Chapter IV: The Primacy of Anselm and the Acquisition of Normandy.903 (3)

The immediate business of Anselm led him to Chester, and to the place, wherever it was, where the King was to be found. We are told that he made the best of his way to his sick friend,[1072] who was so eager for Anselm’s coming that he despised all other spiritual help.[1073] But it is plain that he tarried on the road to see the King. From Dover his first stage was Canterbury. There he was alarmed by the welcome given him by a crowd of monks and laymen who hailed him as their future archbishop. It was a high festival, the Nativity of our Lady; but Anselm, wishing to give no encouragement to such greetings as he had just received, declined to officiate at the celebration of the feast. He tarried but one night in the city, and left it early the next morning.[1074] He then went to the King. The reception which he met with showed that Rufus must have been for the moment in one of his better moods. Anselm indeed was a chosen friend of his father, and he had given him no personal offence. As soon as the approach of the Abbot of Bec was announced, the King arose, met him at the door, exchanged the kiss of peace, and led him by the hand to his seat.[1075] A friendly discourse followed. Perhaps the very friendliness of William’s greeting brought it more fully home to Anselm’s mind that it would be a failure of duty on his own part if he spoke only of the worldly affairs of his abbey. He must seize the moment to give a word of warning to a sinner whose evil deeds were so black, and who disgraced at the same time so lofty an office and such high natural gifts. Anselm asked that all others might withdraw; he wished for a private interview with the King. The affairs of the house of Bec were, for the moment at least, passed by; the welfare of the kingdom of England, and the soul’s health of its king, were objects which came first. Anselm told Rufus in plain words that the men of his kingdom, both secretly and openly, daily said things of him which in no way became his kingly office.[1076] From later appeals of Anselm to the conscience of Rufus, we may conceive that this general description took in at once the special wrongs done to the Church, the general abuses of William’s government, and the personal excesses of William’s own life. Anselm was not the man to hold his peace on any one of those three subjects; but we have no details of Anselm’s discourse from his own biographer, nor does he give us any notice of the way in which William received his rebuke.[1077] Yet it would seem that the milder mood of the Red King had not wholly passed away. If Anselm had been thrust aside with any violent or sarcastic answer, it would surely have passed into one of the stock anecdotes of the reign. Our only other description of the scene paints Rufus as held back from any disrespectful treatment of Anselm by a lingering reverence for the friend of his parents. He turned the matter off with a laugh. He could not hinder what men chose to say of him; but so holy a man as Anselm ought not to believe such stories.[1078] It is not even clear whether Anselm brought himself to speak at all on the particular business which had brought him to the King’s presence. King and Abbot parted; it would seem that nothing was done about the affairs of Bec for the present; but we may gather that, at some later time, the lands of the monastery were relieved from the burthens of which they complained.[1079]

[Sidenote: Anselm at Chester.]

[Sidenote: The King refuses him leave to go back. February, 1093.]

Anselm now went on to Chester, where he found his friend Earl Hugh restored to health. But the change in the foundation at Saint Werburh’s still needed his presence, and the special affairs of his own house had also to be looked to. Between these two sets of affairs, Anselm was kept in England for five months. He then wished to go back to Normandy; but the King’s leave, it seems, was needed, and the King’s leave was refused.[1080]

[Sidenote: William’s feeling towards Anselm.]

[Sidenote: Christmas Assembly, 1092-1093.]

[Sidenote: The vacancy discussed by the Witan.]

[Sidenote: Petition of the Assembly to the King.]

[Sidenote: Prayers for the appointment of an archbishop.]

[Sidenote: Anselm draws up a form of prayer.]

This refusal is worth notice. It does not seem to have been done in enmity; at least it was not followed by any kind of further wrong-doing on the King’s part towards Anselm. It really looks as if William had, not indeed any fixed purpose of appointing Anselm to the archbishopric, but a kind of feeling that he might be driven to appoint him, a feeling that things might come to a stage in which he could not help naming some archbishop, and that, if it came to that stage, he could not help naming Anselm. It is plain from what follows that the thought of Anselm as a possible archbishop was in the King’s mind as well as in the minds of others. But certainly no offer or hint was at this stage made by William, nor was anything said to Anselm about the matter by any one else.[1081] Men no doubt knew Anselm’s feelings, and avoided the subject. But at one point during these five months the vacancy of the archbishopric was brought very strongly before Anselm’s mind, though not in a way which suggested his own appointment rather than that of anybody else. When the Midwinter Gemót of this year was held, the long vacancy, and the evils which flowed from it, became a matter of discussion among the assembled Witan. But they did not venture to attempt any election, or even to make any suggestion of their own; they did not even make any direct petition to the King to put an end to the vacancy. A resolution was passed――our contemporary guide doubted whether future ages would believe the fact――that the King should be humbly petitioned to allow prayers to be put up throughout the churches of England craving that God would by his inspiration move the King’s heart to put an end to the wrongs of his head church and of all his other churches by the appointment of a worthy chief pastor.[1082] We thus see that the power of ending or prolonging the vacancy is acknowledged to rest only with the King; it is not for the Witan to constrain, but only for God to guide, the royal will. But we further see that the right of ordaining religious ceremonies is held to rest with the King and his Witan, just as it had rested in the days of Cnut.[1083] The unanimous petition of the Assembly was laid before the King. He was somewhat angry, but he took no violent step. He agreed to the matter of the address, but in a scornful shape. “Pray as you will; I shall do as I think good; no man’s prayers will do anything to shake my will.”[1084] To draw up a proper form of prayer was the natural business of the bishops; and they had among them one specially skilled in such matters in the person of Osmund of Salisbury. But they all agreed to consult the Abbot of Bec, and to ask him to draw up a prayer fitted for the purpose. Anselm, after much pressing, agreed; he drew up the prayer; it was laid before the Assembly, and his work was approved by all.[1085] The Gemót broke up, and prayers were offered throughout England, according to Anselm’s model, for the appointment of an archbishop, a prayer which on most lips doubtless meant the appointment of Anselm himself.[1086]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The year 1093.]

[Sidenote: William’s sickness at Alvestone.]

[Sidenote: Discourse about Anselm before the King.]

[Sidenote: The King’s mockery.]

[Sidenote: He falls sick and is moved to Gloucester.]

[Sidenote: Ash Wednesday, March 2, 1093.]

Before the Assembly broke up, a memorable year had begun. It is a year crowded with events, with the deaths of memorable men, with one death above all which led to most important results on the relations between the two great parts of the isle of Britain. With these events I shall deal in another chapter; we have now mainly to trace the ecclesiastical character of the year as the greatest of all stages in the career of Anselm. The Assembly had doubtless been held at Gloucester, and, after the session was over, the King tarried in the neighbourhood, at the royal house of Alvestone, once a lordship of Earl Harold.[1087] There he was smitten with a heavy sickness. The tale has a legendary sound; yet there is nothing really incredible in the story that he fell sick directly after he had been guilty of a mocking speech about Anselm. Some nobles were with the King at Alvestone, and one of them spoke of the virtues of the Abbot of Bec. He was a man who loved God only, and sought for none of the things of this world. The King says in mockery, “Not for the archbishopric of Canterbury?” The remark at least shows that Anselm and the archbishopric went together in the King’s thoughts as well as in the thoughts of other men.[1088] The lord who had spoken answered that, in his belief and in that of many others, the archbishopric was the very thing which Anselm least wished for.[1089] The King laughed again, and said that, if Anselm had any hope of the archbishopric, he would clap his hands and stamp with his feet, and run into the King’s arms. But he added, “By the face of Lucca, he and every other man who seeks the archbishopric may this time give way to me; for I will be archbishop myself.”[1090] He repeated the jest several times. Presently sickness came upon him, and, in a few hours, he took to his bed. He was carried in haste from Alvestone to the neighbouring city, where he could doubtless find better quarters and attendance.[1091] He lay sick during the whole of Lent; but, unless his sickness began somewhat earlier, the whole of the events with which we have to deal must have been crowded into the first few days of the penitential season. At all events, during the first week of Lent, William Rufus was lying at Gloucester, sick of a sickness which both himself and others deemed to be unto death.[1092]

[Sidenote: Repentance of Rufus.]

[Sidenote: Advice of the prelates and nobles.]

[Sidenote: Anselm sent for.]

[Sidenote: Anselm and Rufus.]

[Sidenote: Rufus promises amendment.]

[Sidenote: His proclamation.]

[Sidenote: General satisfaction.]

The heart of the Red King was not yet wholly hardened; with sickness came repentance. Believing himself to be at the gates of the next world, his conscience awoke, and he saw in their true light the deeds which he had been so long doing in this world. He no longer jested at his own crimes and vices; he bemoaned them and began to think of amendment. The great men of the realm, bishops, abbots, and lay nobles, pressed around his sick bed, looking for his speedy death, and urging him to make what atonement he could for his misdeeds, while he yet lived. Let him throw open his prisons; let him set free his captives; let him loose those who were in chains; let him forgive his debtors――it is again assumed that a debt to the Crown must be a wrongful debt――let him provide pastors for the churches which he holds in his hands; above all, let him set free the head church of all, the church of Canterbury, whose bondage was the most crying wrong of his kingdom.[1093] All this they pressed, each to the best of his power, on the no longer unwilling mind of the King. It bethought them moreover that there was one not far off, who was more skilled than any of them in healing the diseases of the soul, and whose words would strike deeper into the heart of the penitent than the words of any other. The Abbot of Bec was still in England; he was even, knowing nothing of what was going on, tarrying at no great distance from Gloucester.[1094] A messenger was sent, bidding him come with all speed; the King was dying, and needed his spiritual help before all was over. Anselm came at once; he asked what had passed between the sick man and his directors, and he fully approved of all the counsel that they had given to the repentant sinner.[1095] The duties of confession, of amendment, of reparation, the full and speedy carrying out of all that his advisers had pressed upon him, was the only means, the only hope. By the general voice of all, Anselm was bidden to undertake the duty of making yet another exhortation to the royal penitent. Anselm spoke, and William hearkened. He more than hearkened; he answered, and for the moment he acted. He accepted all that Anselm told him; he promised to amend his ways, to rule his kingdom in mildness and righteousness. To this he pledged his faith; he made the bishops his sureties, and bade them renew the promise in his name to God before the altar.[1096] More practical still, a proclamation was put forth under the royal seal, promising to the people, in the old form, good laws, strict heed to right, strict examination into wrong. The vacant churches should be filled, and their revenues should be restored to them. The King would no longer sell them or set them to farm. All prisoners should be set free; all debts to the crown should be forgiven; all offences against the King should be pardoned, and all suits begun in the King’s name stopped.[1097] Great was the joy through the land; a burst of loyal thankfulness was in every heart and on every mouth. The rule of King William was henceforth to be as the rule of the best of the kings who had gone before him. Thanksgivings went up to God through the whole land, and earnest prayers for the welfare of so great and so good a king.[1098]

[Sidenote: Beginnings of reform.]

[Sidenote: He grants the bishopric of Lincoln to Robert Bloet.]

This was the second time that the people of England had greedily swallowed the promises of the Red King. He had already deceived them once; but kings are easily trusted, and the awful circumstances under which reform was now promised might well lead men to believe that the promise was sincere. Sincere for the moment it doubtless was; nor did the proclamation remain altogether a dead letter. The reforms were actually begun; some at least of the prisoners were set free. William also now made grants to some monasteries,[1099] and, what was more important than all, he filled the vacant bishoprics. The fame of one of the two appointments so fills the pages of our guides that we might easily forget that it was now that the staff of Remigius was given to Robert Bloet.[1100] We have heard of him already as an old servant of William the Great, and as trusted by him with the weighty letter which ruled the succession of the crown on behalf of William the Red.[1101] He was now the King’s Chancellor. He bears a doubtful character; he was not a scholar, but he was a man skilful in all worldly business; he was not a saint, but he was perhaps not the extreme sinner which some have painted him.[1102] His consecration was put off for nearly a year; and we shall meet him again in the midst of a striking and busy scene when the next year has begun. For the present we need only remember that two bishops, and not one only, were invested, according to the ancient use of England, by the royal hand at the bedside of William Rufus.

[Sidenote: March 6, 1093.]

[Sidenote: Rufus names Anselm to the archbishopric.]

[Sidenote: General delight.]

[Sidenote: Unwillingness of Anselm.]

[Sidenote: Arguments of the bishops.]

We may take for granted that it took no such struggle to change the King’s Chancellor into the Bishop-elect of Lincoln as it took to change the man on whom all eyes were now fixed into an Archbishop-elect of Canterbury. It was now a Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent; a gathering of bishops and other chief men stood around the King who was believed to be dying. He had solemnly repented; he must now make restitution. The best men among those who stood around him pressed yet more strongly on his mind the duty of at once filling the metropolitan see. The sick man answered that such was his purpose. They asked whom he deemed worthy of such a post; none dared suggest any name; the choice rested wholly with the royal will.[1103] The King made an effort; he sat up in his bed; he pointed out the Abbot of Bec among those who filled the room, and spake the words; “I choose this holy man Anselm.”[1104] The feeling which now bids men to listen in silence to the official utterances of royal lips was then unheard of; even the fear of danger to the sick man yielded to the universal joy; a loud shout of applause rang through the chamber which was soon, as men deemed, to be the chamber of death. One man alone joined not in the shout; one man grew pale and trembled in every limb. The moment so long dreaded had at last come; the burthen from which he shrank was at last to be forced on the shoulders of the struggling abbot. For in the case of Anselm the struggle was no metaphor. He was dragged to the King’s bedside to receive the investiture[1105]――no thought of the elective rights of the monks of distant Christ Church seems to have come into the head of any man. Pouring out reasons against his own appointment, Anselm withstood by main force all efforts to drag him nearer to the King. The bishops at last succeeded in drawing him apart from the crowd, and began to argue with him more quietly.[1106] They warned him not to withstand the will of God, or to refuse the work to which he was called. He saw that Christianity had almost died out in England; everything had fallen into confusion; every abomination was rife. One bolder voice――was it the voice of English Wulfstan or of Norman Gundulf?――added words such as are not often uttered in the chamber of a king, and which even then perhaps were not meant to reach kingly ears. “By the tyranny of that man”[1107]――pointing to the sick king on his bed――“we and the churches which we ought to rule have fallen into danger of eternal death; wilt thou, when thou canst help us, scorn our petition?” The appeal went on; Anselm was told how the church of Canterbury, in whose oppression all were oppressed, called to him to raise up her and them; could he, casting aside all thought for her freedom, all thought for the help of his brethren, refuse to share their work, and seek only his own ease? Anselm pleaded at length; he was old; he was unused to worldly affairs. He prayed to be allowed to abide in the peaceful calling which he loved. The bishops all the more called on him to take the rule over them which was offered to him; let him guide them in the way of God; let him pray to God for them, and they would manage all worldly affairs for him.[1108] He then pleaded that he was the subject of another realm;[1109] he owed obedience to his own prince, to his own archbishop; he could not cast off his duty to them without their leave; nay, he could not, without the consent of his own monks, cast off the duties which he owed to them. The bishops told him that the consent of all concerned would be easily gained. He protested that all that they did, all that they purposed, was nought.[1110]

[Sidenote: Anselm dragged to the King’s bedside.]

[Sidenote: Pleadings of the King.]

[Sidenote: Further pleadings of the bishops]

[Sidenote: and of his own monks.]

[Sidenote: He is invested by main force.]

[Sidenote: He is installed in the church.]

The bishops had certainly the better in the argument; they had also the better in the physical struggle; for they now dragged Anselm close to the King’s bedside. They set forth to Rufus what they called the obstinacy of the Abbot;[1111] it was for the King to try what his personal authority could do. The sick man, lately so proud and scornful, was stirred even to tears; he made a speech far longer than his wont, but which seems to carry with it the stamp of genuineness. He had raised himself to speak his formal choice with a voice of authority; he now spoke, in plaintive and beseeching words, in the ear of the holy man beside him. In the mind of Rufus at that moment it was his own personal salvation that was at stake. “O Anselm,” he whispered, “why do you condemn me to eternal torments? Remember, I pray you, the faithful friendship which my father and my mother had to you and which you had to them; by that friendship I adjure you not to let their son perish both in body and soul. For I am sure that I shall perish if I die while I still have the archbishopric in my hands.[1112] Help me then, help me, lord and father; take the bishopric for the holding of which I am already greatly confounded, and fear that I shall be confounded for ever.” Still Anselm drew back and excused himself. Then the bishops again took up their parable in a stronger tone. What madness had possessed him? He was harassing the King, almost killing him; his last moments were embittered by Anselm’s obstinacy.[1113] They gave him to know that whatever disturbances, oppressions, and crimes, might hereafter disturb England would all lie at his door, if he did not stop them that day by taking on him the pastoral care. Still――so he himself witnessed afterwards――wishing rather, if it were God’s will, to die than to take on him the archbishopric, he turned to two of his own monks who had come with him, Eustace and Baldwin of Tournay, and asked them to help him.[1114] Baldwin answered, “If it be the will of God that it shall be so, who are we that we should withstand the will of God?” His words were followed by a flood of tears, his tears by a gush of blood from his nostrils. Anselm, surely half-smiling, said, “Alas, how soon is your staff broken.” The King then, seeing that nothing was gained, bade the bishops fall at Anselm’s feet and implore him to take the see. A like scene had been gone through at Bec when it was first sought to raise Anselm to the abbacy.[1115] The bishops fell at his feet, and implored; Anselm fell at their feet, and implored back again. There was nothing to be done save the last shift of, so to speak, investing him with the bishopric by physical force. A cry was raised for a pastoral staff; the staff was brought, and was placed in the sick king’s hand.[1116] The bishops seized the right arm of Anselm; some pushed; some pulled; he was forced close up to the Kings bed. The King held out the staff; the Abbot, though his arm was stretched out against his will, held his hand firmly clenched. The bishops strove to force open his fingers, till he shrieked with the pain. After much striving, they managed to raise his forefinger, to place the staff between that one finger and his still closed hand, and to keep it there with their own hands.[1117] This piece of sheer violence was held to be a lawful investiture. The assembled crowd――we are still in the sick king’s room――began to shout “Long live the Bishop.” The bishops and clergy began to sing _Te Deum_ with a loud voice.[1118] Then the bishops, abbots, and nobles, seized Anselm, and carried rather than led him into a neighbouring church――was it the great minster of Ealdred or its successor growing up under the hands of Serlo?[1119]――while he still refused and struggled and protested that all that they did went for nothing.[1120] A looker-on, Anselm himself says, might have doubted whether a crowd in their right mind were dragging a single madman, or whether a crowd of madmen were dragging a single man who kept his right mind.[1121] Anyhow they reached the church and there went through the ceremonies which were usual on such occasions.[1122] Anselm was now deemed to have become, however much against his own will, Archbishop-elect of Canterbury.

[Sidenote: Anselm’s renewed protest.]

[Sidenote: His parable to the prelates and nobles.]

[Sidenote: Its special fitness in England.]

[Sidenote: The King orders the restitution of the lands of the see.]

From the church Anselm went back to the King’s chamber. He there renewed his protest against the appointment, but he renewed it in the form of a prophecy. “My lord the King, I tell you that you will not die of this sickness; I would therefore have you know how easily you can undo what has been this day done with regard to me, as I never agreed, nor do I agree, that it shall be held valid.”[1123] He then left the sick room, and spoke to the bishops and nobles in some other place, perhaps the hall of the castle. Whether formally summoned as such or not, they were practically a Gemót of the realm.[1124] Anselm spoke to them in a parable, founded on the apostolic figure which speaks of the Church as God’s husbandry.[1125] In England the plough of the Church ought to be drawn by two chief oxen of equal strength, each pulling with the same good will. These were the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, one ruling by worldly justice and dominion, the other by divine doctrine and teaching. So, he implies, it had been in the days of William the Great and of Lanfranc his yoke-fellow.[1126] The figure is one which will bear much study. It is perhaps in England alone that it could have been used. In the highest rank of all, used to the loftier metaphors of the two great lights of heaven and the two swords on earth, figures drawn from ploughs and oxen might have seemed unworthy of the supreme majesty of the Roman Emperor and the Roman Pontiff. In other lands the metaphor would have failed from another side. The Primate of Rheims or of Rouen could hardly be spoken of as in the same sort the yoke-fellow of the French King or the Norman Duke. In England the parable had more truth. It set forth at once the supreme ecclesiastical authority of the King, and the check which ancient custom put on that authority in the shape of an archiepiscopal tribune of the people. But the happy partnership of the two powers had come to an end. The strong ox Lanfranc was dead. His surviving yoke-fellow was a young and untameable wild bull.[1127] With him they wished to yoke an old and feeble sheep, who might perhaps furnish them with the wool and milk of the Lord’s word, and with lambs for His service,[1128] but who was utterly unequal to the task of pulling in fellowship with such a comrade. His weakness and the King’s fierceness could never work together. If they would only think over the matter, they would give up the attempt which they had begun. The joy with which they had hailed his nomination would be turned into sorrow. They talked of his raising up the Church from widowhood; if they insisted on forcing him into the see, the Church would be thrust down into a yet deeper widowhood, widowhood during the life of her pastor. He himself would be the first victim; none of them would dare to give him help, and then the King would trample them too under his feet at pleasure. He then burst into tears; he parted from the assembly, and went to his own quarters, whether in the city of Gloucester or at the unnamed place where he had before been staying.[1129] The King, foreseeing no further difficulties, gave orders that steps should be taken for investing him without delay with the temporal possessions of the see.[1130] But a whole train of unlooked-for hindrances appeared before Anselm could be put into possession of either the temporal or the spiritual powers of Lanfranc.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The royal right of investiture not questioned.]

[Sidenote: No scruples on the part of Anselm.]

[Sidenote: No ecclesiastical election.]

[Sidenote: Later change in Anselm’s views.]

[Sidenote: Gundulf’s letter to the monks of Bec.]

[Sidenote: Sole action of the King.]

At this first stage of the story, as at every other, as long as the scene is laid in England, we are struck in the strongest way by the fact that every one concerned takes the ancient customs of England for granted. If those customs have changed from what they may have been under Cnut or Eadward, they have at least not changed to the advantage of the Roman see, or indeed of the ecclesiastical power in any shape. Hildebrand has no followers either in England or in Normandy. No one has called in question the right either of the King of the English or of the Duke of the Normans to invest the prelates of his dominions with the pastoral staff. There is not one word in the whole story implying that any one had any scruple on the subject. Anselm clearly had none. He had received the staff of Bec from the Duke; if he was not ready to receive the staff of Canterbury from the King, it was not because of any scruple as to the mode of appointment, but because he refused to accept the appointment itself, however made. Not a single English bishop has a word to say on the matter. We could not look for such scruples in Wulfstan who had received his staff from the holy Eadward; but neither do they trouble William of Saint-Calais, so lately the zealous champion of the rights of Rome. If anything, the bishops seem to attribute a kind of mystic and almost sacramental efficacy to the investiture by the King’s hand. Nor is there a word said as to the rights of any ecclesiastical electors, the monks of Christ Church or any other. It is taken for granted that the whole matter rests with the King. Anselm protests against the validity of the act, but not on any ground which assumed any other elector than the King. The nomination was invalid, because he did not consent to it himself, because the Duke of the Normans, the Archbishop of Rouen, and the monks of Bec, had not consented to it. Anselm is very careful as to the rights of all these three; he has not a word to say about the rights of the monks of Christ Church. Had he been a subject of the crown of England, a bishop or presbyter of the province of Canterbury, and himself willing to accept the archbishopric, there would clearly have been in his eyes nothing irregular in his accepting it in the form in which it was forced upon him, by the sole choice and sole investiture of the King. He afterwards learned to think otherwise; but it was neither at Canterbury nor at Bec nor at Aosta that he learned such scruples. He had to go beyond English, Norman, and Burgundian ground to look for them. At present he does at every stage, as an ordinary matter of course, something which his later lights would have led him to condemn. But it certainly does seem strange when Bishop Gundulf of Rochester, in a letter to his old companions the monks of Bec, tells them that the King had given the government of the church of Canterbury to their abbot Anselm, by the advice and request of his great men and by the petition and election of the clergy and people.[1131] We have often come across such phrases;[1132] and this case, where we know every detail, may help us to estimate their meaning in some other cases. That Anselm’s appointment had been the general wish of all classes before it was made, that it received the general approval of all classes after it was made, there is no manner of doubt. But there is no sign of any formal advice, petition, or election, by any class of men at any stage. It may be that the ceremony in the church at Gloucester was held to pass for an election by the clergy and people. But that was after the King had, by the delivery of the staff, given to Anselm the government of the church of Canterbury. Even in Gundulf’s formula, the advice, petition, and election are mere helps to guide the King’s choice; it is the King who actually bestows the see. And here again, of the rights of the monks of the metropolitan church there is not a word.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Anselm tarries with Gundulf.]

[Sidenote: Consent of the Duke, the Archbishop of Rouen, and the monks of Bec.]

Several months passed after this amazing scene at Gloucester before Anselm was fully admitted to the full possession of the archbishopric. He had not yet given any consent himself, and the consents of the Norman Duke, the Norman Archbishop, and the Norman monks, on all of which Anselm laid such stress, were still to be sought for. The King sent messengers to all of them, and meanwhile Anselm was, by the King’s order, lodged on some of the archiepiscopal manors under the care of his old friend Bishop Gundulf.[1133] One may suspect that it was the influence of this prelate, a good man plainly, but not very stout-hearted, and more ready than Anselm to adapt himself to the ruling powers, which brought Anselm to the belief that he ought to give way to what he himself calls the choice of all England, and which he now allows to be the will of God. At any rate Anselm brought himself to write letters to the monks of Bec, asking their consent to his resignation of the abbey and acceptance of the archbishopric.[1134] For it was with the monks of Bec that the difficulty lay; Duke Robert and Archbishop William seem to have made no objection.[1135] It was, after much hesitation, and by a narrow majority only that the convent agreed to part with the abbot who had brought such honour upon their house.[1136] In the end all the needful consents were given. Anselm was free from all obligations beyond the sea. But he still had not given his own formal consent to the acceptance of the archbishopric. A long series of acts, temporal and spiritual, were needed to change the simple monk and presbyter, as he was now once more, into an Archbishop of Canterbury, clothed with the full powers and possessions of the Patriarch of all the nations beyond the sea. Those acts needed the consent, some of them needed the personal action, of the King. And King William the Red was now again quite another man from what he had been when he lay on his sick bed at Gloucester.

[Sidenote: The King’s recovery.]

[Sidenote: The Easter Gemót. 1093.]

[Sidenote: William falls back into evil ways.]

[Sidenote: His renewed blasphemy.]

[Sidenote: He recalls his acts of mercy.]

[Sidenote: He keeps his purpose as to Anselm.]

The King’s sickness is said to have lasted during the whole of Lent; but he seems to have been restored to health early enough to hold the Easter Gemót at Winchester.[1137] Anselm was there, in company with his guardian Bishop Gundulf and his friend Baldwin the monk of Bec; but there is no mention of any business being done between him and the King. Doubtless the needful letters had not yet come from Normandy, even if Anselm had so soon brought himself to write those which were needful on his own part. By this time William was again in full health, and, with his former state of body, his former state of mind had also come back. He had repented of his repentance; he had fallen back into all his old evil courses with more eagerness than ever. All the wrong that he had done before he fell sick was deemed to be a small matter compared with the wrong which he did after he was restored to health.[1138] It is to this stage of his life that one of the most hideous of his blasphemous sayings is assigned. Instead of thankfulness for his renewed health, he looked on his sickness as a wrong done to him by his Maker, for which he would in some way have his revenge. It was now that he told Bishop Gundulf, whom we can fancy faintly exhorting him to keep in the good frame of mind which he had put on while he lay on his sick bed――“God shall never see me a good man; I have suffered too much at his hands.”[1139] And his practice was such as became the fool who said that there was no God, or rather the deeper fool who said that there was a God, and yet defied him. He even went on to undo, as far as lay in his power, the good works which he had done during his momentary repentance. Some of the prisoners to whom he had promised deliverance were already set free, and some of those who were set free had taken themselves beyond his reach. But those who were still in safe-keeping were kept in yet harsher bondage than before; and of those who had been set free as many as could be laid hold of were sent back to their prisons. The pardons, the remissions of debts, which had been put forth were recalled. Every man who had been held liable before the King’s sickness was held liable again. His gifts to monasteries were also recalled.[1140] But one thing which William had promised to do he remained as fully minded to do as before. At no stage did he show the slightest purpose of recalling his grant of the archbishopric to Anselm. This distinction is quite in harmony with the general character of William Rufus. The reforms which he had promised, and which he had partly carried out, were part of the ordinary duty of a man in that state of life to which William had been called, the state of a king. As such, they were reckoned by him among those promises which it was beyond his power to fulfil. But his engagement to Anselm was of another kind. To say nothing of Anselm being the old friend of his father, his engagement to him was strictly personal. If it was not exactly done in the character of a good knight, it was done as the act of a man to a man. It was like a safe-conduct; it touched, not so much William’s kingly duty as his personal honour. William’s honour did not keep him back from annoying and insulting Anselm, or from haggling with him about money in a manner worthy of the chivalrous Richard himself. But it did keep him back from any attempt to undo his own personal act and promise. He had prayed Anselm to take the archbishopric; he had forced the staff, as far as might be, into Anselm’s unwilling hand. From that act he would not draw back, though he was quite ready to get any advantage for himself that might be had in the way of carrying it out.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Events of March-December, 1093.]

[Sidenote: Affairs of England and Wales.]

[Sidenote: Dealings between William and Malcolm.]

[Sidenote: Designs of Rufus on Normandy.]

[Sidenote: Action of William of Eu.]

[Sidenote: His divided allegiance.]

[Sidenote: He suggests an attack on Normandy.]

[Sidenote: William and Robert Count of Flanders.]

[Sidenote: Death of Count Robert. October 4 or 13, 1093.]

[Sidenote: Robert of Jerusalem.]

[Sidenote: Relation between William and the Flemish Counts.]

But we must not fancy that the affairs of Anselm and of the see to which he had been so strangely called were the only matters which occupied the mind of England during this memorable year. The months which passed between the first nomination of Anselm and his consecration to the archbishopric, that is, the months from March to December, were a busy time in affairs of quite another kind than the appointment of pastors of the Church. The events of those months chiefly concerned the relations of England to the other parts of the island, Welsh and Scottish, and I shall speak of them at length in another chapter. Here it is enough to say that the very week of the Easter Gemót was marked by striking events in Wales,[1141] and that during the whole time from March to August, negotiations were going on between William and Malcolm of Scotland. In August Malcolm came personally to Gloucester, but William refused to see him. Malcolm then went home in wrath, and took his revenge in a fifth and last invasion of England, in the course of which he was killed near Alnwick in the month of November. By that time Anselm was already enthroned, but not yet consecrated. The main telling of the two stories must be kept apart; but it is well always to keep the joint chronology of the two in mind. In reading the Lives of Anselm, where secular affairs are mentioned only casually, we might sometimes forget how stirring a time the year of Anselm’s appointment was in other ways; while the general writers of the time, as I have already noticed,[1142] tell us less about Anselm than we should have looked for. The affairs of Scotland and the affairs of Anselm were going on at the same time; and along with them a third chain of affairs must have begun of which we shall hear much in the next year. Rufus was by this time already planning a second attack on his brother in Normandy. Except during the short season of his penitence, he was doubtless ready for such an enterprise at any moment. And this same year, seemingly in the course of its summer, a special tempter came over from beyond sea. This was William of Eu, of whom we have already heard as the King’s enemy and of whom we shall hear again in the same character, but who just now appears as the King’s counsellor. As the owner of vast English estates, he had played a leading part in the first rebellion against William, with the object of uniting England and Normandy under a single prince.[1143] That object he still sought; but he now sought to gain it by other means. He had learned which of the brothers was the more useful master to serve. He was now, by the death of his father, Count of Eu, and Eu was among the parts of Normandy which Robert had yielded to William.[1144] For Eu then Count William was the man of King William; but he was still the man of Duke Robert for some other parts of his possessions. He thought it his interest to serve one lord only; he accordingly threw off his allegiance to Robert, and came over to England to stir up William to take possession of the whole duchy.[1145] And it must surely have been in connexion with these affairs that, at some time between March and September, William had an interview with Count Robert of Flanders at Dover. By this description we are doubtless to understand the elder Count Robert, the famous Frisian, of whom we have already heard as an enemy to the elder William,[1146] but who must now have been at least on terms of peace with his son. He was drawing near the end of his life, a memorable life, nearly the last act of which had been honourable indeed. He had, several years before the preaching of the crusade, sent a body of the choicest warriors of Flanders to defend Eastern Christendom against the Turk.[1147] Robert died in October of this year, and was succeeded by his son Robert of Jerusalem,[1148] a name which the father had an equal right to bear. The younger Robert had been associated by his father in the government of the county; but one may suppose that, when our guide speaks of Robert Count of Flanders, it is the elder Robert who is meant. He was the enemy of the elder William rather in his Norman than in his English character, and his enmity may have passed to his successor in the duchy and not to his successor in the kingdom. One can hardly help thinking that this meeting of William of England and Robert of Flanders had some reference to joint operations designed against Robert of Normandy. But, if so, the alliance was put an end to by the death of Robert the Frisian, and, when the time for his Norman enterprise came, William had to carry it on without Flemish help.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Interview between Anselm and the King at Rochester.]

By this time Anselm had received the letters from Normandy which were to make him free to accept the archbishopric; but the letters to the King from the same parties had not yet come. At this stage then Anselm wished for an interview with the King, the first――unless they met at Easter at Winchester――since they had parted in the sick room at Gloucester. William was on his way back from his meeting with the Count of Flanders at Dover; he came to Rochester, where Anselm was then staying with Bishop Gundulf. There Anselm took the King aside, and laid the case before him as it then stood.

[Sidenote: Anselm’s position.]

Anselm was at this moment, in his own view, a private man. He was no longer Abbot of Bec. His monks had released him from that office, and he had formally resigned it by sending back to them the pastoral staff.[1149] He was not yet Archbishop of Canterbury; he was not yet, in his own view, even Archbishop-elect; all that had been done at Gloucester he counted for null and void. But he was now free to accept the archbishopric, and, though he still did not wish for the post, he had got over the scruples which had before led him to refuse it. In such a case he deemed it his duty to be perfectly frank with the King, and to tell him on what terms only he would accept the primacy, if the King still persisted in offering it to him.

[Sidenote: His conditions with the King.]

[Sidenote: Restoration of the estates of the see.]

[Sidenote: He demands to be the King’s spiritual guide.]

The conditions which Anselm now laid before William Rufus were three. The first of them had to do with the temporal estates of the archbishopric. I have elsewhere spoken of the light in which we ought to look at demands of this kind.[1150] We may be sure that Anselm would gladly have purchased the peace of the land, the friendship of the King, or anything that would profit the souls or bodies of other men, at the cost of any temporal possessions which were strictly his own to give up. But, if he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he would become a steward of the church of Canterbury, a trustee for his successors, the guardian of gifts which had been given to God, His saints, and His Church. In any of these characters, it would be a sin against his own soul and the souls of others, if he willingly allowed anything which had ever been given to his church to be taken from her or detained from her. If the King chose to keep the see vacant and to turn its revenues to his own use, that would be his sin and not Anselm’s; but Anselm would be a sharer in the sin, if he accepted the see without requiring full restitution of everything to which the see had a lawful claim. In the private conference at Rochester, he therefore demanded, as a condition of his accepting the see, that he should receive all that Lanfranc had held, without delay or dispute or process in any court. As for lands to which his church had an ancient claim, but which Lanfranc had been unable to win back, for those he demanded that the King should do him justice in his court.[1151] The second demand touched the ancient relations between the crown and the archbishopric. The sheep, about to be yoked with the wild bull, sought to make terms with his fierce comrade. Anselm demanded that, in all matters which touched God and Christianity, the King should take him as his counsellor before all other men; as he acknowledged in the King his earthly lord, so let the King acknowledge in him his ghostly father and the special guardian of his soul.[1152]

[Sidenote: Acknowledgement of Popes.]

[Sidenote: Schism in the papacy. Victor the Third. 1086-1087. Urban the Second. 1088-1099. Urban and Clement.]

[Sidenote: English feeling on the subject.]

[Sidenote: Anselm requires to be allowed to acknowledge Urban.]

To these two requests Anselm added a third, one which touched a point on which the Red King seems to have been specially sensitive. It had been the rule of his father’s reign that no Pope should be acknowledged in England without his consent.[1153] William Rufus seems to have construed this rule in the same way in which he construed some others. From his right to nominate to bishoprics and abbeys he had inferred a right not to nominate to them; so, from his right to judge between contending popes, he inferred the right to do without acknowledging any pope at all. And, if the King acted in this way for his own ends, the country at large seems to have shown a remarkable indifference to the whole controversy. To Englishmen and to men settled in England it was clearly a much greater grievance to be kept without an Archbishop of Canterbury than it was to be left uncertain who was the lawful pope. At this moment the Western Church was divided between the claims of Wibert or Clement, the Imperial anti-pope of the days of Hildebrand, and those of Urban, formerly Odo of Ostia, who, after the short reign of Victor, stepped into Hildebrand’s place. In the eyes of strict churchmen Urban was the true Vicar of Christ, and Wibert was a wicked intruder and schismatic. Yet it will be remembered that Lanfranc himself had, when the dispute lay between Wibert and Hildebrand, spoken with singular calmness and caution of a question which to more zealous minds seemed a matter of spiritual life and death.[1154] Our own Chronicler seems to have measured popes, as well as kings and bishops, by the standard of possession; he found it hard to conceive a pope that “nothing had of the settle at Rome.”[1155] Even Anselm’s own biographer speaks very quietly on the point. Two rival candidates claimed the popedom; but which was the one rightly chosen no one in England, we are told, knew――or seemingly cared.[1156] Another of our guides describes Urban and Clement as alike men of personal merit, and looks on the controversy as one in which there was much to be said on both sides. The chief argument for Urban was that his supporters seemed to increase in number; otherwise no one really knew on which side the divine right was. In England opinion was divided; but fear of the King――so we are told――made it lean on the whole to Clement.[1157] Earlier in the reign we have heard Bishop William of Durham talk a great deal about going to the Pope; but he had taken care not to say to which pope he meant to go, and in the end he had not gone to either.[1158] With Anselm the matter was more serious. Urban was his pope. All the churches of Gaul had acknowledged him; Bec and the other churches of Normandy had acknowledged him along with the rest.[1159] From the obedience which he had thus plighted he could not fall back. He told the King that, though he, King William, had not acknowledged Urban, yet he, Anselm, must continue to acknowledge him and to yield him such obedience as was his due.[1160] To be allowed freely to do so must be one of the conditions of his accepting the archbishopric.

[Sidenote: The King’s counsellors; Count Robert and Bishop William.]

[Sidenote: The Bishop’s new policy.]

[Sidenote: The King’s answer.]