Making pretence of a fray which had arisen in court between the retinue of the Bishop of Salisbury and that of the Earl of Britany, he seized both that prelate and the Bishop of Lincoln, threw them into prison, and obliged them by menaces to deliver up those places of strength which they had lately erected [t].

Immediately the king summoned prelates and barons to witness his submission, and the famous Council of Clarendon met for this purpose in 1164.

Painters and sculptors therefore commit a serious error in representing the prelates and monks of those times with large beards.

"Who was the Father who looked after me?" added the prelate.

[l] M. Paris, p. 157.] Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission, sent three prelates, the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to intimate, that if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict

It is pleasing to know that when on his death-bed in 1752, this prelate sent to Whitefield, and asked to be remembered in his prayers.

For instructors indeed he could find only a few Mercian prelates and priests, with one Welsh bishop, Asser.

[q]; banished the prelates, confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with food and raiment.

The abbot Bernard severely censured the prelate, on the ground that Arnold's connection with him would contribute, without fail, to give importance and influence to that dangerous man.

The king then wrote a letter to the bishop, in which he complained of the violation of his right, and the contempt of his authority, charged the prelate with countenancing the late act of disobedience, and required an answer in two days.

So he hurled his weapons, not yet impotent, and fulminated his bulls, ordering the University, under penalty of excommunication, to deliver the daring heretic into the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London; and further commanding these two prelates to warn the King against the errors of Wyclif, and to examine him as to his doctrines, and keep him in chains until the Pope's pleasure should be further known.

[i]; he consulted these prelates in the administration of all ecclesiastical, and even in that of many civil affairs; and though the vigour of his own genius prevented him from being implicitly guided by them, the king and the bishops found such advantages in their mutual agreement, that they always acted in concert, and united their influence in preserving the peace and tranquillity of the kingdom.

At the commencement of the reign of Henri IV a satire made its appearance, entitled, "Library of Madame de Montpensier, brought to light by the advice of Cornac, and with the consent of the Sieur de Beaulieu, her equerry," in which mention was made of a supposititious work called, "The Art of not Believing in God," by M. de Bourges, in which an attempt was made to convict the prelate of atheism.

So far from this being true, the letters assert that the earl defended these prelates to the utmost of his power, protected them from enemies who had designs on their lives, and placed them in security at his own great peril.

The king, though he was probably led by principle to pay this submission to Rome, determined, as is usual, to employ the incident as a means of serving his political purposes, and of degrading those English prelates who were become obnoxious to him.

He could depose prelates and excommunicate the greatest personages; he enjoyed enormous revenues; he was vicegerent of the Pope.

But while he despoiled the Saxon prelates, he would suffer no royal spoliation of the Norman bishops.

The King, under the advice of the sagacious Earl Millent, resolved to dispossess these dangerous prelates of their fortresses, which were all finally surrendered.

Twelve of the great abbeys were now without heads, and the king, justly fearing lest the monks should elect abbots from their own body, "and thus the royal authority should be shaken, and they should follow another guidance than his own," sent orders that on a certain day chosen men should be sent to elect acceptable prelates at his court and in his presence.

whose spotless life and charming lays Employed the tuneful prelate in thy praise: Blest man!

The two next in the following year were anonymous, the one A Congratulatory Epistle to Admiral Keppel on his Acquittal; the other An Essay on the Ancient Greek Model (as he called it) to Bishop Lowth, remonstrating against the contention which the bishop had entered into with Warburton, and which he thought unworthy so excellent a prelate.

Captivity!" exclaimed the prelate gleefully, "I thought we were coming thither.

When the answer of the Pope was finally received, it was found that he indignantly disavowed the verbal message, and excommunicated the three prelates as liars.

His Eminence was received at the gate of the city by the Grand Duke in person, and made his entry on horseback under a canopy supported by eight young Florentine nobles, preceded by all the ecclesiastical and secular bodies; while immediately behind him followed sixteen prelates, and fifty gentlemen of the first families in the duchy bearing halberds.

[Footnote 39: 'Munster's prelate:' the famous Bertrand Von Der Chalen, Bishop of Munster, excited by Charles, marched twenty thousand men into the province of Overyssel, under the dominion of the republic of Holland, where he committed great outrages.