Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/481

Anselm's statement of the case.

Nature of the King's grants.

The King's case. in a letter to his friend Hugh Archbishop of Lyons, the head prelate of his native Burgundy.^[1] The alienation to which Anselm was asked to consent was called by the King a "voluntary justice," a phrase which has a technical sound, but the meaning of which is not very clear.^[2] The King's argument was that, before the Normans invaded England, the lands in question had been held of the archbishopric by English thegns, that those thegns had died without heirs, and that it was open to the King to give them what heirs he would.^[3] It was certainly strange, if, on the one hand, not one of these thegns had been constrained to make way for a Norman successor, and if, on the other hand, not one of them had left a son to succeed him. But we must take the fact as it is stated. Rufus seems to mean that, during Lanfranc's incumbency, the lands which these thegns had held of the see had fallen back to the lord for lack of heirs, and had become demesne lands of the archbishopric. The King asserts his right, during the vacancy of the see, to grant out such lands by knight-service, service to be paid of course to the King as long as the vacancy lasted, but seemingly to the Archbishop, as soon as there should be an archbishop in possession. If this was the argument, an argument which savours of the subtlety of Flambard, there is, from Flambard's point of view, a good deal that is plausible about it. The King, as temporary lord, claims to deal with the land as any other lord might do, and, when his temporary lord-*

1. This letter (Ep. iii. 24) is a most important exposition of Anselm's own views on the whole matter of the election and what followed it.
2. Ep. iii. 24. "Sub occasione cujusdam voluntariæ justitiæ, secundum quam de terris eisdem me vult placitare."
3. Ib. "Hæc autem est illa quam dixi voluntaria justitia. Quoniam terras easdem, antequam Northmanni Angliam invaderent, milites Angli ab archiepiscopo Cantuariæ tenuisse dicuntur, et mortui sunt sine hæredibus, vult asserere se posse juste quos vult eorum hæredes constituere."