Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

CATHOLIC CHURCH. 359
was won, no thanks to the bishops, but to St.
Anselm and St. Peter. A little later another Arch-
(
bishop, also alone, appealed to the Holy See in
almost the very words of St. Anselm. St. Thomas
fell, but the cause lived ; the hierarchy deserted him
to a man. Henry Plantagenet hated where he
had once loved. St. Thomas and the Pope saved
the Church in England from becoming the handmaid
of the State, for at that time the king re-
presented the State. Innocent III., on the other hand,
maintained the royal power even when vested in the
person of King John, against rebellious barons,
whilst it must not be forgotten that Cardinal
Stephen Langton, the popular champion, was the
Pope's nomination * for which England had suffered
an interdict.
Again, St. Thomas of Hereford appealed to the
supreme tribunal of the Holy See against the summary
dealing of his metropolitan. Archbishop
Peckham was a great and good man, yet the judgment
even of the great and good is liable to err,
especially when they have the power of the Arch- \
bishops of Canterbury. It may be surmised that a
saint is slow to have recourse to a higher tribunal,
and that in this case St. Thomas had good grounds
for a proceeding, the nature of which has always
remained obscure. The fact that death overtook
the Bishop of Hereford before his cause could be
heard, does not affect the value of his appeal.
The success of AVycliffe and the Lollards was