§ 34. THE EFFECTS OF BECKET'S MURDER. 149
hellion. The case was formally argued at Westminster. His guilt was proved, and on the 10th of June, 1538, St. Thomas was condemned as a "rebel and a traitor to his prince." The rich shrine at Canterbury was pillaged ; the gold and jewels were carried off in two strong coffers, and the rest of the treasure in twenty-six carts. The jewels went into the hands of Henry VIII., who wore the most precious of them, a diamond, the " Regale of France," in the ring on his thumb ; afterwards it glittered in the golden "collar " of his daughter, the bigoted Queen Mary. A royal proclamation explained the cause and mode of Becket's death, and the reasons for his degradation. All festivals, offices, and prayers in his name were forbidden. The site of his shrine has remained vacant to this day.
The Reformation prepared the way for a more spiritual wor ship of God and a more just appreciation of the virtues and faults of Thomas Becket than was possible in the age in which lie lived and died, — a hero and a martyr of the papal hierarchy, but not of pure Christianity, as recorded in the New Testament. To the most of his countrymen, as to the English-speaking people at large, his name has remained the synonym for priestly pride and pretension, for an arrogant invasion of the rights of the civil estate. To a certain class of English High Churchmen he remains, like Laud of a later age, the martyr of sacerdotal privilege, the unselfish champion of the dowered rights of the Church. The atroc ity of his taking-off no one will choose to deny. But the haughty assumption of the high prelate had afforded pre text enough for vehement indignation and severe treatment. Priestly robes may for a time conceal and even protect pride from violence, but sooner or later it meets its just reward. The prelate's superiority involved in Becket's favorite ex pression, " saving the honor of my order," was more than a king of free blood could be expected to bear.
This dramatic chapter of English history may be fitly
loO THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1128-1198.
closed with a scene from Lord Tennyson's tragedy which presents the personal quality that brought about Thomas a Becket's fall.1
JOHN or SALISBURY.
Thomas, I would thou hadst returned to England
Like some wise prince of this world from his wars,
With more of olive-branch and amnesty
For foes at home — thou hast raised the world against thee.
BECKET. Why, John, my kingdom is not of this world.
JOHN OF SALISBURY.
If it were more of this world it might be
More of the next. A policy of wise pardon
Wins here as well as there. To bless thine enemies —
BECKET. Ay, mine, not Heaven's.
JOHN OF SALISBURY.
And may there not be something
Of this world's leaven in thee too, when crying
On Holy Church to thunder out her rights
And thine own wrong so piteously. Ah, Thomas,
The lightnings that we think are only Heaven's
Flash sometimes out of earth against the heavens.
The soldier, when he lets his whole self go
Lost in the common good, the common wrong,
Strikes truest ev'n for his own self. I crave
Thy pardon — I have still thy leave to speak.
Thou hast waged God's war against the King; and yet
We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may,
Yea, even when we know not, mix our spites
And private hates with our defence of Heaven.
xSir Henry Irving, the distinguished English actor, died Oct. 20, 1905, seven days after a performance of this drama, the last time he appeared on
the stage.
CHAPTER V.
INNOCENT III. AND HIS AGE. A.D. 1198-1216.
§ 35. Literature.
SOURCES : Innocentii III. Opp. omnia, in Migne, 4 vols. 214-217; three vols. contain Innocent's official letters ; a 4th, his sermons, the de contemptu mundi, and other works. — S. BALUZIUS : Epistolarum Inn. III. libri undecim, 2 vols. Paris, 1682. — BOHMER : Regesta imperil 1198-1854, new ed. by J. FICKER, Innsbruck, 1881. — POTTHAST : Regesta, pp. 1-467, 2041-2056 — Gesta Innoc. III. auctore anonymo sed cocevo (a contem porary Life, about 1220), in Migne, 214, pp. xvii-ccxxviii, and BALUZIUS. — MANSI, XXII. — MIRBT : Quellen, 125-136, gives some of the character istic passages. For the older edd. of Inn.'s letters and other works, see POTTHAST, Bibliotheca med. cevi, I. 520, 650.
MODERN WORKS: FRIEDRICH vox HURTER (1787-1886): Geschichte Papst Innocenz des Dritten und seiner Zeitgenossen, 2 vols. Hamburg, 1833- 1835; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1841-1844 (trans, into French and Italian). The last two volumes are devoted to the monastic orders and the eccles. and social conditions of the thirteenth century. An exhaustive work full of enthusiastic admiration for Innocent and his age. Hurter wrote it while antistes or pastor of the Reformed Church in Schaffhausen, Switz erland, and was led by his studies to enter, with his family, the Roman Catholic communion in 1844 and became imperial counsellor and histori ographer of Austria. Gfrorer, likewise a Protestant, dazzled by the splendor of the Gregorian papacy in the preparation of his Life of Greg ory VII., was also led to join the Roman communion. — JORRY : Hist, du pape Inn. III. ; Paris, 1853. — F. F. REINLEIN: Papst Inn. III. und seine Schrift de contemptu mundi, Erlangen, 1871 ; also Inn. III. nach s. Beziehung zur Unfehlbarkeitsfrage, Erlangen, 1872. — H. ELKAN : Die Gesta Inn. III. im Verhdltniss zu d. Regesten desselben Papstes, Heidel berg, 1876. — FR. DEUTSCH : Papst Inn. III. und s. Einfluss auf d. Kirche, Bresl., 1876. — LEOP. DELISLE : Memoire sur les actes a"1 Inn. Ill, suivi de Vitineraire de ce pontife, Paris, 1877. — J. N. BRISCHAR, Roman Catholic : Papst Inn. III. und s. Zeit, Freib. im Br. 1883. — J. LANGEN : Gesch. d. rom. Kirche von Gregor. VII. bis Inn. III. , Bonn, 1893 ; also HEFELE-KNOPFLER, vol. V. — the Works on the Hohenstaufen and the Crusades. — RANKE : Weltgesch., VIII. 274 sqq. — the Histories of Rome by REUMONT, BRYCE, and GREGOROVIUS. — HAUCK : Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands, IV. 658-745. — T. F. TOUT : The Empire and the Papacy, 918-1272, N.Y. 1898. —H. FISHER: The Med. Empire, 2 vols. London, 1898. — For fuller lit., see CHEVALIER ; Repertoire, pp. 1114 sq. and Suppl. 2659, and art. Inn. III., by ZOPFFEL-MIRBT, in Herzog, IX. 112-122.