[183] Epist. Giles, iii. 195; Bouquet, 404. [184] Giles, iii. 192; Bouquet, 405. [185] Dated February 12, 1170. [186] Epist. Giles, iii. 96; Bouquet, 416; Giles, iii. 108; Bouquet, 419. "Sed pro eâ mori parati sumus." He adds: "Insurgant qui voluerint cardinales, arment non modo regem Angliæ, sed totum, si possent orbem in perniciem nostram.... Utinam via Romana non gratis peremisset tot miseros innocentes. Quis de cetero audebit illi regi registere quem ecclesia Romana tot triumphis animavit, et armavit exemplo pernitioso manante ad posteros." [187] "Nec persuadebitur mundo, quod suasores isti Deum saperent; sed potius pecuniam, quam immoderato avaritiæ ardore sitiunt, olfecerunt."--Giles, iv. 291; Bouquet, 417. [188] Becket's depression at this event is dwelt upon in a letter of Peter of Blois to John of Salisbury. Peter traveled from Rome to Bologna with the Papal legates. From them he gathered that either Becket would soon be reconciled to the King or be removed to another patriarchate.--Epist. xxii. apud Giles, i. p. 84. [189] Dr. Lingard holds this letter, printed by Lord Lyttelton, and which he admits was produced, to have been a forgery. If it was, it was a most audacious one; and a most flagrant insult to the Pope, whom Henry was even now endeavoring to propitiate through the Lombard Republics and the Emperor of the East (see Giles, iv. 10). It is remarkable, too, that though the Pope declares that this coronation, contrary to his prohibition (Giles, iv. 30), is not to be taken as a precedent, he has no word of the forgery. Nor do I find any contemporary assertion of its spuriousness. Becket, indeed, in his account of the last interview with the King, only mentions the general permission granted by the Pope at an early period of the reign; and argues as if this were the only permission. Is it possible that a special permission to York to act was craftily interpolated into the general permission? But the trick may have been on the side of the Pope, now granting, now nullifying his own grants by inhibition. Bouquet is strong against Baronius (as on other points) upon Alexander's duplicity.--p. 434. [190] Giles, iii. 229. [191] Giles, iii. 302. [192] "Dictum fuit aliquem dixisse vel scripsisse regi Anglorum de Archepiscopo ut quid tenetur exclusus? melius tenebitur inclusus quam exclusus. Satisque dictum fuit intelligenti."--p. 272. [193] Giles, iv. 30; Bouquet, 436. [194] "Nam de consuetudinibus quas tanta pervicaciâ vindicare consueverat nec mutire præsumpsit." Becket was as mute. The issue of the quarrel seems entirely changed. The Constitutions of Clarendon recede, the right of coronation occupies the chief place.--See the long letter, Giles, 65. [195] Humbold Bishop of Ostia advised the confining the triumph to the depression of the Archbishop of York and the excommunication of the Bishops.--Giles, vi. 129; Bouquet, 443.