who observed the change, industriously misrepresented the actions of
the Archbishop, and declaimed in exaggerated terms against the
loftiness of his views, the superiority of his talents, and the
decision of his character. Such hints made a deep impression on the
suspicious and irritable mind of the King, who now began to pursue his
late favorite with a hatred as vehement as had been the friendship
with which he had formerly honored him.

Amidst a number of discordant statements it is difficult to fix on the
original ground of the dissension between them; whether it were the
Archbishop's resignation of the chancellorship, or his resumption of
the lands alienated from his see, or his attempt to reform the
clergymen who attended the court, or his opposition to the revival of
the odious tax known by the name of the _danegelt_.[28] But that which
brought them into immediate collision was a controversy respecting the
jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts. A rapid view of the origin
and progress of these courts, and of their authority in civil and
criminal causes, may not prove uninteresting to the reader.

From the commencement of Christianity its professors had been exhorted
to withdraw their differences from the cognizance of profane
tribunals, and to submit them to the paternal authority of their
bishops, who, by the nature of their office, were bound to heal the
wounds of dissension, and by the sacredness of their character were
removed beyond the suspicion of partiality or prejudice. Though an
honorable, it was a distracting, servitude, from which the more pious
would gladly have been relieved; but the advantages of the system
recommended it to the approbation of the Christian emperors.

Constantine and his successors appointed the bishops the general