Perfectly true; but, as usual, Mr. Froude goes on to give everything a false colouring. He adds: "If his services were valuable, his reward was magnificent." He then goes on to speak of the vast mass of Church preferment held by Thomas, and again adds: “It is noticeable that afterwards, in the heat of the battle in which he earned his saintship, he was so far from looking back with regret on this accumulation of preferments that he paraded them as an evidence of his early consequence." Now this is a most unfair comment, as Mr. Froude's own note is quite enough to show. Mr. Robertson puts the case much more fairly. He says that Thomas, "when afterwards reproached as if he had owed everything to favour of Henry II., could fairly reply by mentioning the large pluralities which he had held before entering the royal service." This reference to Thomas' pluralities is found in a letter addressed by him to Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, in answer to one which had come to him in the name of the Bishops and clergy of England. The Bishops, or at least Gilbert, tell the Primate that the King had raised him from a poor and mean estate to glory and power, first as Chancellor, then as Archbishop.† Thomas answers that he was not so very poor when he entered the King's service; as holding the archdeaconry of Canterbury, the provostship of Beverley, and other churches and prebends, he was not at all badly off in this world's wealth; and, as for his birth, he was the son of citizens of London of good reputation and by no means of the lowest rank. It is as hard to see "parade" in this answer as it is to see "contrivance" in the introduction to Theobald. It would not have been hard, on Mr. Froude's own showing, to have pleaded direct and important services done to the King. But Thomas simply answers the immediate charge, and instead of parade, he certainly makes less of his birth than he might have done. It is perfectly true that he expresses no "regret" for "this accumulation of preferments;" but, for the particular purpose in Gilbert says, hand, such regret would have been out of place. Gilbert owe everything to the King, who raised you from poverty to wealth.” Thomas answers, "I do not owe everything to the King; for I was a

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You

* See the letters in Giles, vi. 187; iii. 286. Garnier (iii. 116) gives most curious versions in his French rime.

+ "Insedit alte cunctorum mentibus, quam benignus vobis dominus noster rex exstiterit, in quam vos gloriam ab exili provexerit, et in familiarem gratiam tam lata vos mente susceperit, ut dominationis sua loca, quæ a boreali oceano ad Pyrenæum usque porrecta sunt, adeo potestati vestræ cuncta subjecerit, ut in his solum hos beatos reputaret opinio, qui in vestris poterant oculis complacere." This means the chancellorship: the letter then goes on to speak of the archbishopric.

$ Congeris et statuis ante oculos nostros beneficia nobis a domino nostro rege collata, et de exili me commemoras ad summa provectum. Ut autem his aliquantisper respondeam, in insipientia mea tamen, de quam exili putas? Si tempus, quo me in ministerio suo præstituit, respicias, archidiaconatus Cantuariæ, præpositura Beverlaci, plurimæ ecclesiæ, præbendæ nonnullæ, alia etiam non pauca, quæ nominis mei erant possessio tunc temporis, adeo tenuem, ut dicis, quantum ad ea quæ mundi sunt, contradicunt me fuisse. Quod si ad generis mei radicem et progenitores meos intenderis, cives quidam fuerunt Londonienses, in medio concivium suorum habitantes sine querela, nec omnino infimi." (He goes on with a discourse on the indifference of high or low birth.) Part of this is quoted by Mr. Froude with a few slight improvements of the text.

rich man when I entered his service." Surely this is quite answer enough for the matter in hand. He answers a misstatement of fact, and was in nowise called on to mount the stool of repentance then and there.

But this matter of Thomas' pluralities calls for a little further mention. Mr. Froude simply caught at it because he thought it would tell, and confuted himself by his own reference. Mr. Robertson too, unlike most biographers, enjoys a dig at the subject of his biography; but, unlike Mr. Froude, he takes care that his digs shall come within the range of fact and of a kind of formal fairness. He says, with perfect truth,

"The circumstance that he was only a deacon was no hindrance to the accumulation of benefices on him: for in those days a prosperous ecclesiastic would seem to have regarded his parishes merely as sources of income, while he complacently devolved the care of each on some ill-paid priest. Nor, when Becket afterwards appeared as an ecclesiastical reformer, did he make any attempt to remedy this, which to modern apprehensions may, perhaps, seem the most crying abuse of all."

To modern apprehensions it certainly does seem a very crying abuse. One must doubt about saying "the most crying abuse of all." That Thomas had, by virtue of a papal exemption, to endure such a wretch as Clarembald almost at his own gates was surely a more crying abuse still. But it is perfectly natural that our modern apprehensions should look at it as a very crying abuse. It was equally natural that in the twelfth century, while a few saints or satirists declaimed against the practice, the average conscience, lay or clerical, should not look at it with any particular horror. It is quite possibleI know of no evidence one way or the other-that Thomas may never have looked back with regret on his accumulation of preferments, except so far as they would go in the lump to make up part of that worldly life which he held himself to have cast aside. The feeling on these matters, as a general feeling, is a very modern one, and it is a growing one. It is whispered that some extreme reformers of our own day have gone so far as to hint that canons of Canterbury should not hold professorships away from Canterbury. Even within this century men did not look back with regret on an accumulation of preferment, small as compared with that of Thomas, but which would certainly startle our generation. In Dursley church in Gloucestershire is the epitaph of a prosperous ecclesiastic, who was Rector of Dursley, Vicar of some other place, and Curate, of course Perpetual Curate, of Stroud, and who for so many years "discharged the duties of Archdeacon of Gloucester with credit to himself and satisfaction to a numerous and highly respectable clergy." If the venerable man himself regretted his pluralities, it is clear that his admirers did not. A century earlier the cathedral church of Oxford received the remains of one of its Deans-the famous Dr. Fell, whom

somebody did not like-who, according to his epitaph, "huic tantæ plus quam par provinciæ, episcopatum una Oxoniensem feliciter administravit." A little earlier again Laud and Williams, rivals something like our Thomas and Roger, almost equalled the standard of Thomas himself. Williams was mockingly said to be "a diocese in himself;" he held at once every kind of office from Bishop to parish priest. And so we could carry our catena back to Thomas' own day. If Thomas

did not regret his own pluralities, if he did not attempt to reform the pluralities of others, it simply shows that on this point his conscience was not enlightened beyond the average enlightenment of his own age and of many much later ages.

But we must look a little deeper into the matter. The strict ecclesiastical theory always condemned pluralities: a few zealous men denounced them in all ages. But it was in the natural course of human affairs that the practice of pluralities should meet with a good deal of toleration in the twelfth century. The matter has often been explained:* but, as Mr. Froude does not seem to have grasped the exact state of things, it is needful to explain it once again. The practice of pluralities was one side of that general system of secularization, and specially feudalization, of the Church, which was one great feature of the times, and some features of which system it was one great object of Henry to enforce. We keep traces of the feeling out of which it arose whenever we speak of an ecclesiastical office as a "benefice" or a "living." Those words are now confined to ecclesiastical offices, and to one class of ecclesiastical offices. But "beneficium" once meant a temporal as well as an ecclesiastical possession. It was sometimes hinted that the Empire itself was a benefice—a benefice granted by the Bishop of Rome. A benefice, in short, is any feudal holding, and among ecclesiastical preferments the word is applied with greater accuracy to the higher offices, which are now seldom so spoken of, than to the lower, which the word now commonly means. A "benefice," a "living," is an ecclesiastical office looked at from its temporal side, as carrying with it certain temporal profits. In the older view, the higher and truer view, the view to which we have now come back, the office and its duties come first. The holder of the office is first of all bound to discharge its duties, whenever possible, in his own person. The temporal profits of the office are not so much payment for the duties done as a maintenance while he does them. In this view there is no room for pluralities; in all ordinary cases, no man should undertake any office of which he cannot himself discharge the duties. But in days when feudal notions affected everything, when the feudal character of at least the higher Church preferment was strongly insisted on by civil rulers, when the endow

I have said something on this head at vol. v. p. 502 of the History of the Norman Conquest. I believe that I was first led to understand this view of the case by a passage in Dr. Hook's Lives of the Archbishops, but I have not the volume at hand here.

ments of ecclesiastical offices were turned into "beneficia" or feudal holdings, another way of looking at such matters naturally prevailed. The ecclesiastical benefice came to be looked at very much as the temporal benefice was looked at. In the case of the temporal benefice there were duties, commonly military, attached to the possession. But the benefice came first; the duties were attached to the benefice rather than the benefice to the duties. So that the duties were discharged, it was not necessary that the holder of the benefice should always discharge them in person. King Henry of all men, the inventor of scutage, was perfectly willing to allow such duties to be done by deputy. Consequently neither in that nor in any age have men felt any scruple in increasing the number of their temporal benefices, be those benefices kingdoms or simple manors, or estates yet smaller than manors. No one thought of blaming the Duke of the Normans because he was also Count of Anjou. No one thinks of blaming the lord of one manor because he is lord of another manor as well. And when ecclesiastical offices had become benefices, when they were looked at as being, like lay benefices, possessions charged with certain duties, it seemed to follow that, provided the duties were discharged, it did not matter whether they were discharged in person or by deputy. Hence again it seemed to follow that, as no man scrupled to heap together any number of temporal benefices, so there was no reason why any man should scruple to heap together any number of ecclesiastical benefices. All that he had to do was to see that the duties of each were discharged by some one or other. Thus reforming bishops do not absolutely enforce residence on their canons; they attach privileges to residence, but they give each canon the alternative of residing or keeping a vicar. This helps us to see something of the real state of things. We come across occasional notices which show that there were here and there saintly men who undertook no office whose duties they could not discharge in person. We also see that there were careless men, who had to be compelled even to provide deputies to discharge their duties for them. The average conscience of the time was fully satisfied if the holder of several benefices provided a competent person to do the duties of each. If Thomas did this at Beverley and Otford, and wherever else he held preferment, he would not reach the standard either of primitive or of modern morality; but he would fully satisfy the morality of his own age. In fact he is praised at a somewhat later time, when already Chancellor, because he did not help himself to ecclesiastical benefices much more largely.* The pluralities of Thomas

W. Fil. Steph. 188. "Omnes vacantes par ochianas ecclesias villarum et castrorum potuit habere; nullus enim ei advocatus neg are auderet, si rogare vellet; tanta tamen animi magnitudine vicit ambitionem, ut pauperibus sacerdotibus et clericis perquirendi ecclesias illas locum tollere præoccupando dedignaretur. Magnanimus magna potius per quirebat." He then gives a list of Thomas' promotions, temporal and spiritual, hisprovostship of Beverley; the "donatio" of the prebends of Hastings, the tower of London

are an undoubted fact. Mr. Robertson's remark that he did nothing to reform the practice of pluralities is also a fact. Mr. Froude's conjecture that he did not regret his own pluralities may also be a fact; we cannot say whether it is or not. But all that the whole matter proves is that Thomas, on this point, at this stage of his life, had the ordinary ecclesiastical conscience of his time. He was neither better nor worse than those around him.

I now come to the second marked stage in the career of Thomas when he passed from the service of the Archbishop to the service of the King. I shall speak hereafter more at large of the objects which Theobald had in recommending his newly-appointed Archdeacon for the office of the King's Chancellor, of the measure in which those objects were carried out or disappointed, and of the light which this part of Thomas' life throws on his general character. I wish here to deal with his character as touched by certain particular charges which are brought against him by Mr. Froude during his administration of the chancellorship.

The picture which Mr. Froude draws of Thomas' conduct in that office is one against which it is needful to protest in the name of simple truth. Anything more monstrous never appeared from the pen of one who professed to be narrating facts. In any one else one would be tempted to speak of foul misrepresentation and shamelessly garbled quotation. Mr. Froude is entitled to the excuse which I have made for him already. This description of the chancellorship is doubtless only the highest instance of that inherent defect which hinders Mr. Froude from ever accurately repeating the statements of the book which lies before him. It is the crowning case of an ignorance truly invincible of the man and the times of which he has undertaken to write.

I must quote Mr. Froude's charge in full:

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"Of his administration his adoring and admiring biographer, the monk Grim, who was present at his martyrdom, draws a more than unfavourable picture and even charges him with cruelty and ferocity. The persons that he slew,' says Grim, the persons that he robbed of their property, no one can enumerate. Attended by a large company of knights, he would assail whole communities, destroy cities and towns, villages and farms, and, without remorse or pity, would give them to devouring flames.'

"Such words give a new aspect to the demand afterwards made that he should answer for his proceedings as Chancellor, and lend a new meaning to his unwillingness to reply. At this period the only virtue which Grim allows him to have preserved unsullied was his chastity."

He then adds in a note from Edward Grim's text:

"Quantis autem necem, quantis rerum omnium proscriptionem intulerit, quis enumeret? Validâ namque stipatus militum manu civitates aggressus est.

and the "castellaria" of Eye, with the services of the knights attached to them, and the castle of Berkhampstead. Elsewhere he is spoken of as Dean of Hastings. Was he Dean with the nomination of the Prebendaries ?