because the Lord Chief Justice was being tried by the priest.
The judiciary was itself sub judice. The kings were themselves
in the dock. The idea was to create an invisible kingdom,
without armies or prisons, but with complete freedom to condemn
publicly all the kingdoms of the earth. Whether such a supreme
church would have cured society we cannot affirm definitely;
because the church never was a supreme church. We only know
that in England at any rate the princes conquered the saints.
What the world wanted we see before us; and some of us call it
a failure. But we cannot call what the church wanted a failure,
simply because the church failed. Tracy struck a little too soon.
England had not yet made the great Protestant discovery that
the king can do no wrong. The king was whipped in the cathedral;
a performance which I recommend to those who regret the unpopularity
of church-going. But the discovery was made; and Henry VIII scattered
Becket's bones as easily as Tracy had scattered his brains.

Of course, I mean that Catholicism was not tried;
plenty of Catholics were tried, and found guilty.
My point is that the world did not tire of the church's ideal,
but of its reality. Monasteries were impugned not for
the chastity of monks, but for the unchastity of monks.
Christianity was unpopular not because of the humility,
but of the arrogance of Christians. Certainly, if the
church failed it was largely through the churchmen.
But at the same time hostile elements had certainly begun
to end it long before it could have done its work.
In the nature of things it needed a common scheme of life and
thought in Europe. Yet the mediaeval system began to be broken
to pieces intellectually, long before it showed the slightest