sick of a sickness which both himself and others deemed to be unto death.[1]
Repentance of Rufus.
Advice of the prelates and nobles.
The heart of the Red King was not yet wholly
hardened; with sickness came repentance. Believing
himself to be at the gates of the next world, his conscience
awoke, and he saw in their true light the deeds
which he had been so long doing in this world. He no
longer jested at his own crimes and vices; he bemoaned
them and began to think of amendment. The great
men of the realm, bishops, abbots, and lay nobles,
pressed around his sick bed, looking for his speedy
death, and urging him to make what atonement he
could for his misdeeds, while he yet lived. Let him
throw open his prisons; let him set free his captives;
let him loose those who were in chains; let him forgive
his debtors—it is again assumed that a debt to the Crown
must be a wrongful debt—let him provide pastors for
the churches which he holds in his hands; above all, let
him set free the head church of all, the church of Canterbury,
whose bondage was the most crying wrong of
his kingdom.[2] All this they pressed, each to the best
of his power, on the no longer unwilling mind of the
King. It bethought them moreover that there was one
not far off, who was more skilled than any of them in
healing the diseases of the soul, and whose words would
- ↑ Here we have the pithy words of the Chronicle; "On þisum geare to þam længtene warð se cyng W. on Gleaweceastre to þam swiðe geseclod, þæt he waes ofer eall dead gekyd." So says Eadmer (Hist. Nov. 16); "Omnes totius regni principes coeunt; episcopi, abbates, et quique nobiles, nihil præter mortem ejus præstolantes."
- ↑ The good resolutions of the King come out with all force in the Chronicle; "And on his broke he Gode fela behæsa behét, his agen lif on riht to lædene, and Godes cyrcean griðian and friðian, and næfre má eft wið feo gesyllan, and ealle rihte lage on his þeode to habbene." The exhortations come out most clearly in Eadmer; Florence seems to attribute them to the King's lay counsellors; "Cum se putaret cito moriturum, ut ei sui barones suggesserint," &c.
