His next undertaking was one which almost every new-made prelate in any degree alive to the rights and duties of his office found it needful to begin as soon as possible: the recovery of the alienated property of his see. Gilbert Foliot, the model English bishop of the day, had no sooner been consecrated than he wrote to beg the Pope’s support in this important and troublesome matter.[52] It may well be that even fourteen years later the metropolitan see had not yet received full restitution for the spoliations of the anarchy. Thomas however set to work in the most sweeping fashion, boldly laying claim to every estate which he could find to have been granted away by his predecessors on grounds which did not satisfy his exalted ideas of ecclesiastical right, or on terms which he held detrimental to the interest and dignity of his church, and enforcing his claims without respect of persons; summarily turning out those who held the archiepiscopal manors in ferm,[53] disputing with the earl of Clare for jurisdiction over the castle and district of Tunbridge, and reclaiming, on the strength of a charter of the Conqueror, the custody of Rochester castle from the Crown itself. Such a course naturally stirred up for him a crowd of enemies, and increased the jealousy, suspicion and resentment which his new position and altered mode of life had already excited among the companions and rivals of his earlier days. The archbishop however was still, like the chancellor, protected against them by the shield of the royal favour; they could only work against him by working upon the mind of Henry. One by one they carried over sea their complaints of the wrongs which they had suffered, or with which they were threatened, at the primate’s hands;[54] they reported all his daily doings and interpreted them in the worst sense:--his strictness of life was superstition, his zeal for justice was cruelty, his care for his church avarice, his pontifical splendour pride, his vigour rashness and self-conceit:[55]--if the king did not look to it speedily, he would find his laws and constitutions set at naught, his regal dignity trodden under foot, and himself and his heirs reduced to mere cyphers dependent on the will and pleasure of the archbishop of Canterbury.[56] [52] Gilb. Foliot, Ep. lxxxvii. (Giles, vol. i., p. 113). [53] E. Grim (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.) pp. 371, 372. Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.) pp. 250, 251. _Thomas Saga_ (Magnusson), vol. i. pp. 117–121. [54] Herb. Bosh. (as above), p. 252. _Thomas Saga_ (as above), p. 121. [55] Joh. Salisb. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. ii.) pp. 309, 310. Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.) pp. 91, 92. [56] Joh. Salisb. (as above), p. 310. E. Grim (_ibid._) p. 372. Anon. II. (_ib._ vol. iv.), p. 92. Cf. Arn. Lisieux, Ep. 34 (Giles, pp. 148, 149).