In another point he also showed himself somewhat grasping, or at all events made enemies at a moment when his experience should have taught him to be more politic. Many of the old possessions of his see had come into the hands of laymen, who were negligent in performing their services, and probably wished to throw off the yoke of the archbishop altogether. In order to enforce his rights he acted in a way which, justifiable as it was, was nevertheless imprudent; the result was a royal inquest as to the archiepiscopal fiefs; and, as the archbishop was already becoming unpopular, the verdict of the jury robbed him of some rights that might otherwise have been successfully maintained. In all this, however, he had no coolness with the king. Henry felt the resignation of the Chancellorship as a personal wrong; for although in the empire, where the king looked for precedents, the office of Arch-chancellor was held by the three great metropolitans of Germany, Becket had followed the usage almost unbroken in England in resigning; but there was nothing like an open quarrel. The spring of the year passed without one. In March the fate of Henry of Essex was decided; he was defeated in the battle trial, and the king, greatly against his will it was said--for he believed that the fall of the standard at Consilt was accidental--was obliged by the Norman law to declare his estates forfeited. Henry of Essex retired into a monastery, and so Henry lost one of his best friends. [Sidenote: Second Welsh war, 1163. ] [Sidenote: Council at Woodstock. ] Immediately after the king went on his second Welsh war, a sort of military demonstration marked by no great victory or defeat, and on the 1st of July called a great court at Woodstock to witness the homage of the princes. The King of Scots made his appearance at this council, and took the oath of fealty to the little heir to the crown, Henry, who was now eight years old. This was the first opportunity that the archbishop had of declaring his new attitude. He had been to visit the Pope, Alexander III., at Tours. The Pope was in exile from his see; the Emperor Frederick had refused to acknowledge him, and had set up an anti-Pope. Henry and Lewis, the former probably acting by Becket’s advice, had in 1161 recognized Alexander as the Catholic Pope, and Tours, where he was holding the council at which Becket attended, was within the dominions of Henry. We can only suppose that the sight of the Pope kindled Becket’s zeal, not so much against his own lord who was the Pope’s friend, as against the secular power in general, of which he had been hitherto a devoted servant. Anyhow he came back from Tours prepared, on the first question, ecclesiastical or civil, which might arise, to take the lead of what might be called the constitutional opposition; an idea which is, for the first time since the Norman Conquest, realized in the course he now adopted. [Sidenote: