sixteen vears later. That a papal bull was dispatched to England about this time and concerning this matter is certain. That this was the actual bull sent is doubted by many—I myself am not among the number—from the fact that in form and wording it differs from other papal bulls of the time. The question is still being investigated, and we are promised a word from a certain Berlin professor whose authority is very great in such matters.
It is interesting to note that the claim of Adrian IV., here advanced, to jurisdiction over all islands was founded, as we learn from John of Salisbury, on the forged donation of Constantine (v. Book iii. No. iii.). Urban II. had disposed of Corsica under the same pretension. Lord Lyttleton in his still valuable History of Henry II. (vol. v. p. 67) speaks as follows concerning this whole transaction:
"Upon the whole, therefore, this bull, like many before and many since, was the mere effect of a league between the papal and regal powers, to abet and assist each other's usurpations; nor is it easy to say whether more disturbance to the world, and more iniquity, have arisen from their acting conjointly, or from the opposition which the former has made to the latter! In this instance the best, or indeed the sole excuse for the proceedings of either, was the savage state of the Irish, to whom it might be beneficial to be conquered, and broken thereby to the salutary discipline of civil order and good laws."
No. III., is the list of articles laid before Thomas Becket in 1164, for finally refusing to sign which that prelate went into his long exile.
The custom of appealing to Rome—a custom which had begun under Henry I. whose brother was papal legate for England—had assumed alarming dimensions under Henry II. The king had almost no jurisdiction over his clerical subjects. And, to make matters worse, the clergy did not refrain from crimes which called for the utmost
