willing to admit.[1] The Archbishop of Canterbury and my own Primate ought, out of regard for God and our order, to save me of their good will from this encroachment. Because then, through the King's enmity, I see you all against me, I appeal to the Apostolic See of Rome, to the Holy Church, and to the Blessed Peter and his Vicar, that he may take order for a just sentence in my affair; for to his disposition the ancient authority of the Apostles and their successors and of the canons reserves the greater ecclesiastical causes and the judgement of bishops."[2]
Character of the appeal. Such an appeal as this was indeed going to the root of the matter. It was laying down the rule against which Englishmen had yet to strive for more than four hundred years. William of Saint-Calais not only declared that there were causes with which no English tribunal was competent to deal, but he laid down that among such causes were to be reckoned all judgements where any bishop—if not every priest—was an accused party. Bishop William could not even claim that, as one charged with an ecclesiastical offence, he had a right to appeal to the highest ecclesiastical judge. Even such a claim as this was a novelty either in Normandy or in England; but William of Saint-Calais was not charged with any ecclesiastical offence. Except so far as the indictment involved the charge of perjury, that debateable ground of the two jurisdictions, the offence
- ↑ Mon. Angl. u. s. "In lege nostra prohibitum invenio, ne tale judicium suspiciam." This strange phrase, twice repeated, most likely refers to the False Decretals, of which he seems to have had a copy with him. See below, p. 109.
- ↑ Ib. "Apostolicam sedem Romanam, sanctam ecclesiam et beatum Petrum ejusque vicarium appello, ut ipsius ordinatione negotii mei justam sententiam suscipere merear, cujus dispositioni majores causas ecclesiasticas et episcoporum judicia antiqua apostolorum eorumque successorum atque canonum auctoritas reservavit." Yet, according to the doctrine held long after by Thomas Stubbs (see N. C. vol. iv. p. 260), the Bishop of Durham need not have gone very far to find a Vicar of Saint Peter.
