Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/206

188 of enforced idleness that we owe the production of his two most important works, the Policraticus and the Metalogicus. Both were written during the time when the king was absent at the tedious siege of Toulouse in 1159: the one was completed before, the other just after, the death of Hadrian the Fourth on the first day of September in that year. The storm which had impended over John of Salisbury seems soon to have passed by: but in 1161 his patron, archbishop Theobald, died, and the favour which was continued to him by Thomas Becket came to be a source of anxiety rather than of advantage. After an absence of more than four years king Henry was again in England in January 1163. The fact possibly determined John's withdrawal. He left the country only to return with Becket seven years later, and to witness his murder. During this time of exile he was the truest, because the wisest, champion of the archbishop. The intemperate and wanton means by which the latter sought to promote his cause, John was the first to reprove. He did not spare his warnings, and, when necessary, would denounce Becket's actions not as impolitic but simply as unchristian. Still his hearty adhesion to the hier-