Excerpt from History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in Which He Lived, Vol. 5: In Five Books; To Which Is Prefixed, a History of the Revolutions of England, From the Death of Edward the Confessor, to the Birth of Henry the Second Book IV. Endeavouring to prevent any violence being ufed, by thefe gentlemen, againf't Becket, with out a proper warrant of legal authority, he te folved, by the advice of a council 'of lords, which he had fummoned on hearing the com plaints laid before him by the archbifhop of York, to fend inflantly into England his chief jufiiciary of Normandy; Richard de Humet, with orders to the young king for the arreft ing of Becket, if that'prelate would not yield to what fhould be required of him on the part. Of the crown. This lord arrived in England before the' murder was committed, and as foon as he landed difpatched Hugh de Gundeville and William Fitsjohn to the palace at Winchef where the young king then refided, with, direetions to take there fome knights of the houfhold, and go with them to Canterbury, as fecretly as they could, that their orders might be executed without any oppofition while he himfelf had the care of diligently guarding the coafts and fea ports, left Becket, on fome notice of what was intended, thould fly out of the kingdom. Thefe meafures appear to fltephanid; have been well concerted 5 but, ' before they 1 could take effect, the blow was firuck, by which the jufiice of the crown was prevented. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.