It were unjust to human nature, to suppose that it did not cost Becket a violent struggle, a painful sacrifice, thus as it were to rend himself from the familiarity and friendship of his munificent benefactor. It was no doubt a severe sense of duty which crushed his natural affections, especially as vulgar ambition must have pointed out a more sure and safe way to power and fame. Such ambition would hardly have hesitated between the ruling all orders through the king, and the solitary and dangerous position of opposing so powerful a monarch to maintain the interests and secure the favor of one order alone.
Henry was now fully occupied with the affairs of Wales. Becket, with the royal sanction, obeyed the summons of Pope Alexander to the Council of Tours. Becket had passed through part of France at the head of an army of his own raising, and under his command; he had passed a second time as representing the king; he was yet to pass as an exile. At Tours, where Pope Alexander now held his court, and presided over his council, Becket appeared at the head of all the Bishops of England, except those excused on account of age or infirmity. So great was his reputation, that the Pope sent out all the cardinals except those in attendance on his own person to escort the primate of England into the city. In the council at Tours not merely was the title of Alexander to the popedom avouched with perfect unanimity, but the rights and privileges of the clergy asserted with more than usual rigor and distinctness. Some canons, one especially which severely condemned all encroachments on the property of the Church, might seem framed almost with a view to the impending strife with England.
That strife, so impetuous might seem the combatants to join issue, broke out, during the next year, in all its violence. Both parties, if they did not commence, were prepared for aggression. The first occasion of public collision was a dispute concerning the customary payment of the ancient Danegelt, of two shillings on every hide of land, to the sheriffs of the several counties. The king determined to transfer this payment to his own exchequer: he summoned an assembly at Woodstock, and declared his intentions. All were mute but Becket; the archbishop opposed the enrolment of the decree, on the ground that the tax was voluntary, not of right. "By the eyes of God," said Henry, his usual oath, "it shall be enrolled!" "By the same eyes, by which you swear," replied the prelate, "it shall never be levied on my lands while I live!"[41] On Becket's part, almost the first act of his primacy was to vindicate all the rights, and to resume all the property which had been usurped, or which he asserted to have been usurped, from his see.[42] It was not likely that, in the turbulent times just gone by, there would have been rigid respect for the inviolability of sacred property. The title of the Church was held to be indefeasible. Whatever had once belonged to the Church might be recovered at any time; and the ecclesiastical courts claimed the sole right of adjudication in such causes. The primate was thus at once plaintiff, judge, and carried into execution his own judgments. The lord of the manor of Eynsford in Kent, who held of the king, claimed the right of presentation to that benefice. Becket asserted the prerogative of the see of Canterbury. On the forcible ejectment of his nominee by the lord, William of Eynsford, Becket proceeded at once to a sentence of excommunication, without regard to Eynsford's feudal superior the king. [SN: Claims of Becket.] The primate next demanded the castle of Tunbridge from the head of the powerful family of De Clare; though it had been held by De Clare, and it was asserted, received in exchange for a Norman Castle, since the time of William the Conqueror. The attack on De Clare might seem a defiance of the whole feudal nobility: a determination to despoil them of their conquests, or grants from the sovereign.