King William the Red was now again quite another man from what he had been when he lay on his sick bed at Gloucester.
The King's recovery.
The Easter Gemót. 1093.
William falls back into evil ways.
His renewed blasphemy.
The King's sickness is said to have lasted during the
whole of Lent; but he seems to have been restored to
health early enough to hold the Easter Gemót at Winchester.[1]
Anselm was there, in company with his guardian
Bishop Gundulf and his friend Baldwin the monk of
Bec; but there is no mention of any business being
done between him and the King. Doubtless the needful
letters had not yet come from Normandy, even if Anselm
had so soon brought himself to write those which were
needful on his own part. By this time William was
again in full health, and, with his former state of body,
his former state of mind had also come back. He had
repented of his repentance; he had fallen back into all
his old evil courses with more eagerness than ever. All
the wrong that he had done before he fell sick was
deemed to be a small matter compared with the wrong
which he did after he was restored to health.[2] It is to
this stage of his life that one of the most hideous of his
blasphemous sayings is assigned. Instead of thankfulness
for his renewed health, he looked on his sickness
as a wrong done to him by his Maker, for which he
would in some way have his revenge. It was now that
he told Bishop Gundulf, whom we can fancy faintly
exhorting him to keep in the good frame of mind which
he had put on while he lay on his sick bed—"God shall
never see me a good man; I have suffered too much at his
- ↑ This seems implied in Anselm's presence at Winchester at Easter, which is recorded in the Life, ii. 1. 3. But his presence there is mentioned only to bring in a kind of miracle, in which Anselm, Gundulf, and the monk Baldwin all figure.
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. i. 19. "Siquidem omne malum quod rex fecerat, priusquam fuerat infirmatus, bonum visu est, comparatione malorum quæ fecit ubi est sanitati redonatus,"
