His friendship with the Conqueror;
with Earl Hugh.
Hugh's changes at Chester. and from another faith.[1] The highest in estate and power were the most eager of all to humble themselves before him. We have seen how the elder William, ever mild to good men, was specially mild to Anselm, how he craved his presence on his death-bed, and how Anselm, unable to help his master in life, was among those who did the last honours to him in death.[2] We are told that there was not an earl or countess or great person of any kind in England, who did not seek the friendship of Anselm, who did not deem that his or her spiritual state was the worse if any opportunity had been lost of doing honour or service to the Abbot of Bec.[3] Like some other saints of his own and of other times, he drew to himself the special regard of some whose characters were most unlike his own. Earl Hugh of Chester, debauched, greedy, reckless, and cruel, beyond the average of the time, is recorded as being a special friend of the holy man.[4] He who rebuked kings doubtless rebuked earls also; but it would have been a better sign of reformation, if Hugh, under the teaching of Anselm, had learned to spare the eyes either of brother nobles or of British
- ↑ No strictly physical miracle is alleged to have been wrought by Anselm's own hands; but several stories are told by Eadmer in the sixth chapter of the first book of the Life, in which cures were believed to be done by water in which he had washed, and the like. In another class of stories in the third chapter, the bodily wants of Anselm or his friends are supplied in an unexpected way, but without any physical miracle. Thus the well-known Walter Tirel, entertaining Anselm, makes excuses for the lack of fish. The saint announces that a fine sturgeon is on the road, and it presently comes. Eadmer's book of the Miracles of Anselm, which forms No. xvi. in Dr. Liebermann's collection, consists of wonders of the usual kind at or after Anselm's death.
- ↑ See N.C. vol. iv. pp. 704, 713.
- ↑ Eadmer, Vit. Ans. i. 6. 47. "Non fuit comes in Anglia seu comitissa, vel ulla persona potens, quæ non judicaret se sua coram Deo merita perdidisse, si contingeret se Anselmo abbati Beccensi gratiam cujusvis officii tunc temporis non exhibuisse."
- ↑ See N. C. vol. iv. p. 491. So Hist. Nov. 15, "Certe amicus meus familiaris ab antiquo comes Cestrensis Hugo fuit."
