The King orders the restitution of the lands of the see. down into a yet deeper widowhood, widowhood during the life of her pastor. He himself would be the first victim; none of them would dare to give him help, and then the King would trample them too under his feet at pleasure. He then burst into tears; he parted from the assembly, and went to his own quarters, whether in the city of Gloucester or at the unnamed place where he had before been staying.[1] The King, foreseeing no further difficulties, gave orders that steps should be taken for investing him without delay with the temporal possessions of the see.[2] But a whole train of unlooked-for hindrances appeared before Anselm could be put into possession of either the temporal or the spiritual powers of Lanfranc.
The royal right of investiture not questioned.
No scruples on the part of Anselm.
At this first stage of the story, as at every other,
as long as the scene is laid in England, we are
struck in the strongest way by the fact that every
one concerned takes the ancient customs of England
for granted. If those customs have changed from
what they may have been under Cnut or Eadward,
they have at least not changed to the advantage of the
Roman see, or indeed of the ecclesiastical power in any
shape. Hildebrand has no followers either in England
or in Normandy. No one has called in question the
right either of the King of the English or of the Duke
of the Normans to invest the prelates of his dominions
with the pastoral staff. There is not one word in the
whole story implying that any one had any scruple on
the subject. Anselm clearly had none. He had received
- ↑ "Ad hospitium suum, dimissa curia, vadit."
- ↑ "Præcepit itaque rex, ut, sine dilatione ac diminutione, investiretur de omnibus ad archiepiscopatum pertinentibus intus et extra." Eadmer goes on to speak about the city of Canterbury, the abbey of Saint Alban's, and other things of which we shall have to speak again. But he can only mean that orders were given which were not immediately carried out; for the actual investiture was, as we shall see, delayed for some months.
