DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71755#0013
PARTI INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES
9
Undoubtedly the Constitutions of Clarendon con-
tained the true statement of English law and Eng-
lish custom, and as such were accepted by barons
and bishops, — by all, that is, except Becket and his
immediate followers, the monks. Henry's glorious
victory, however, was ruined by his own precipita-
tion and rashness; Becket's murder was followed by
a popular reaction, and the king was forced to the
double humiliation of Canterbury and Avranches.1
Appeals to Rome were henceforward allowed, and no
clerk, though convicted of crime, was to be summoned
before a temporal judge. Important in form as these
concessions were, other consequences still more impor-
tant resulted indirectly from this struggle. First, a
limit had been set to the royal absolutism. Second,
Henry's attention had been drawn from foreign affairs,
and his whole strength confined to England, at exactly
that moment when projects of foreign conquest must
have seemed, and were, most feasible. The acquisi-
tion of Poitou and Guienne through the marriage with
Eleanor was fated to cause England a sufficiency of
suffering in the reign of Henry III.; it may well be
that the controversy with Becket prevented England
from sinking into the position of a French subject-
province. In a certain sense, therefore, if this con-
jecture be allowed to stand, the controversy must be
ranked as analogous to the loss of Normandy in help-
ing to make England, England. Third, to resist the
1 Benedictus Abbas, pp. 34-36. For practical result, vide Green,
History English People, I., p. 178.
9
Undoubtedly the Constitutions of Clarendon con-
tained the true statement of English law and Eng-
lish custom, and as such were accepted by barons
and bishops, — by all, that is, except Becket and his
immediate followers, the monks. Henry's glorious
victory, however, was ruined by his own precipita-
tion and rashness; Becket's murder was followed by
a popular reaction, and the king was forced to the
double humiliation of Canterbury and Avranches.1
Appeals to Rome were henceforward allowed, and no
clerk, though convicted of crime, was to be summoned
before a temporal judge. Important in form as these
concessions were, other consequences still more impor-
tant resulted indirectly from this struggle. First, a
limit had been set to the royal absolutism. Second,
Henry's attention had been drawn from foreign affairs,
and his whole strength confined to England, at exactly
that moment when projects of foreign conquest must
have seemed, and were, most feasible. The acquisi-
tion of Poitou and Guienne through the marriage with
Eleanor was fated to cause England a sufficiency of
suffering in the reign of Henry III.; it may well be
that the controversy with Becket prevented England
from sinking into the position of a French subject-
province. In a certain sense, therefore, if this con-
jecture be allowed to stand, the controversy must be
ranked as analogous to the loss of Normandy in help-
ing to make England, England. Third, to resist the
1 Benedictus Abbas, pp. 34-36. For practical result, vide Green,
History English People, I., p. 178.