Leaders of the People: Studies in Democratic History

by Joseph Clayton

A year later (March, 1095) at a great council of bishops and nobles, held at the castle of Rockingham, the king’s hatred had full vent. From the first the Archbishop of Canterbury received from the Pope a pallium, the white woollen stole with four crosses, which was “the badge of his office and dignity,”[2] and Anselm was anxious to journey to Rome to obtain his pallium from Pope Urban. William objected to this on the ground that there was another claimant to the papacy, and that until he had decided who was the rightful pope no one in England had a right to do so. In vain Anselm pointed out that he, with all Normandy, had acknowledged Urban before he had become archbishop. William retorted angrily that Anselm could only keep his faith to the Apostolic See by breaking his faith to the king.

The council of Rockingham met to settle the question—not the question of the supremacy of Rome in Western Christendom[3]—but the question whether, in England, there was any higher authority than the crown. William did not pretend to dispute the papal supremacy in the Church. His claim was that the king alone must first acknowledge the pope before any of his subjects could do so. In reality the king’s one desire was “to take from Anselm all authority for maintaining the Christian religion. For as long as any one in all the land was said to hold any power except through him, even in the things of God, it seemed to him that the royal dignity was diminished.” (Eadmer.) William acknowledged Pope Urban readily enough, but he would have Archbishop Anselm understand that the papacy must be acknowledged by permission of the king of England. That was the real ground of contention between these two men: was there any power on earth higher in England than the English crown? According to William, to appeal to Rome was to dispute the absolutism of the crown. Anselm maintained that in all things of God he must render obedience to the Chief Shepherd and Prince of the Church, to the Vicar of St. Peter; and in matters of earthly dignity he must render counsel and service to his lord the king.

The bishops at Rockingham were the king’s men. Many of them had bought their bishoprics, all were afraid of the royal displeasure. The stand made by Anselm, unsupported though he was, did something to inspire a better courage in the ranks of the clergy[4]; but in that Lent of 1095 there was no sign of support for the archbishop. William only wanted to break the will of this resolute old man, the one man in all the kingdom who dared to have a mind and utterance of his own, and the mitred creatures of the king supported their lord even to the point of recommending the forcible deposition of Anselm from his see, or at least of depriving him of the staff and ring of office. With one consent the bishops accepted the king’s suggestion of renouncing all obedience to Anselm.

But the barons were not so craven. To the king’s threat, “No man shall be mine, who will be his” (Anselm’s), the nobles said bluntly that not having taken any oath of fealty to the archbishop they could not abjure it. And Anselm was their archbishop. “It is his work to govern the Christian religion in this land, and we who are Christians cannot deny his guidance while we live here.”

The three days’ conference at Rockingham ended in disappointment to the hopes of William of absolute autocracy, and in general contempt for the prelates whose abject servility had availed nothing.

Anselm alone stood higher in the eyes of the men of England, and greater was the ill-will of William. For another two years Anselm held his ground against the king. The pallium was brought from Rome by Walter, Bishop of Albano, and placed on the altar at Canterbury, and Anselm was content to take it from the altar. William had written in vain to Pope Urban praying for the deposition of Anselm, and promising a large annual tribute to Rome if his prayer was granted. The pope, of course, declined to do anything of the sort, and William had to make the best of the situation. He wanted money for his own purposes, and his barons were now against him in his quarrel with the archbishop. For a time William adopted a semblance of peace with Anselm, but his anger soon blazed out again. The ground of complaint this time was that the soldiers whom the archbishop had sent to the king for his military expedition against Wales were inadequate—without proper equipment, and unfit for service. The archbishop was summoned to appear before the King’s Court to “do the king right.”

From the time of his acceptance of the archbishopric, Anselm had been hoping against hope that the king would support him, as the Conqueror had supported Lanfranc, in the building up of the Christian religion in England—this summons to the King’s Court was the death-blow to all these hopes. The defendant in the King’s Court was at the mercy of the king, who could pronounce whatever judgment he pleased.[5] Anselm returned no answer to the summons, but his mind was made up.

“Having knowledge that the king’s word ruled all judgment in the King’s Court, where nothing was listened to except what the king willed, it seemed to Anselm unbecoming that he should contend, as if disputing, as litigants do, about a matter of words, and should submit the justice of his cause to the judgment of a court where neither law, nor equity, nor reason prevailed. So he held his peace, and gave no answer to the messenger.” (Eadmer.)

From the despotism of the Red King Anselm would turn for justice to the centre of Christendom. In England he was impotent to stem the evil that flowed from the savage absolutism of the throne. All that one man could do to resist the royal tyranny Anselm had done, and now this summons to the King’s Court was the final answer to all his efforts to restrain a lawless king, and to promote the Christian religion in England. He would not go through the farce of pleading in the King’s Court, where judgment was settled by the unbridled caprice of the king, self-respect forbade the archbishop from that; he would appeal to the only court on earth higher than the courts of kings—the court whose head, in those days, was the head of Christendom.[6]

William dropped the summons to the King’s Court, and for a time refused permission to Anselm to leave the country. Bishops and barons now urged Anselm not to persist in his appeal to Rome. But the archbishop was resolute, and in the autumn of 1097 the king yielded, and Anselm left the country.[7]