first come under Henry’s direct notice in the summer of 1158, when he received at York a complaint from a citizen of Scarborough that a certain dean had extorted money from him by unjust means. The case was tried, in the king’s presence, before the archbishop of the province, two bishops, and John of Canterbury the treasurer of York. The dean failed in his defence; and as it was proved that he had extorted the money by a libel, an offence against which Henry had made a special decree, some of the barons present were sent to see that the law had its course. John of Canterbury, however, rose and gave it as the decision of the spiritual judges that the money should be restored to the citizen and the criminal delivered over to the mercy of his metropolitan; and despite the justiciar’s remonstrances, they refused to allow the king any rights in the matter. Henry indignantly ordered an appeal to the archbishop of Canterbury; but he was called over sea before it could be heard,[83] and had never returned to England until now, when another archbishop sat in Theobald’s place. [82] Will. Newb., l. ii. c. 16 (Howlett, vol. i. p. 140). [83] Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_), vol. iii. pp. 43–45. That it was Thomas of London who sat there was far from being an indication that Henry had forgotten the incident. It was precisely because Henry in these last four years had thought over the question of the clerical immunities and determined how to deal with it that he had sought to place on S. Augustine’s chair a man after his own heart. He aimed at reducing the position of the clergy, like all other doubtful matters, to the standard of his grandfather’s time. He held that he had a right to whatever his ancestors had enjoyed; he saw therein nothing derogatory to either the Church or the primate, whom he rather intended to exalt by making him his own inseparable colleague in temporal administration and the supreme authority within the realm in purely spiritual matters--thus avoiding the appeals to Rome which had led to so much mischief, and securing for himself a representative to whom he could safely intrust the whole work of government in England as guardian of the little king,[84] while he himself would be free to devote his whole energies to the management of his continental affairs. He seems in fact to have hoped tacitly to repeal the severance of the temporal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, and bring back the golden age of William and Lanfranc, if not that of Eadgar and Dunstan; and for this he, not unnaturally, counted unreservedly upon Thomas. By slow degrees he discovered his miscalculation. Thomas had given him one direct warning which had been unheeded; he had warned him again indirectly by resigning the chancellorship; now, when the king unfolded his plans, he did not at once contradict him; he merely answered all his arguments and persuasions with one set phrase:--“I will render unto