the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom, and a case in point having occurred, when Becket refused to deliver up to punishment a clerk guilty of murder, the king summoned a council of the nobility and prelates to be held at Clarendon, and prevailed on them to pass the famous "Constitutions of Clarendon," consisting of sixteen articles directed against the prevailing abuses of ecclesiastical power. To these the primate alone refused his assent, and it was only when he found himself deserted even by his own order, and saw that opposition would be fruitless, that he at last took an oath to observe the Constitutions. Pope Alexander III., however, refused to ratify the articles, and Becket made this the pretext for at once withdrawing his unwilling compliance. He professed to look upon that oath as a grievous sin, in penance for which redoubled austerities were necessary, and he even refused to exercise the functions of his office till he had received the papal absolution. Enraged at this conduct, the king instigated the mareschal of t he exchequer to sue Becket in the archiepiscopal court for some lands, part of the manor of Pageham, and to appeal thence to the king's court of justice. At this court the primate did not appear, but sent four knights to plead his cause, and to give sickness as an excuse for his absence. This was construed into an affront, and at a council immediately summoned he was condemned for contempt of the king's court, and his goods were confiscated. But the king, determined on his overthrow, followed up this severe sentence with various demands for large sums, which he asserted were due to him by Becket. These were so ruinous and unreasonable, that the archbishop easily discovered that his utter overthrow was contemplated, and so refused to acknowledge the authority of the court by which he was tried, appealed to the pope, and at last succeeded in escaping from the country. He was welcomed by Philip of Flanders and Lewis of France; and Pope Alexander, who was then at Sens, received him with marks of distinction, at the same time that he treated coldly an embassy sent by Henry to represent his side of the quarrel. A retreat was provided for the exile at Pontigny, were he lived in great magnificence.
Though Henry could wreak his vengeance on the unfortunate relatives and domestics of the absent prelate, by banishing them from the kingdom, he found that all his efforts against Becket himself were unavailing, so powerful was the support he received. The king's own position became alarming, as the archbishop, emboldened by that support, hurled the sentence of excommunication against his chief ministers, and all who had favoured the Constitutions of Clarendon, and threatened to do the same to their royal master unless he became penitent. This led the king to desire a reconciliation, which, after many fruitless negotiations, was at last effected, being largely in favour of the churchman. Everything, indeed, was conceded to him, the king receiving in return only absolution for his excommunicated ministers, and the averting of the threatened sentence from himself. The primate returned to England, and re-entered Canterbury amid the acclamations of the people. But the last scene in this life-drama of his had yet to begin. He was not content with the concession he had forced the king to make; for no sooner did he return, than he proceeded to visit with ecclesiastical censure the archbishop of York, and the bishops of London and Salisbury, who, in his absence, had usurped the right which from time immemorial had belonged to the see of Canterbury, by officiating at the coronation of the young prince Henry. He also excommunicated Robert de Broc and Nigel de Sackville, with many others who had assisted at the solemnity. The prelates at once repaired to the continent, and complained to the king of these violent measures. It would appear that the news, suddenly told, and entirely unexpected after the compromise so recently made, had thrown the king into one of those violent fits of frenzy to which the house of Plantagenet was subject, and he seems to have uttered some such words as these—"What sluggard wretches, what cowards have I brought up in my court! Not one will deliver me from this low-born priest." The word once spoken can never be revoked. That very hour four knights, Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Brez, leave the court without the knowledge of the king, take different routes to England, and meet within a few miles of Canterbury. It was the evening of the 29th December, 1170, when the four rough warriors entered the chamber of the archbishop. He was but slenderly guarded, for though a warning letter had reached him two days before apprising him of danger, he scorned to appear on the defensive. The intruders declared they had been sent by the king to charge him with attempting to subvert the royal power, and to demand the absolution of the bishops. He denied the charge, and refused to comply with the demand. An altercation ensued, which ended with bursts of passion on both sides. The knights left the apartment, and raised the cry "To arms! to arms!" "King's men! king's men!" All was confusion. The attendants perceived the danger, and tried to persuade Becket to take refuge within the sacred precincts of the church. His proud spirit could not bear the appearance of fear, and it was only on their representing to him that it was now the hour for vespers, that he allowed himself to be led or rather dragged into the cathedral. He had not yet reached the altar, but was standing by a pillar in the transept, when the conspirators, heedless of the sacrilege of entering the sacred building in armour, rushed in, and attacked him. Among the various accounts that have reached us, we find it difficult to realize the scene exactly. It happened in the fast-fading light of a winter evening, and amid the haze we can only see a confused struggle, in which the archbishop, with these words on his lips, "For the name of Jesus and the defence of the church I am willing to die," fell dead and bleeding on the marble pavement, under the blows of at least three of the conspirators. Scarcely was the deed done, when, by the terrified ecclesiastics, and by the crowd who flocked in, the murdered priest was named a martyr. The monks who raised the body to prepare it for burial, discovered that he whom they had always looked on with some jealousy as scarcely one of their order, had been practising austerities to which the most of them were strangers. At the sight of the haircloth which girt his body, and the lacerations caused by his frequent scourgings, a shout of mingled joy and grief was raised. The news spread abroad, pieces of their clothes were torn off by the crowd, to be dipped in the blood of the saint, about which stories of miracles soon began to be told. Notwithstanding the prohibition of Robert de Broc, who threatened to treat the body as that of a traitor, the monks buried their master with great solemnity in the crypt of the cathedral. When the news reached the king, his consternation was great, for well did he know that the daring deed of sacrilege caused by his rash words, would do more to humble him before the church than all the talent and determination of its late champion. He shut himself up, refusing food for some days, and was only roused to action by the necessity of taking steps to prevent full censure being visited on him. In this he was successful; absolution was granted, but on terms that must have been humiliating in the extreme to so haughty a prince.
Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III., two years after his murder. And amid the pilgrims who flocked in vast numbers to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury, he who professed most humility and submitted to the most severe penance, was king Henry himself. The "Canterbury Pilgrims" have been made immortal by the singer who ushered in the dawn of English poetry.—J. B.
BECKFORD, William, born 1760; died 1844; was the son of Alderman Beckford of London, to the chief part of whose immense property, consisting principally of estates in Jamaica, and of the estate of Fonthill in Wiltshire, he succeeded. In 1780 he printed a satirical essay, written a few years before, entitled "Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary Painters." It is an amusing caricature of the language of connoisseurship. His account of the origin of this book was, that the housekeeper at Fonthill used to get a fee for exhibiting the house and pictures to strangers. She knew nothing of the artists, and gave them such names as she pleased, and dwelt to every visitor on the excellencies of each picture. The temptation to carry the joke further was irresistible to a boy of seventeen or eighteen. This led to Beckford's pamphlet, which, in its turn, became her text-book, and all its nonsense was devoutly believed by the squires in the neighbourhood. Beckford visited the continent in 1778, and called on Voltaire at Ferney. He describes Voltaire as a very dark-complexioned, shrivelled, and thin man, hardly above the middle height. In 1780 he again visited the continent, and spent a year in rambling through Flanders, Germany, and Italy. In 1782 he again visited Italy. In 1783 he married lady Margaret Gordon, daughter of Charles, earl of Aboyne. About this time he printed, but did not publish, a work which is called "Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents, in a series of Letters from various parts of Europe." In 1784 he sat in parliament as one of the mem-
