an ax. All around Becket was the confusion of terror; he only was calm. Again spoke John of Salisbury with his cold prudence: "Thou wilt never take counsel: they seek thy life." "I am prepared to die." "We who are sinners are not so weary of life.” "God's will be done." The sounds without grew wilder. All around him entreated Becket to seek sanctuary in the church. He refused, whether from religious reluctance that the holy place should be stained with his blood, or from the nobler motive of sparing his assassins this deep aggravation of their crime. They urged that the bell was already tolling for vespers. He seemed to give a reluctant consent; but he would not move without the dignity of his crozier carried before him. With gentle compulsion they half-drew, half-carried him through a private chamber, they in all the hasty agony of terror, he striving to maintain his solemn state, into the church. The din of the armed men was ringing in the cloister. The affrighted monks broke off the service; some hastened to close the doors; Becket commanded them to desist: "No one should be debarred from entering the house of God." John of Salisbury and the rest fled and hid themselves behind the altars and in other dark places. The archbishop might have escaped into the dark and intricate crypt, or into a chapel in the roof. There remained only the canon, Robert (of Merton), Fitz-Stephen, and the faithful Fdward Grim. Becket stood between the altar of St. Benedict and that of the Virgin. It was thought that Becket contemplated taking his seat on his archiepiscopal throne, near the high altar.

Through the open door of the cloister came rushing in the four, fully armed, some with axes in their hands, with two or three wild followers, through the dim and bewildering twilight. The knights shouted aloud, "Where is the traitor? No answer came back. "Where is the archbishop?" hold me, no traitor, but a priest of God." Another fierce and rapid altercation followed: they demanded the absolu

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tion of the bishops, his own surrender to the king's justice. They strove to seize him and to drag him forth from the church (even they had awe of the holy place), either to kill him without, or carry him in bonds to the king. He clung to the pillar. In the struggle he grappled with De Tracy, and with desperate strength dashed him on the pavement. His passion rose; he called Fitz-Urse by a foul name, a pander. These were almost his last words (how unlike those of Stephen and the greater than Stephen!) He taunted Fitz-Urse with his fealty sworn to himself. "I owe no fealty but to my king!" returned the maddened soldier, and struck the first blow. Edward Grim interposed his arm, which was almost severed off. The sword struck Becket, but slightly, on the head. Becket received it in an attitude of prayer—" Lord, receive my spirit," with an ejaculation to the saints of the Church. Blow followed blow (Tracy seems to have dealt the first mortal wound), till all, unless perhaps De Morville, had wreaked their vengeance. The last, that of Richard de Brito, smote off a piece of his skull. Hugh of Horsea, their follower, a renegade priest, surnamed Mauclerk, set his heel upon his neck and crushed out the blood and brains. "Away!" said the brutal ruffian, “it is time that we were gone." They rushed out to plunder the archiepiscopal palace.

The mangled body was left on the pavement; and when his affrighted followers ventured to approach, to perform their last offices, an incident occurred which, however incongruous, is too characteristic to be suppressed. Amid their adoring awe at his courage and constancy, their profound sorrow for his loss, they broke out into a rapture of wonder and delight on discovering not merely that his whole body was swathed in the coarsest sackcloth, but that his lower garments were swarming with vermin. From that moment miracles began. Even the populace had before been divided; voices had been heard among the crowd denying him to be

a martyr; he was but the victim of his own obstinacy. The archbishop of York, even after this, dared to preach that it was a judgment of God against Becket-that "he perished, like Pharaoh, in his pride." But the torrent swept away at once all this resistance. The government inhibited the miracles, but faith in miracles scorns obedience to human laws. The Passion of the martyr, Thomas, was saddened and glorified every day with new incidents of its atrocity, of his holy firmness, of wonders wrought by his remains.

The horror of Becket's murder ran throughout Christendom. At first, of course, it was attributed to Henry's direct orders. Universal hatred branded the king of England with a kind of outlawry, a spontaneous excommunication. William of Sens, though the attached friend of Becket, probably does not exaggerate the public sentiment when he describes this deed as surpassing the cruelty of Herod, the perfidy of Julian, the sacrilege of the traitor Judas.

It were injustice to King Henry not to suppose that with the dread as to the consequences of this act must have mingled some reminiscence of the gallant friend and companion of his youth and of the faithful minister, as well as religious horror at a cruel murder, so savagely and impiously executed. He shut himself for three days in his chamber, obstinately refused all food and comfort, till his attendants began to fear for his life. He issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers, and dispatched envoys to the pope to exculpate himself from all participation or cognizance of the crime. His embassadors found the pope at Tusculum; they were at first sternly refused an audience. The afflicted and indignant pope was hardly prevailed on to permit the execrated name of the king of England to be uttered before him. The cardinals still friendly to the king with difficulty obtained knowledge of Alexander's determination. It was, on a fixed day, to pronounce, with the utmost solemnity, excommunication against the king by name, and

an interdict on all his dominions, on the continent as well as in England. The embassadors hardly obtained the abandonment of this fearful purpose, by swearing that the king would submit in all things to the judgment of his Holiness. With difficulty the terms of reconciliation were arranged.

XIV.

DEATH OF HENRY II.-STUBBS.

[Political and domestic troubles brooded over the last years of Henry's reign. With the former he would have been able to cope, but the latter weighed heavily upon him, and ultimately broke him down. His own wife and children made common cause with his enemies against him. Their disaffection was partly due, no doubt, to his own injudicious management and conduct; yet he was an indulgent father, and had striven to do his best for his children. Only Geoffrey, his natural son, remained faithful to him to the last. Worn-out with chagrin and disappointment and ceaseless toil, he died at the age of fifty-six.]

AND now Henry nerved himself for an interview which he knew could have but one issue. Ill as he was, he moved from Saumur to Azai, and in the plain of Colombieres met Philip and Richard on the day after the capture of Tours.

Henry, notwithstanding his fistula and his fever, was able to sit on horseback. His son Geoffrey had begged leave of absence, that he might not see the humiliation of his father; but many of his other nobles, and probably two of his three archbishops, rode beside him. The terms which he had come to ratify had been settled beforehand. He had but to signify his acceptance of them by word of mouth. They met face to face, the unhappy father and the undutiful son. It was a clear, sultry day, a cloudless sky, and still air. As the kings advanced toward one another a clap of thunder was heard, and each drew back. Again they advanced, and again it thundered louder than before. Henry, wearied and

excited, was ready to faint. His attendants held him up on his horse, and so he made his submission. He had but one request to make; it was for a list of the conspirators who had joined with Richard to forsake and betray him. The list was promised, and he returned to Azai. Before he parted with Richard he had to give him the kiss of peace; he did so, but the rebellious son heard his father whisper, and was not ashamed to repeat it, as a jest, to Philip's ribald courtiers, May God not let me die until I have taken me due vengeance on thee."

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But not even his submission and humiliation procured him rest. Among the minor vexations of the last months had been the pertinacious refusal of the monks of Canterbury to obey the archbishop in certain matters in which they believed their privileges to be infringed. Henry had, as usual with him in questions of ecclesiastical law, taken a personal interest in the matter, and had not scrupled to back the archbishop with arms at Canterbury and support of a still more effective kind at Rome. A deputation from the convent, sent out in the vain idea that Henry's present misfortunes would soften his heart toward them, had been looking for him for some days. They found him at Azai, most probably on his return from the field of Colombieres. "The convent of Canterbury salute you as their lord," was the greeting of the monks.

Their lord I have been, and am still, and will be yet," was the king's answer; "small thanks to you, ye traitors," he added, below his breath. One of his clerks prevented him from adding more invective. He bethought himself, probably, that even now the justiciar was asking the convent for money toward the expenses of the war; he would temporize, as he had always seemed to do with them. "Go away, and I will speak with my faithful," he said, when he had heard their plea. He called William, of S. Mere l'Eglise, one of the chiefs of the chancery, and ordered him to write in his name. The letter is extant, and is dated at Azai. It is