THE ILLNESS OF WILLIAM RUFUS, AND THE APPOINTMENT OF ANSELM AS ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY (1093).
Source.—Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, p. 30. (Rolls Series.)
One day one of the chief men of the realm, a favourite of the king, happened to say to him among other things in the course of conversation: “We have never known a man of holiness so great, we honestly believe, as Anselm abbot of Bec; he loves nothing beside God, and, as the whole of his work makes manifest, he covets nothing transitory.” The king rejoined with a sneer, “No, not even the archbishopric of Canterbury.” The other replied, “No, not even that has a very great attraction for him, in the opinion of myself and many others.” Whereupon the king swore that the abbot would rush to accept it with open arms, if he had the slightest hope of attaining to it, and added, “But, by the Holy Cross of Lucca,” as he was accustomed to swear, “neither he nor any other shall be archbishop at present, except myself.” He had scarcely spoken when he was seized by illness and took to his bed, growing daily worse until he was at the point of death. Why continue? All the chief men of the whole realm came together, bishops, abbots and all the nobles, looking for nothing but his death. The sick man was urged to take thought for the salvation of his soul, to open the prisons, to set free the prisoners, to unloose the bound, to pardon debts, to restore to liberty the churches still in bondage under his lordship, by setting pastors over them, and above all the church of Canterbury, “the oppression whereof,” they said, “lays a hateful burden upon the whole church of Christ in England.” Anselm at this time, in ignorance of this event, was staying in a town not far from Gloucester, where the king lay sick. He was commanded, therefore, to come to the king with all speed and by his presence to comfort and strengthen him on his deathbed. Hearing such news he made haste to come, and on his arrival came to the king, who asked him what he deemed the most wholesome counsel for a dying man; the abbot asked to be first informed what counsel had been given to the sick prince by those around him before his own coming. He heard and approved, adding: “It is written, ‘Begin by confession to the Lord’; wherefore it seems to me that he should first make a good confession of all that he knows himself to have done against God, and should promise without insincerity to amend all if he recover, and then should order to be performed without delay what you have advised him.” This precise counsel was approved, and the task of hearing the confession enjoined upon the abbot. The king was informed what Anselm had urged as the best means for the saving of his soul, and straightway he acquiesced and with a contrite heart promised to do everything which the abbot’s judgment decided, and to conduct the whole of his life in gentleness and justice. To this he pledged his faith, and made his bishops sureties between him and God, sending one of them in his stead to make this his vow to God upon the altar. The order was written and confirmed by the royal seal, that all prisoners in the whole of his dominion should be released, all debts irrevocably cancelled, and all offences committed hitherto consigned to everlasting oblivion. Moreover righteous and holy laws were promised to all people, the inviolable observance of justice, and a weighty and deterrent trial of abuses. All men rejoiced and God was blessed herein, and urgent prayers were offered for the salvation of so good and great a king.
Thereupon all good men entreated the king to release from her long widowhood the common mother of the whole realm by instituting a pastor thereto. He willingly consented and admitted that he had changed his mind. The question, therefore, was asked, who was most worthy to enjoy this honour, and while all were hanging on the king’s decision, he himself announced, amid the unanimous acclamation of all, that abbot Anselm was worthiest thereof. Anselm was alarmed at his words and grew pale; and when he was forced to approach the king to receive investiture of the archbishopric from his hand by the pastoral staff, he resisted with the whole of his strength, and declared that for many reasons it was altogether impossible.... He said: “I am the abbot of a monastery of another realm, having an archbishop to whom I owe obedience, an earthly prince to whom I owe submission, and monks to whom I owe the ministrations of counsel and assistance. To all these I am so bound that I can neither abandon the monks without their consent, nor loose myself from my prince’s lordship without his permission, nor disown obedience to my bishop without peril to my soul unless he absolve me.” The bishops rejoined, “That is a light matter, all will readily consent.” He replied, “Not so; what you purpose can never be.” Thereupon they dragged him to the sick king and set forth his obstinacy. The king was distressed almost to tears ... but recognising that the labour of all of them was in vain, he ordered them all to fall on their knees at his feet, to see if by that means he could be induced to consent. To what end? When they knelt, he knelt too before them and would not alter his first decision. They were angry with him, and blaming their own stupidity for the delay they had suffered by listening to his objections, they cried out “The pastoral staff, bring the pastoral staff hither.” Then, seizing his right hand, some dragged, others pushed the struggling abbot, and gradually they reached the sick man’s bedside. The king proffered him the staff, but he closed his hand against it and wholly refused to take it. The bishops struggled to unclasp his tightly clenched fingers, that the staff might be thrust into his hand. But after they had wasted their efforts for some time, and he groaned with the pain inflicted upon him, at last his forefinger was raised but bent backwards, the staff was laid against his closed hand and squeezed and held in it by the hands of the bishops. The whole throng cried out, “Long live the bishop,” the bishops and clergy lifted up their voices and began to sing “Te deum laudamus,” and carried rather than led the bishop elect to the nearest church, he resisting the while as well as he could, and saying: “It is all void, it is all void.” After they had performed the customary ritual in the church, Anselm was brought back to the king and said to him, “I tell you, my lord king, that you will not die of your illness, and I wish you to know this that you will be able to set right what has now been done with me, for I have not consented and do not consent to its ratification....” The king however ordered him to be invested without delay and diminution with all things belonging to the archbishopric within and without, and further that the city of Canterbury, which Lanfranc in his time held of the king as a fee, and the abbey of St. Albans, which not only Lanfranc but also his predecessors are known to have held, should pass as an alodiary[25] possession for ever to Christ Church, Canterbury, for the redemption of his soul.... The king recovered, as Anselm had foretold, and soon undid all the good that he had decreed in his illness, and ordered it to be annulled. The prisoners who had not yet been released he ordered to be kept more straitly than usual, those who had been released to be retaken if possible, old debts now pardoned to be exacted in full, pleas and offences to be recalled to their original standing, and to be tried and decided by the judgment of men who were concerned rather to subvert justice than to maintain and defend it, and interested rather in oppressing the wretched and in spoiling men of their wealth than in correcting any crime. Wherefore there grew throughout the realm so vast a woe and so woeful a waste that he who remembers it, I judge, remembers to have never seen the like in England. Indeed every evil that the king had done before his illness seemed a good thing in comparison with the evils he did after his return to health. And if any man will know the source from which they flowed, they can judge by his answer to the bishop of Rochester, when the latter in friendly conversation warned him after his recovery that he should in all things behave more circumspectly towards God: “Be sure, bishop,” he said, “by the Holy Cross of Lucca, that God shall never have me good because of the evil He has brought upon me.”