Two most important points stand out here. This is the first case of any express opposition being made to the king’s financial dealings since the Conquest. Until now, whenever money was wanted, the royal necessities were laid before the national council, the assembly of bishops, earls, and great vassals, and others, and the method was explained by which they were to be satisfied. If he wanted to marry his daughter, or to knight his son, or to tax his towns, he said how much he wanted, and it was paid. Here, however, we find the archbishop objecting to the royal dealings with the Danegeld, and thus asserting the right of the national council to refuse as well as to bestow money. A second point is, that although ever since the reign of Ethelred, with the exception of a few years of Edward the Confessor--who had, as the legend ran, seen the devil sitting on the money-bags, and had, therefore, abolished the tax--and certainly ever since the days of the Conqueror, this odious impost had been levied, from this time it ceases to appear by this name in the rolls of the revenue. Henry II. devised other ways of getting money, but the Danegeld appears no more; and thus the first-fruit of the first constitutional opposition is the abolition of the most ancient property-tax, imposed as a bribe for the Danes. We may well imagine how angry Henry would be at this interference, coming from the man who had hitherto been his right hand in all his reforms. [Sidenote: Becket’s new enemies. ] [Sidenote: Council at Westminster, 1163. ] The courtiers saw it, and they began to raise little suits against Becket on little matters by which they might harass him, and, like true courtiers, accelerate the fall of a falling man. Such in particular were John the Marshal, who raised a claim touching one of the archiepiscopal manors, and William of Eynesford, who claimed the patronage of one of the archbishop’s livings, and was rashly excommunicated by Becket, contrary to the custom which forbade the excommunication of a tenant-in-chief of the king without the king’s license. Three months, however, passed away; and on the 1st of October the king called a great council at Westminster. [Sidenote: Becket defends the clerical immunities. ] [Sidenote: Henry appeals to the ancient customs. ]