LETTER VIII. IMMUNITIES OF THE CHURCH-ST. THOMAS SIR, YOU dedicate a great part of your eighth chapter to the contest between Henry II. and the celebrated Thomas à Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, whom the church of Rome numbers among her saints. You try him by the present constitution, the present laws, and the present manners of christian states, and by the present notions of what is fit and proper, and you pronounce him guilty. But is it not by the constitutions, the laws, the customs, the manners, and the notions of his own time, that he should be tried? To pronounce a fair judgment on him, should we not transport ourselves to the middle of the twelfth century, and to the circumstances of the world at that period? If we did so, should we not find that the clerical immunities, upon which the contest in its first stage wholly turned, founded a part of the constitution of every christian state, and of England not less than any other? That they had been both granted and confirmed to the church by wise and great princes? That, from the time in which they date their existence, until many centuries after the æra of which we are speaking, they had been observed and respected by the good? And that they had never been infringed by any, whose name history has handed down to us with honour? Taking all these circumstances into consideration, can we justly blame the illustrious prelate for his vigorous and resolute defence of rights, which most certainly, in his time, made a part of the law of England, and were an acknowledged bulwark of the English constitution? Had this eminent man submitted to the monarch in the contest in which they had engaged, what guard against the royal abuse of power could have been maintained? You and I have read with delight, what the most eloquent man of our times has said and written of the spoliation of the Gallican clergy, and his verified predictions of its disastrous result. Had any observer, equally profound and gifted, lived in the days of Becket, would he not have predicted a result equally disastrous, if Henry's aggressions had been crowned with success? us listen to Montesquieu: "I am not," says that great man, "violently in love with the privileges "of the clergy; but I wish that their jurisdiction "should once be well established. After that, the 66 Let question is not, whether it was right so to esta"blish it, but whether it is established; whether "it makes part of the laws of the land; and whether "it is connected with them throughout? As much as the power of the church is dangerous in a "republic, so much it is useful in a monarchy, particularly in those which tend to despotism. "Where would Spain and Portugal be, since the 66 G "loss of their laws, without this power,-the only "check on arbitrary sway ?" Now, all history informs us, that long before the commencement of this celebrated contest the immunities of the clergy had been established, and become part of the law of England. Does not this decide the question? Must we not conclude, on the principles of Montesquieu, that the monarch's attack upon them was altogether wrong? That Becket, in defending them, was altogether right? You notice the observations which Becket, when he was solicited to accept the see of Canterbury, is related to have made, both to the monarch and to his confidential friends,--that "he foresaw that, if he "should be raised to the see of Canterbury, he must "either lose the favour of the king, or sacrifice to "it the service of his God. But this," you inform us, was said to the monarch with a smile, so that, "whether intentionally or not, it conveyed a mean ing which invalidated the words." May I ask, from what author you took this account of Becket's smile? or the inference you draw from it? Was not Becket's expression a fair and honourable notice to the monarch, that he was not to depend on the connivance of the archbishop in the illaudable practices in which he had already too much indulged? You also notice the change in Becket's manners, which immediately followed his consecration; and you ridicule his penitential austerities. Are you not sensible that, in every part of the globe, in which christianity has been received, similar austerities have been practised by the wisest, the noblest, and the best of men! The examples of these men you may think of no consequence: but what do you say to the high commendations of penitential fastings, with which the most eminent lights of your own church,-your own Patricks, your own Beveridges, your own Gunnings, your own book of Common Prayer, and your own homilies, abound? They are so strongly expressed, that, if we should strike a balance between the fasts which they recommend, and those which the archbishop practised, the preponderance, if any, in favour of the archbishop, would not be very considerable. Where is the difference between fasts and other austerities? You do not admire his voluntary resignation of the office of chancellor; but was it not an act of duty? You blame him for instituting proceedings for the recovery of the lands belonging to his see; was not this, too, an act of duty? Whose memory should the present prelacy of the established church of England most respect, the memory of Becket, who preserved the possessions of his see; or the memory of those prelates, so eloquently praised by you in a further part of your work, who, in the reigns of Edward VI. and Elizabeth, so liberally complimented away large portions of them to their sovereign? But the character of the archbishop is little affected by these incidental inquiries. It rests on his conduct at the convention at Clarendon; and on the events which produced his murder. The former we may consider as the first, the latter as the last stage of the controversy between him and his royal master. The monarch contended that the clergy should, in future, be tried for felonies in his courts of justice. To obtain a recognition of this claim, he summoned all the prelates of England to Westminster; and required them to acknowledge the right of his courts to try the clergy. They hesitated. He then asked, whether they would promise to abide by the antient law of the realm ? The archbishop, speaking for himself, and for the other prelates present, replied, that "they were "willing to be bound by the antient law of the "realm, as far as the honour of God, and the "church, and the privileges of their order, per"mitted." The king required the omission of the saving words: the archbishop insisted on the retention of them. At first, the other prelates adhered to him; but the king brought them over: and, after much solicitation, the archbishop acquiesced. The monarch, to render the assent of the prelates to his claims the more solemn, summoned the convention of the spiritual and temporal lords of his kingdom to Clarendon, near Salisbury. When they met, the archbishop expressed a wish that the saving words should be retained. consented, however, afterwards to the omission of them; requiring, at the same time, that the cus He |