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.”
THE QUARREL OF WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM (1093–94).
Source.—Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, p. 47. (Rolls Series.)
At that time the king, straining with all his power to seize Normandy from his brother Robert, spent lavishly on this object a large sum of money collected from every possible quarter, so that he began to experience not a few difficulties which were thought incompatible with the king’s dignity. The new prelate was therefore recommended by his friends to offer to the king 500l. of silver, which he did, hoping and believing their promises that hereby he would secure thenceforward the king’s lasting favour, and would obtain his willing support for all godly works, and win peace and protection for the interests of the church within and without against all enemies. The king, hearing of this offer, expressed his thanks with the word “Excellent.” But certain evilminded folk, as usual, induced the king contemptuously to reject the money offered. They said, “Here is a man whom you have honoured, enriched and exalted above all the chief men of England; yet now, when he ought to give you 2000l. or at least 1000l., considering your necessity, in return for your lavish favours, he offers a miserable 500l. Do not put up with it, change your mind, and you will see that he will be influenced by the fear which others feel, and, to recover your goodwill, will be only too glad to double his offer of 500l.” The king, in fact, pursued this plan with all his subjects; when any of them offered him any money, with the sole desire to gain his favour, he rejected the gift, unless the amount tallied with his desires, and refused to admit the donor to his continued favour, unless he would increase the gift to the king’s satisfaction. These grumblers, therefore, expected that Anselm would be moved by fear like the rest and driven forthwith to fulfil the king’s wishes by increasing the sum. So he was informed that the king had rejected his money, which amazed him. He went to the king and asked if the refusal was the king’s own act or not. Being told that it was so, he expostulated with him, saying, “My lord, I beg you not to do so; do not refuse to take what I now offer you; for though it be your archbishop’s first gift, it will not be the last. Indeed I maintain that it would be more profitable and more honourable to you to take little from me with affectionate freedom and at frequent intervals than to seize much by forcible exactions involving servility. Admit affectionate freedom, and you shall have at your service myself and my all; insist on servility, and you shall have neither.” The king was wroth, and said in a passion, “Mind your own affairs, and I will mind mine; away with you!” He rose and went, meditating, it may be, that it was not without significance that on the first day of his entry into his see the gospel had been, “No man can serve two masters.” Quickly recovering himself, he said, “Blessed be God Almighty, who of His mercy has preserved me from all evil report. For had the king graciously accepted what I offered him, verily the evil men who abound would have deemed it money promised beforehand for the bishopric, and now rendered under the cloak of a free gift. But now what shall I do? I will give the money intended for the king not to him but to Christ’s poor for the ransom of his soul, and will devoutly pray to Christ to pour down His grace upon him and defend me from all evil.” He afterwards sued for the king’s favour by messengers, but obtained it not because he would not double the money, and so after the festival (Christmas) he left the court, busying himself with the distribution of his offering to Christ’s poor, as he had determined....
Some days afterwards, by the king’s command, almost all the bishops assembled at Hastings with the chief men of England, the bishops to bless and the others to accompany the king on his intended passage to Normandy. And father Anselm came also to pray urgently for the protection of the king from the perils of the sea. The wind, however, was unfavourable for the king’s crossing, and king and barons were delayed there more than a month....
On one day he came to the king according to his wont, and sitting by him began to speak thus, “My lord king, you have resolved to cross the sea and subdue Normandy to your sovereignty. But in order that these and other your desires may turn out to your prosperity, I pray you, lend your aid and counsel to the restoration to this your realm of the Christian religion, which has now almost wholly perished in many ways.” He answered, “What aid, what counsel?” “Command,” said Anselm, “if it please you, that councils as of old be held, that things done amiss be discussed in common, and that discussion be followed by trial, trial by conviction and conviction by judgment. For no general council of bishops has been held in England since you became king and for many years before. In consequence many evils have grown up, and with none to check them, have waxed overstrong by the pernicious force of custom.” The king rejoined, “When I think fit, I will deal with these matters, and not at your will but at mine. The question shall be raised later.” And he added with a sneer, “As for you, what do you propose to talk about in a council?...” He replied, “There are many abbeys in the land destitute of their pastors, on account whereof the monks abandon their order for worldly indulgence and pass away without confession. Wherefore I counsel, I pray, I warn you to examine the matter carefully, and to institute abbots according to God’s will, that by the destruction of monasteries and the damnation of monks you yourself come not to perdition, which God forbid.” The king could restrain his anger no longer, but said, quite beside himself with passion, “What business is that of yours? Are not the abbeys mine? What? are you to do as you please with your towns, and not I with my abbeys?” He replied, “They are yours indeed, for you to defend and maintain as their guardian, but they are not yours for you to break into and lay them waste. We know they are God’s, that his ministers may live thereby, and not that your expeditions and wars may be undertaken from their revenues. You have many towns and the rents thereof for the ample administration of your affairs. May it please you to leave to the churches what is theirs?” “By heaven,” said the king, “your words are intolerable; your predecessor would never have dared to speak so to my father. I will do nothing for you.” Anselm realised that he was talking to the winds, and rose and left him.
Feeling, however, that the king’s former anger was manifest in such answers, and reflecting that, if the king’s heart were incensed, there would be no peace, for the sake of the general welfare, and to achieve more abundant results for God by securing the royal favour for himself, he humbly sued the king through the mouth of the bishops, freely to receive him into his friendship. “If he refuses,” he said, “let him say why; and if I have offended, I am ready to make amends.” This was reported to the king, who answered, “I have nothing to blame him for, but I will not extend my favour to him, for I hear no reason why I should.” When the bishops brought this answer, he was puzzled by the words “I hear no reason why I should.” They said, “The mystery is clear enough; if you want peace, you must offer him more money. Lately you proffered him 500l., and he refused to take it, because it was too little; if you will take our advice and do what we do in similar circumstances, give him now the same 500l. and promise him a like sum to be taken by you from your men; we are sure that he will restore you to favour and permit a peaceable fulfilment of your wishes. We can see no other way out of it, and in our own case, we have no other way in face of such obstacles.” He at once grasped the effect of this advice upon himself, and said “I cannot take that way. You say that though he brings no charge against me, he is yet so much enraged that he can be appeased only by 1000l.; now if I, a new bishop, can appease him with such a gift, his anger will break out again habitually, demanding a like sop. Apart from that, after the death of Lanfranc, my predecessor, of venerable memory, my men were robbed and plundered; and shall I, before I have done anything to restore their estate, rob them, naked as they are, nay, break the hearts of men already stripped? God forbid....” They replied, “At least, we are sure, you will not refuse the 500l. you offered before.” He answered, “I will not give him even that, for when I offered, he rejected it, and besides, I have already given the greater part to the poor, as I promised.” The king was told, and ordered this reply to be brought to him: “Yesterday I hated him much; to-day I hate him more; let him know that to-morrow and after I shall hate him always worse and worse. I will count him no further as father or archbishop; I entirely abominate and curse his blessings and his sermons. He may go where he chooses; let him wait no longer to bless my passage.” So we[26] hastened away from the court and left him to his will. For his part, he crossed to Normandy, and though he spent enormous sums of money, he could by no means conquer it.