A.D. 11G5. ΙΠΕ AKCHBISnOp's LETTEU IO POPE ALEXAXEEK. 273 me as -well as my clerks and laymen. Likewise, allow me freely and in peace to return to my see, and I am ready to serve you loyally and duteonsly, as my most dear lord and king, in so far as I can, saving always the honor of God and of the Roman Church and my orders. But if you will not do thus, then know, for a certainty, that you will feel the severity of God's vengeance." The Letter of the blessed Tiwmas, archbishop of Canterbury, to Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff. " To your presence, most holy father, do I fly for refuge ; inasmuch as you have redeemed the liberties of the Church, amid so great hazards to yourself, understand that that is the sole or the principal cause of the persecutions to which, following your example, I have been subjected. Por I lamented that the foundations of the Church are being gradually shaken, and that her rights are being destroyed by the avarice of princes, and I therefore thought it my duty to meet the malady on its approach. The more I felt myself bound ip duty to my liege lord, to whom, after God, I owe everything, tfie more safely did I think I might oppose his wicked instigators ; until they had gained full possession of the serenity of his favour, and had clouded it against me ; from which time, as is the way among princes, they threw out charges and accusations, in order thereby to ensure my persecution ; on which, I preferred to be driven away rather than willingly to succumb. To these evils, this was added, that I was summoned, as though a layman, to appear before the king and to satisfy him thereon. And still further, in the quarter to which I looked for support in my resistance, I was deceived ; for I found my brethren, the bishops, at the biddingof the courtiers, prepared to pronounce judgment against me. Thus, almost crushed by the multitude of my antagonists, I have taken breath in your presence, whieh does not overlook even those who are in extreme need. Under your protection will I prove, that I ought not to have been brought for trial before that tribunal, nor yet before those persons. Por what else, my father, would this have been than to rob you of your rights ? "What else than to subject the spiritual power to the temporal ? "When once made, this precedent would be generally established ; and for that reason, I considered it my duty the more firmly to oppose it, VOL. ι. ι