enemies. The ostentatious parade and worldly pursuits of the
chancellor were instantly renounced by the Archbishop, who in the
fervor of his conversion prescribed to himself, as a punishment for
the luxury and vanity of his former life, a daily course of secret
mortification. His conduct was now marked by the strictest attention
to the decencies of his station. To the train of knights and noblemen,
who had been accustomed to wait on him, succeeded a few companions
selected from the most virtuous and learned of his clergy. His diet
was abstemious; his charities were abundant; his time was divided into
certain portions allotted to prayer and study and the episcopal
functions. These he found it difficult to unite with those of the
chancellor; and, therefore, as at his consecration he had been
declared free from all secular engagements, he resigned that office
into the hands of the King.

This total change of conduct has been viewed with admiration or
censure according to the candor or prejudices of the beholders. By his
contemporaries it was universally attributed to a conscientious sense
of duty: modern writers have frequently described it as a mere
affectation of piety, under which he sought to conceal projects of
immeasurable ambition. But how came this hypocrisy, if it existed, to
elude, during a long and bitter contest, the keen eyes of his
adversaries? A more certain path would surely have offered itself to
ambition. By continuing to flatter the King's wishes, and by uniting
in himself the offices of chancellor and archbishop, he might in all
probability have ruled without control both in church and state.

For more than twelve months the primate appeared to enjoy his wonted
ascendency in the royal favor. But during his absence the warmth of
Henry's affection insensibly evaporated. The sycophants of the court,