upon by the wiliness of certain scholars;[1] and it is interesting to compare with this the more explicit statement of Gervase the Canterbury monk, that it was Peter of Blois who was the cunning deviser of the obnoxious plan. We may well believe that, at its first inception, the reward of scholarship among the secular clergy held a prominent place in the scheme; but shrewder heads than Peter's got to work upon it. Henry and his statesmen, who were for the most part bishops and clerical lawyers, saw its possibilities: the archbishop and his scholar-priests were their unconscious tools.
The story of this great contest has been vividly told by Bishop Stubbs in his introduction to the Epistolae Cantuarienses (Chron. of Rich. I, Rolls Series, II, xxxvii. ff.): we are only concerned here with the part played in it by Peter. This we learn chiefly from the the Canterbury historian Gervase, and we must make some allowance, as we read, for the natural bias of the writer.[2]
The archbishop, as we have said, had obtained a general approval of his scheme from the pope, and in the last days of 1186 he came to Canterbury with the intention of at once installing some of his new canons in the church of St Stephen at a little distance outside the city. The alarmed monks appealed against such action to the Roman court, but the archbishop pursued his course, suspended the monks who were sent to forbid him and also Honorius their prior. Thereupon Honorius immediately set out to carry the appeal in person to the pope. At home the controversy became daily more bitter. The king sent envoys to negociate a settlement, but in vain. Then on Ash-Wednesday 1187, on his way to Dover, he came to Canterbury to try the effect of his personal persuasion. The scene in the chapter-house, as Gervase describes it, is a curious one. The king entered with the archbishop alone, and ordered the doors to be guarded, that none might come in unless they were summoned. The first to be called were the bishop of Norwich, the bishop of Durham, Hubert Walter, and Peter of Blois, the 'impudent contriver of almost the whole of this mischief'. Next, the subprior and four monks were summoned: they sat apart with their eyes on the ground, but with no sign of fear, 'as sheep appointed to the slaughter'. Grouped on the other side were the archbishop, his bishops and 'his Peter', as Gervase scornfully adds. The king moved from one group to the other, bearing their proposals and replies. But all his skill could achieve nothing. So he went on to
