In the process of his reforms he was startled by the absolute immunity accorded to the crimes of the clergy, or persons pretending to be clergymen, through the double jurisdiction of the lay and Church courts which was introduced by William the Conqueror. Any clerk who committed a crime could be demanded by his bishop from the officers of secular justice, and sentenced by him to ecclesiastical punishment, which, according to the law of William, was to be enforced by the secular arm. But, in fact, so much afraid were the bishops of any clerk being tried by the lay courts, and so jealous were the lay officers of being called on to enforce the ecclesiastical punishments, that the whole system broke down. Thieves and murderers who called themselves clerks were demanded by the bishops and sentenced to penances and deprivation of orders, two punishments at which they could afford to laugh. Henry proposed that, when such prisoners were taken and found guilty, they should be delivered to the bishops to be spiritually punished, and then to the secular officers, to have sufficient punishment, to be hanged, or blinded, or imprisoned as the mild laws of the period ordered. Thomas would not hear of this--one punishment was enough for one fault; if the clergyman was a thief, and proved so to be, let him be degraded--that was enough; if he broke the law again, the law might have him, for he was after degradation entitled to the privileges of a clergyman no more. Henry grew very angry at this foolish and imprudent proposal. Such, he said, had not been the law in the time of his grandfather, the great king Henry the Elder, the lion of righteousness. He would not submit, but would enforce the ancient rights and customs of the realm as his grandfather had done. But what, it was asked, were those customs? The reign of Stephen had witnessed a total abeyance of secular law, and had listened to very extraordinary assertions of ecclesiastical right and liberty. Let the ancient customs be first ascertained, and then it would be time to say whether or no the clergy and laity could act together. Becket allowed the bishops to promise to observe these customs ‘saving their order.’ Henry declared that that meant nothing. The assembly was broken up in wrath. The king ordered the manors of Eye and Berkhampstead to be surrendered, and the archbishop in two or three later interviews sought in vain for a reconciliation. [Sidenote: Henry’s motives. ] Whether in this Henry acted from passionate indignation, or because he saw that Becket had taken on himself the maintenance of the extreme views propounded by the canonists as to the immunity of spiritual men, we cannot now venture to determine. The breach between the two was never healed; both probably saw that it never could even be compromised. The dispute had its real basis in the difficulty of adjusting legal and spiritual relations, which even at the present day seems no nearer receiving a permanent settlement.