Chronological sequence of the history.
More complicated character of the next period. 1093-1098. follow one another in successive or nearly successive years, as the main subjects which challenge our attention. One set of events leads to another. The rebellion followed naturally on the accession; the interference of Rufus in Normandy followed naturally on the rebellion; the Scottish invasion seems to have been the immediate occasion of the banishment of Eadgar from Normandy. But during the whole of the five years there is no great interlacing of different parts of the main story; at no stage are two distinct sets of events of equal moment going on at the same time; the historian is hardly called on to forsake the arrangement of the annalist. While the events recorded by the annalist were in doing, some of the greatest changes in English history were silently going on; but they were not changes of a kind which could be set down in the shape of annals. From the end of the year which saw the restoration of Carlisle the nature of the story changes. Different scenes of the drama of equal importance are now acting at once. For the next five years we have three several lines of contemporary story, which are now and then inter-*
- [Footnote: d'Aoste, Archevêque de Cantorbéry, Paris, 1859). I have made some use
of all these; but the value even of Hasse and De Rémusat for my strictly English purpose is not great. M. Croset-Mouchet writes with a pleasant breeze of local feeling from the Prætorian Augusta, but he is utterly at sea as to everything in our island.
In our own tongue the life of Anselm has been treated by a living and a dead friend of my own, holding the same rank in the English Church. Dean Hook, I must say with regret, utterly failed to do justice to Anselm. This is the more striking, as he did thorough justice to Thomas. From Dr. Hook's point of view it needed an effort to do justice to either, a smaller effort in the case of Anselm, a greater in the case of Thomas. As sometimes happens, he made the greater effort, but not the smaller. I am however able to say that he came to know Anselm better before he died. Dean Church, on the other hand, has given us an almost perfect example of a short sketch of such a subject. The accuracy of the tale is as remarkable as the beauty of the telling. It lacks only the light which is thrown on the story of Anselm by the earlier story of William of Saint-Calais. It is most important to remember that Anselm was not the first to appeal to the Pope.]
