Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/31

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in things touching the earthly dignity of my lord the king, I will, to the best of my ability, give him faithful counsel and help.’ The cowardly bishops could not gainsay the words of Anselm, but neither did they dare carry them to the king. So Anselm went himself to the presence chamber, and repeated them in the audience of William. The king was exceedingly wroth, and consulted with the bishops and nobles concerning the answer to be given. Their perplexity was extreme. They broke up into small groups, each discussing how some answer might be framed. Anselm meanwhile, having retired to the place of assembly, rested his head against the wall, and went quietly to sleep. At last he was roused by a party of bishops and lay lords bearing a message from the king. He demanded an immediate answer from Anselm. As for the matter at issue between him and the primate, it needed no explanation. For themselves the bishops counselled Anselm to cast away his obedience to Urban, and freely submit, as became an archbishop of Canterbury, to the king's will in everything. Anselm replied that he certainly would not renounce his obedience to the pope, but as the day was far spent he asked leave to reserve his answer for the morrow. The bishops suspected this meant that he was wavering, or that he did not know what to say. The crafty and unscrupulous William of St. Calais, bishop of Durham, who was the leader of the bishops on the king's side, now thought he would be able to drive Anselm into a corner. He boasted to the king that he would force the primate either to renounce obedience to the pope, or to resign the archiepiscopal staff and ring. This fell in with the king's wishes. So the bishop of Durham and his party hastened back to Anselm, and informed him that no delay would be granted him unless he immediately reinvested the king with the imperial dignity of which he had robbed him by having made the bishop of Ostia pope without his authority. Anselm, having patiently listened to this peremptory address, calmly replied: ‘Whoever wishes to prove that I violate my allegiance to my earthly sovereign, because I will not renounce my obedience to the sovereign pontiff of the Holy Roman Church, let him come forward, and he will find me ready to answer him as I ought and where I ought.’ These last words disconcerted the bishop and his friend, for they understood him to mean that, as archbishop of Canterbury, he could not be judged by any one save the pope—a doctrine which it seems no one was prepared to deny. Meanwhile a murmur of sympathy with Anselm ran through the mixed throng. A soldier stepped forward, and, kneeling before the archbishop, said, ‘My lord father, thy children beseech thee, through me, not to be disquieted, but to be mindful how the blessed Job, on his dunghill, overcame the devil, and avenged Adam, who had been vanquished in Paradise.’ Anselm graciously received this odd address from the honest man, for it assured him that he had the good will of the people. The discomfited bishops returned to the king, and were loaded with reproaches. On the morrow, Tuesday, Anselm once more took his seat, awaiting the king's message. The councillors were perplexed. Even William of St. Calais had no course to recommend but force. The staff and ring might be wrested from the primate, and he himself expelled from the kingdom. But this suggestion did not please the lay nobles. It would be an awkward precedent if the first vassal in the kingdom were deprived of his fief at the king's pleasure. William, in a rage, told them that he would brook no equal in his kingdom; if the proposal of the bishop of Durham did not please them, let them consult and say what would; for, by the face of God, if they did not condemn Anselm, he would condemn them. Count Robert of Meulan then spoke: ‘As for our counsel I own I know not what to say; for when we have been devising plans all day, and considering how we can make them hang together, the archbishop innocently goes to sleep, and then when they are submitted to him, with one puff of his lips he blows them to pieces as if they were cobwebs.’ The king then turned to the bishops, but they had no suggestion to offer. Anselm was their primate, and they had no power to judge or condemn him, even had any crime been proved against him. The king then proposed that they might at least withdraw their obedience and brotherly intercourse from the archbishop. And to this strange suggestion they had the baseness to accede. Accompanied by some abbots, they announced their intention to Anselm, and informed him that the king also withdrew his trust and protection, and would no longer hold him for archbishop or spiritual father. Anselm mildly replied that they did ill to withdraw their allegiance from him because he refused to withdraw his own from the successor of the chief of the apostles. Although the king withdrew all protection from him, he would not cease to care for the king's soul; retaining the title, power, and office of archbishop,