In these accounts almost the only direct contradiction as to matters of fact comes in at the end, about the surrender of the castle of Durham to the King. The Chronicle certainly seems to imply a siege; and, reading the Chronicle only without reference to anything else, we should have thought that the Bishop himself was besieged there. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes the story wind up between the King and the Bishop in a wonderfully friendly way. But on this point we can have little doubt in accepting the version which I have followed in the text (see [p. 114]), namely that the Bishop was not at Durham, that the castle was surrendered after a good deal of haggling, and perhaps a little plundering, on both sides, but with nothing that could be called a regular siege. In short, the Chronicler makes a little too much of the fact that the castle was surrendered to a military force. William of Malmesbury, on the other hand, makes a little too much of the fact that the Bishop was not, strictly speaking, driven from England by a judicial sentence, but that he rather went by virtue of a proposal of his own making. The only other question of strict fact which could be raised is as to the ravages which the Chronicler says were wrought by the Bishop. The picture in William of Malmesbury of the Bishop turning against the King without any provocation on his part, and the picture in the History of the Church of Durham of the men who stirred up strife between the King and the Bishop, are merely the necessary colouring from opposite sides. The only important point on this head is that the disposition to make the best of the Bishop’s conduct seems to have been general at Durham, and that it is not confined to the narrative which must have been written either by himself or under his immediate inspiration. But we must remember that the general career of William of Saint-Calais at Durham, his bringing in of monks and his splendid works of building, were sure to make him pass into the list of local worthies, so that local writers, both at the time and afterwards, would be led to make the best of his conduct in any matter.
Of the Bishop’s own story, or at least the story of some local writer who told it as the Bishop wished it to be told, I have given the substance in the text. And, as its examination does not involve any very great amount of comparison of one statement with another, I have given the most important illustrative passages in the form of notes to the text. I have said that, after all, there is little real contradiction in direct statements of fact between this version and that of the southern writers. We find the kind of differences which are sure to be found when we have on one side a general narrative, written without any special purpose, a narrative doubtless essentially true, but putting in or leaving out details almost at random, while we have on the other side a very minute and ingenious apology, enlarging on all points on which it was convenient to enlarge, and leaving out those which might tell the other way. But the truth is that the Bishop’s own statement of his services done to the King (see pp. 29, 111), and the charge which was formally brought against him by the King (see [p. 98]), do not really contradict one another. They may be read as a consecutive story, according to which the Bishop continued to be the King’s adviser, and to do him good outward service, after he had made up his mind to join the rebels and while he was waiting for an opportunity of so doing. It is most likely this special double-dealing which led the Chronicler to his exceptionally strong language with regard to the Bishop’s treason. The only point where there seems any kind of contradiction in fact is with regard to the dates. From the Chronicler and the other writers on the King’s side we should have thought that there was no open revolt anywhere till after Easter, whereas it is plain from the Durham story that a great deal must have happened in south-eastern England much earlier in the year. On this point the Durham version, a version founded on documents and minutely attentive to dates, is of course to be preferred. With the other writers the Bishop’s affairs are secondary throughout, and the affairs of Kent and Sussex are secondary in the first stage of the story. Till they come to the exciting scenes of the sieges of Tunbridge and Pevensey, the attention of the Chronicler, Florence, and the others, is mainly given to the affairs of the region stretching from Ilchester to Worcester. We may infer from them that the occupation of Bristol and the march against Worcester did not happen till after Easter, while we must infer from the Durham account that the movements in London, Kent, and Sussex, had happened not later than the beginning of March. There is in short no real contradiction; there is only that kind of difference which there is sure to be found when one writer gives a general view of a large subject with a general object, while another gives a minute view of one part of the subject with a special object.
We can have little doubt in accepting the fact of the Bishop’s treason, not only on the authority of the Chronicler and the other writers who follow him, but on the strength of the proceedings in the King’s court. In the Bishop’s own story a definite charge is brought against him, and he never really answers it. He goes off into a cloud of irrelevant questions, and into a statement of services done to the King, a statement which most likely is perfectly true, but which is no answer to the indictment. The great puzzle of the whole story, namely why Bishop William should have turned against the King at all, is not made any clearer on either side.
It is certainly strange that this whole story of Bishop William, so minutely told as it is and illustrating so many points in our law and history, should have drawn to itself so little attention as it has done. Thierry takes no notice of it. It would indeed be hard to get anything about “Saxons and Normans” out of it. For, though the “indocta multitudo” may fairly pass for “Saxons,” yet these same “Saxons,” if hostile to the Cenomannian Bishop, are loyally devoted to the Norman King. Lappenberg also passes by the story altogether. Sir Francis Palgrave (Normandy and England, iv. 31, 46) makes some references to it which are provokingly short, as it is the kind of story to which he could have done full justice. Dr. Stubbs (Const. Hist. i. 440) has given a summary of the chief points in debate. But I believe that I may claim to be the first modern writer who has told the tale at full length in a narrative history. There are very few stories which bring the men and the institutions of the latter part of the eleventh century before us in a more living way, while the conduct of William of Saint-Calais at this stage must specially be borne in mind when we come to estimate his later conduct in the controversy with Anselm.
The Deliverance of Worcester in 1088.
The story of the deliverance of Worcester is one of those stories in which we can trace the early stages of legendary growth. It is one of the tales in which a miraculous element appears, but in which we can hardly say that there is any distortion of fact. The story is told in a certain way, and with a certain colouring, with which a modern writer would not tell it. Effects are attributed to causes to which a modern writer would not attribute them. But this is all. The mere facts are perfectly credible. There is no reason to doubt that Wulfstan exhorted the royal troops and excommunicated the rebels. There is no reason to doubt that the rebels were utterly defeated by the royal troops. And we may well believe that, in a certain sense, the defeat of the rebels was largely owing to the exhortations and excommunications of Wulfstan. The only legendary element in the story is to treat a result as miraculous which, under the circumstances, was thoroughly natural.
We have several accounts from contemporary or nearly contemporary writers. First comes the Peterborough Chronicler. After the passage quoted in p. 48, he goes on;
“Ðas þing geseonde se arwurða bisceop Wlfstan wearð swiðe gedrefed on his mode, forðig him wæs betæht þe castel to healdene. Ðeahhweðer his hiredmen ferdon ut mid feawe men of þam castele, and þurh Godes mildheortnisse and þurh þæs bisceopes geearnunga ofslogon and gelæhton fif hundred manna, and þa oðre ealle aflymdon.”
Here is nothing miraculous, only a very natural tendency to ascribe the deliverance to the prayers and merits of the Bishop. The version of Simeon of Durham (1088) gives us the “yearning” of Wulfstan in the more dramatic shape of a spoken prayer;