All which to the king would designate Becket as the future Primate could not but excite the apprehensions of the more rigorous churchmen. The monks of Canterbury, with whom rested the formal election, alleged as an insuperable difficulty that Becket had never worn the monastic habit, as almost all his predecessors had done.[32] The suffragan bishops would no doubt secretly resist the advancement, over all their heads, of a man who, latterly at least, had been more of a soldier, a courtier, and a lay statesman. Nor could the prophetic sagacity of any but the wisest discern the latent churchmanship in the ambitious and inflexible heart of Becket. It is recorded on authority, which I do not believe doubtful as to its authenticity, but which is the impassioned statement of a declared enemy, that nothing but the arrival of the great justiciary, Richard de Luci, with the king's peremptory commands, and with personal menaces of proscription and exile against the more forward opponents, awed the refractory monks and prelates to submission. [SN: Gilbert Foliot.] At Whitsuntide Thomas Becket received priest's orders, and was then consecrated Primate of England with great magnificence in the Abbey of Westminster. The see of London being vacant, the ceremony was performed by the once turbulent, now aged and peaceful, Henry of Winchester, the brother of King Stephen. One voice alone, that of Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford,[33] broke the apparent harmony by a bitter sarcasm--"The king has wrought a miracle; he has turned a soldier and a layman into an archbishop." Gilbert Foliot, from first to last the firm and unawed antagonist of Becket, is too important a personage to be passed lightly by.[34] This sally was attributed no doubt by some at the time, as it was the subject afterwards of many fierce taunts from Becket himself, and of lofty vindication by Foliot, to disappointed ambition, as though he himself aspired to the primacy. Nor was there an ecclesiastic in England who might entertain more just hopes of advancement. He was admitted to be a man of unimpeachable life, of austere habits, and great learning. He had been Abbot of Gloucester and then Bishop of Hereford. He was in correspondence with four successive Popes, Coelestine II., Lucius II., Eugenius III., Alexander, and with a familiarity which implies a high estimation for ability and experience. He is interfering in matters remote from his diocese, and commending other bishops, Lincoln and Salisbury, to the favorable consideration of the Pontiff. All his letters reveal as imperious and conscientious a churchman as Becket himself, and in Becket's position Foliot might have resisted the king as inflexibly.[35] He was, in short, a bold and stirring ecclesiastic, who did not scruple to wield, as he had done in several instances, that last terrible weapon of the clergy which burst on his own head, excommunication.[36] It may be added that, notwithstanding his