This letter one would have been inclined to place in 1097; but, unless we can understand the “regnum Anglorum” as taking in Wales, the mention of wars would seem to fix it to the time of the rebellion of Robert of Mowbray in 1095, when the war did indeed affect Anselm’s movements. In the same letter he makes intercession for Fulk Bishop of Beauvais, one of the prelates to whom he had written at the time of his own appointment to the archbishopric (see iii. 11, and above, p. 576), on account of some matter which is not explained.
To Paschal he writes a most important letter (iii. 40) at some time during the short interval between Paschal’s election and William’s death; here he sets forth his own case very distinctly;
“Videbam in Anglia multa mala quorum ad me pertinebat correctio, quæ nec corrigere nec sine peccato meo tolerare poteram. Exigebat enim a me rex ut voluntatibus suis, quæ contra legem et voluntatem Dei erant, sub nomine rectitudinis assensum præberem. Nam sine sua jussione apostolicum nolebat recipi aut appellari in Anglia, nec ut epistolam ei mitterem aut ab eo missam reciperem, vel decretis ejus obedirem. Concilium non permisit celebrari in regno suo ex quo rex factus jam per tredecim annos. Terras ecclesiæ hominibus suis dabat; in omnibus his et similibus si consilium petebam, omnes de regno ejus etiam suffraganei mei episcopi negabant se consilium daturos nisi secundum voluntatem regis.”
Here we have Anselm’s grievances very clearly set forth, and without any kind of exaggeration or strong language of any kind. We may also mark the legal term “rectitudo.” He next goes on to describe the council of Winchester;
“Hæc et multa alia, quæ contra voluntatem et legem Dei sunt, videns, petii licentiam ab eo sedem adeundi apostolicam, ut inde consilium de anima mea et de officio mihi injuncto acciperem. Respondit rex me in se peccasse pro sola postulatione hujus licentiæ, et proposuit mihi ut aut de hac re, sicut de culpa, satisfacerem, et securum illum redderem ne amplius peterem hanc licentiam, nec aliquando apostolicum appellarem, aut de terra ejus cito exirem.”
He then describes the dealings of the King with the estates of the see after he was gone, and speaks of the dealings of Urban with the King, in the style in which it was perhaps becoming to speak to a Pope of the dealings of his predecessor;
“Rex, mox ut de Anglia exivi, taxato simpliciter victu et vestitu monachorum nostrorum, totum archiepiscopatum invasit et in proprios usus convertit. Monitus et rogatus a domino papa ut hoc corrigeret contempsit, et adhuc in hoc perseverat.”
He then asks the Pope that he may not be commanded to return to England, “nisi ita ut legem et voluntatem Dei et decreta apostolica voluntati hominis liceat mihi præferre: et nisi rex mihi terras ecclesiæ reddiderit, et quidquid de archiepiscopatu propter hoc quia sedem apostolicam petii, accepit.”
Presently a wholly new set of questions was opened by the accession of Henry and the second controversy. Anselm’s account, it will be seen, strictly agrees with the narrative of Eadmer, and we may again mark that he does not speak of lay investitures as a grievance. That is to say, William Rufus had not been to blame, or at least Anselm had not found out that he was to blame, for continuing the ancient custom of his kingdom. Henry was to blame because he claimed to continue that right in the teeth of the new decrees, and of the new lights which Anselm had learned from them.