CHAP. A. D. 1150, 1151. Restoration of Stephen. The great seal sold by him to Chancellor Other lors of She was the first English sovereign that ever intrusted the great seal to the keeping of a layman. For her Chancellor she had WILLIAM FITZGILBERT, a knight who had gallantly fought for her; and she granted the office in reversion to Alberic de Vere, Earl of Oxford, to be held by William de Vere his brother, when it should be rendered up by William Fitzgilbert. But Stephen was released from prison, and after a protracted struggle, being successful in the field, this grant was nullified by the arrangement allowing him to reign during his life, and the sceptre on his death to descend to the issue of Matilda. Being again on the throne, he sold the office of Chancellor to one Geoffrey, for three thousand and six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence.* From the fractional sum which the great seal fetched now and when it was last in the market, we might almost suppose that it had been put up to auction and sold to the highest bidder. In subsequent reigns we shall find other instances of its being disposed of for money; but we are never distinctly informed whether this was by public auction or private contract. The office of Common-Law Judge was likewise venal under Stephen. In this same year Richard Fritz Alured fined in fifteen marks of silver that he might sit with Ralph Basset at the King's Pleas. † How long Geoffrey enjoyed the office, and what corrupt and oppressive acts he resorted to for his re-imbursement, luckily for his memory we are not informed. There are three other Chancellors of this reign whose names have been discovered by antiquaries, PHILIP, ROBERT DE GAUT, and REGINALD, Abbot of Walden‡; but every thing respecting them is left in impenetrable obscurity. What part they took in the civil war, whether they mitigated or aggravated its horrors, and whether they were steady to Et idem cancellarius [viz. Gaufridus] debet MMM et vi l. et xiij s. et iiij. pro sigillo. Mag. Rot. 5. Steph. Rot. 146. Ricardus filius Aluredi Penurn. debet xv. marcas argenti ut sederet cum Radulfo Basset ad Placita Regis. Mag. Rot. 5. Steph. Rot. 2. Madd. Ex. iv. 3. Spel. Glos. 109. their party or changed sides as interest prompted, must remain for ever unknown. Of this disturbed period little can be learned respecting the administration of justice or change of laws. The contending parties were both exclusively Norman; the descendants of the conquered were equally oppressed by both, and no one had yet arisen to vindicate the reputation or to defend the rights of the Anglo-Saxon race. The darkest hour is immediately before break of day, and the next Chancellor we have to introduce to the reader was of Saxon origin; he was one of the most distinguished men of any race that this island has ever produced, and he is now invoked as a Saint by all the votaries of the Romish church. We have a full and minute biography of him by a contemporary who was his kinsman, and the various events of his life, which make a conspicuous figure in our national annals, are as well known and authenticated as if he had flourished in the eighteenth century. CHAP. II. CHAP. Hen. 2. CHAPTER III. LIFE OF LORD CHANCELLOR THOMAS à BECKET. KING STEPHEN having died in the year 1154, he was succeeded by the son of Matilda, the first of the Plantagenet line, a prince for vigour and ability equal to any that ever A. D. 1154. filled the throne of England. From early youth he had given presage of his discrimination and talents for government, and one of the first acts of his reign after his arrival in England, was to appoint as his Chancellor the famous THOMAS à BECKET.* Parentage. Gilbert Beck or Becket, the father of this most extraordinary man, was of Saxon descent, a merchant in London, and though only of moderate wealth had served the office of sheriff of that city. His mother, whose name was Matilda, was certainly of the same race, and born in the same conStory of dition of life as her husband; although, after her son had his mother become chancellor and archbishop, a martyr and a saint,-a being the daughter of romantic story was invented that she was the daughter of an Emir in Palestine; that Gilbert, her future consort, having joined a crusade and being taken prisoner by her father, she fell in love with him; that when he escaped and returned to his native country, she followed him, knowing no words of any western tongue except "London" and "Gilbert;" that by the use of these she at last found him in Cheapside; and that being converted to Christianity and baptized, she became his wife. † an Emir. * We are not informed in whose custody the Great Seal was between the king's accession and the appointment of Becket. That monkish chroniclers and old ballad-mongers should have repeated and credited this fable is not surprising; but I cannot conceal my astonishment to find it gravely narrated for truth by two recent, most discriminating and truthful historians, Sharon Turner and Thierry, who, while they were enlivening, one would have thought must have had some suspicion that they were deluding their readers. Becket himself, in an epistle in which he gives an account of his origin, is entirely silent about his Syrian blood, and Fitzstephen, his secretary, Thomas, their only child, was born in London in the year 1119, in the reign of Henry I. Being destined for the Church, his education was begun at Merton Abbey in Surrey, and from thence he was transferred to the schools of London, which (making ample allowance for exaggerated praise) seem then to have been very flourishing.* He was afterwards sent to finish his studies at Paris, where he not only became a proficient in philosophy and divinity, but likewise in all military exercises and polite acquirements, and was made an accomplished cavalier. One great object of his residence in Paris was to get rid of his English accent, which was then a mark of degradation and a bar to advancement. When he returned, it might well have been supposed from his conversation and manners, that his ancestor had fought at Hastings under the banner of the Conqueror, and that his family had since assisted in continuing the subjugation of the conquered race. I says expressly that he was born of parents who were citizens of London. should much sooner expect to find the statement believed, that his mother when with child of him dreamed that she carried Canterbury Cathedral in her womb, or that the midwife, when she first received him into the world, exclaimed, "Here comes an archbishop," - for which there is uncontradicted authority, "Eum in lucem editum obstetrix in manibus tollens, ait, Archiepiscopum quendam a terra elevavi."— Fitzst. 10. The story of the Emir's daughter first appears in the compilation called Quadrilogus, not written till long after, lib. i. c. 2. "In Lundonia tres principales ecclesiæ scholas celebres habent de privilegio et antiqua dignitate. Disputant scholares, quidam demonstrative, dialectice alii; hii rotant enthymemata; hii perfectis melius utuntur syllogismis. Quidam ad ostentationem exercentur disputatione, quæ est inter colluctantes; alii ad veritatem, quæ est perspectionis gratia. Oratores aliqui quandoque orationibus rhetoricis aliquid dicunt apposite ad persuadendum, curantes artis præcepta servare et ex contingentibus nihil omittere. Pueri diversarum scholarum versibus inter se conrixantur; aut de principiis artis grammaticæ, vel regulis præteritorum vel supinorum, contendunt. Sunt alii qui in epigrammatibus, rythmis et metris, utuntur vetere illa triviali dicacitate; licentia Fescennina socios, suppressis nominibus, liberius lacerant; lodorias jaculantur et scommata; salibus Socraticis sociorum vel forte majorum, vitia tangunt; vel mordacius dente rodunt leonino audacibus dithyrambis. Auditores, multum ridere parati, Ingeminant tremulos naso crispante cachinnos." - Descriptio polulignamæ civitatis Lundoniæ, 4. Fitzstephen is equally eloquent in describing the sports of the Londoners. "Plurimi civium delectantur, ludentes in avibus cœli, nisis, accipitribus et hujusmodi, et in canibus mili tantibus in sylvis. Habentque cives suum jus venandi in Middlesexia, Hertfordsira et tota Chiltra, et in Cantia usque ad aquam Crayæ, p. 9. But he shakes our faith in all his narratives by asserting that, in the reign of Stephen, London was capable of sending into the field 20,000 cavalry and 60,000 infantry, p. 4. CHAP. III. Education. CHAP. Holds Like Sir Thomas More, one of his most distinguished successors, he began his career of business by holding a situation in the office of the Sheriff of London; but this was office under not at all to his taste, and he soon contrived to insinuate himself into the good graces of a great baron of Norman blood resident in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, with whom he gaily spent his time in racing, hunting and hawking,amusements forbidden to the Saxons. Sheriff of London. Patronised by Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury. bury. His next patron was Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, who finding him a youth of uncommon parts, and captivated with his graceful and winning address, made him take deacon's orders, and conferred upon him the livings of St. Mary le Strand and Othford in Kent, with prebends in the cathedrals of London and Lincoln. His ambition for high preferment was now kindled; but he found himself deficient in a knowledge of the civil and canon law, then the great means of advancement both in church and state, and he prevailed on his patron to send him to Bologna, which had been for some time the most famous university of the world for such studies. After residing there a year, attending the lectures of the celebrated Gratian, he went to Auxerre in Burgundy, where there was likewise a flourishing juridical school, and he returned to England fully qualified for any situation, however exalted, to which fortune might raise him. Made He was now promoted to the archdeaconry of Canterbury, Archbishop an office of considerable trust and profit. Displaying great of Cantertalents for business, he gained the entire confidence of the primate, and was employed by him in two delicate negotiations with the court of Rome. The first was to recover for the see of Canterbury the legatine power which properly belonged to the primacy, and of which it had been stript. This point he carried, to the great delight of Theobald, who attached the highest importance to it. A. D. 1153. The next was a matter of more national importance. Notwithstanding the solemn treaty between Stephen the reigning king, and Henry the son of Matilda, the right heir to the crown, intrigues were going on to defeat the succession of the Angevin line, and a plan was in contemplation to have Eustace, the son of Stephen, crowned King of England in his |