The King's counsellors; Count Robert and Bishop William.
The Bishop's new policy.
The King's answer.
The King's answer was unsatisfactory, but not openly
hostile. He was however beginning to be on his guard;
he called to his side the two subtlest advisers that the
Church and realm of England could supply. The one was
Count Robert of Meulan, at home alike in England, Normandy,
and France. The other was William Bishop of
Durham, once the strong assertor of ecclesiastical claims,
who had appealed to the Pope against the judgement of
the King and his Witan. He had indeed both learned and
forgotten something in his exile. He had come back to
be the special counsellor of Rufus, the special enemy of
Anselm, the special assertor of the doctrine that it was
for the King alone to judge as to the acknowledgement
of Popes. The King, having listened to Anselm, sent
for these two chosen advisers. He bade Anselm say over
again in their hearing what he had before said privately.
He then, by their advice, answered that he would restore
to the see everything that had been held by Lanfranc;
on other points he would not as yet make any positive
engagement.[1]
The letters come from Normandy. Up to this time the King had not yet received his expected letters from Normandy. They presently came, and Rufus evidently thought that some step on his part ought to follow. He had asked the Duke, the Archbishop, and the monks of Bec, to set Anselm free to accept the archbishopric. They had done so at his request. Unless then he wished to make fools of himself and of everybody else, he could not help again offering the see to the man whom he had himself chosen, and
- [Footnote: hucusque non recepisti, et ego jam recepi atque recipio, eique debitam
obedientiam et subjectionem exhibere volo, cautum te facio ne quod scandalum inde oriatur in futuro."]
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 25. "Terras de quibus ecclesia saisita quidem fuerat sub Lanfranco omnes eo, quo tunc erant, tibi modo restituam, sed de illis quas sub ipso non habebat, in præsenti nullam tecum conventionem instituo. Veruntamen de his et aliis credam tibi sicut debebo."
