And nothing at all for Christ's sake,
Such that been full fat and ranke,
To soul-heale none heed they take."
Perhaps, after all, as the Bishop had suggested, his mission lay in stemming the tide of scorn and distrust that was turning the people away from Holy Church. After all, it was a stirring thought. The sermon delivered, his whole being quivered with a new-born sense of power. The delight of swaying great multitudes was upon him. The pomp and pride of the place had entered into his veins. A mighty ambition swept through him which was by no means a mere carnal desire after great wealth or position. It was not that he craved the Bishopric of Ely with its ten palaces of residence scattered through Hertfordshire, Huntingtonshire, and Cambridgeshire, as well as on the isle of Ely. It was not that he longed to ride forth in state with banners flying and men arrayed in his livery, and the arms of the See blazoned on many a shield. Well was he familiar with the sight of the arms of the noble house to which Thomas of Ely belonged: Quarterly, first and fourth gules a Lion rampant Or; second and third Checquy Or and Azure; all within a Bordure engrailed Argent. These he displayed beside the arms of the See of Ely. But it was the power that went with the state that bit into him, the sitting in Westminster Hall as a Peer of the realm, and framing laws for the good of the land. Once Bishop of Ely (for he knew the archdeaconate was but a step preparatory to that), who could tell but the great See of Canterbury might be his some day, and with it the Primacy of all England? Primate of England, Adviser of the King. Ay! and more than Adviser, for when Kings were weak and Primates strong, who, then, was the true Ruler of the Realm? The great names of the English Primacy rushed through his mind: Theodore the monk of Tarsus, who had been first to lift the throne of Canterbury above all the others, and Dunstan, Abbot of Glastonbury, and Anselm, Lanfranc, adviser to the Conqueror, and Theobald and Thomas Beket, all men who had shaped the policy of England as truly as ever King had done. And once Primate of England, who knew but a second Englishman might come to sit in the chair of St. Peter? Even so, he the poor student, arriving ten years before at Oxford with not a groat in his possession and with only a few rags to hide the garment of haircloth which he had promised his mother to wear on Fridays and fast-days, he the unknown student might rise to be Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pontiff, Successor of the Prince of Apostles! Stranger things than that had happened—was not the present Pope, Urban VI, but a coarse Italian peasant, Bartholommeo Prignano by name? Was not the great Hildebrand himself the son of a Tuscan carpenter? The sons of carpenters had played a not unimportant part in the history of the Church.
Pope! what tumultuous thoughts swept through him with the very name! What visions of Majesty, of Power, of Imperial Might! The full title he rolled upon his tongue: Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Dominion of the Holy Roman Church.
Pope, Pappa, or Father. Even then there came to him the recognition that, after all, that was the proudest title of them all—Father of the People. Protector! What could Archbishop or Primate more than to obey that beautiful mandate of the Saviour, "Feed my lambs"?
Indeed, too often had the Pope tried rather to fleece them than to feed them, so that a Mediæval wit was led to remark that the Papal staff should be shaped as a pair of shears, rather than as a shepherd's crook. But he, Robert Annys, once Pope, he would enforce Reform, he would bring back the Holy Spouse to its lost purity and singleness of purpose; with his indomitable energy he would wage a merciless war on that terrible Antichrist, Robert of Geneva, who, under the name of Clement VII, was holding shameful court at Avignon. With relentless hand he would put down Simony and Licentiousness; he would put a stop to one prelate holding more than one See. Above all, he would seek to spiritualize the Church, so that men might know that temporal power was not its true life, for, as the popular song had it:—
"Christ bad Peter keepe his sheepe,
Swerde is no toole with sheep to keepe.