in the other hand.[1] The cause of their hatred is at once supplied by his refusing to pay St. Peter's pence—denying the Pope's supremacy—banishing Anselm—promoting Flambard—holding all the bishoprics and other offices which fell vacant[2]—by his cruelties to their different orders at Canterbury and Crowland, and throughout England, whose enmity died not with his death, but made them believe that the tower of Winchester Cathedral fell because they allowed him to be buried in its nave.
Reading, in the Chroniclers, the life of the Red King seems like rather reading a series of plots against it, not by the English, who were too thoroughly cowed to make the slightest
- ↑ Let no one be startled at the fact of ecclesiastics being assassins. We have on record during this very reign the deliberate confessions by monks of plots to murder their abbots, deeming they were doing God a service. We must further keep steadily in mind that prelates then united in their own persons both sacred and military offices. How much Henry was under the influence of the monasteries his marriage and his various appointments show. Their power was enormous. In fact, I believe that the Conqueror owed his success as much to them as Rufus his death, and Henry his crown.
- ↑ At the time of his death he held in his hand the archbishopric of Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, besides eleven abbacies, all let out to rent. The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.
Wace, quoted by Sharon Turner (vol. iv. p. 169), says that a woman prophesied to Henry his speedy accession to the throne; but I am not inclined to put any faith in this story, especially as Wace's account is in poetry, where a prophetical speech might after the event be given dramatically true, without being so historically. Gaimar (MS. Bib. Reg. 13, A 21, also quoted by Turner), a rhymer, nearly contemporary, sings, "that the other archers said that the shaft came from Walter Tiril's bow." No one, however, was likely to declare, for so many reasons, that the King was murdered. We must not expect such a statement, or even look for it in the Chroniclers; we must seek for it in the contradictions, and absurdities, and prophecies which have gathered round the event.
