments in future."

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While the council of Merton was sitting, he drew up, under eighteen distinct heads, a general list of the grievances, under which the church laboured, and presented them to the council*.

But his great contest with the crown respected the right of the state to impose subsidies on the ecclesiastical body, without its consent. At a meeting of the clergy in 1244, his majesty presented himself to them, and with threats demanded a subsidy. The prelates intimated an unwillingness to grant it: some, however, began to yield: "but * Ann. Burton. p. 396.

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"stout Lincoln," says the historian*, " cried out (6 aloud, let us not be divided; if we are divided, 66 we are lost."

In 1252, the king, in a parliament then sitting in London, demanded, by virtue of a papal mandate, a tenth of all ecclesiastical revenues, according to a new valuation. "Do you think," exclaimed the bishop of Lincoln, " that we shall submit to this "wretched exaction?"-" Father," said the young bishop of Winchester, "what shall we do? the "king pulls; the pope hauls; and our French "brethren have granted such a subsidy."-" This," replied Lincoln," is the very circumstance, which "should induce us to oppose it. Two acts make "a precedent; let us not be the authors of the "precedent now sought to be established." The advice was taken, and the demand avoided: but it was renewed in the following year. This produced an able letter from our prelate to St. Edmund, his former primate, who had recently resigned the archbishopric of Canterbury. The subsidy, however, was granted, but it was accompanied by a requisition for the redress of grievances. This the clergy presented to his majesty by a deputation, consisting of Boniface, the uncle of the queen, who had succeeded St. Edmund in the see of Canterbury; by William, bishop of Sarum; Sylvester, bishop of Carlisle, and Aylmer, bishop of Winchester, the king's half-brother. "I am sorry," the king said with a sneer, on receiving it, " for all

* Matthew Paris, p. 849. Ann. Burt. p. 322.

"the transgressions of which you complain; I "shall take care to correct what is past, and to "avoid the like for the future; and in this, I beg

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your concurrence.-It was in the very manner, "which you now complain, that I promoted you, Boniface, to the see of Canterbury; you, William, "from the lowest degree, to the see of Salisbury, "and to the honour of being my secretary and "chief justice; you, Sylvester, from being a little " clerk in chancery, to the see of Carlisle; and you, "brother Aylmer, in spite of the monks, and your "want both of age and science, to Winchester. "Surely, it is not less your duty than mine, that 66 you should take the lead in the redress which you pray for, and resign your offices." The prelates could only reply that the petition regarded not the past, but the time to come.

It is observable, that, though in the controversies which have been, and in others, which might be mentioned, the bishop of Lincoln took an active part against the king, yet he preserved through life, both the reverence and the regard of the monarch, of his family, and of the principal nobility. No place was thought so proper for the education of the royal or the noble youth of his times as his episcopal palace.

VIII. 5.

Contests between bishop Grossetete and the Popes.

"WE are now entering," says doctor Perry in the manuscript, which we have mentioned, " upon

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