Anselm will not reject Urban. has a sound of sarcasm. Anselm said that, to speak of nothing else, he could not cast aside his obedience to the Pope. But it was evening; let there be an adjournment till the morrow; then he would speak as God should bid him.[1] The bishops deemed either that he knew not what more to say or else that he was beginning to yield through fear.[2] They went back to the King, and urged him that the adjournment should not be allowed, but that, as the matter had been discussed enough, if Anselm would not agree to their counsel, the formal judgement of the Assembly should be at once pronounced against him.[3]
William of Saint-Calais.
His schemes against Anselm.
And now for the first time we come across a distinct
mention of an individual actor, standing out with
a marked personality from the general mass of the
assembled Witan. Foremost on the King's side, the
chosen spokesman of his master, was the very man who
had gone so far beyond Anselm, who had forestalled
Thomas himself, in asserting the jurisdiction of the
Bishop of Rome within this realm of England. William
of Saint-Calais, who, when it suited his purpose, had
appealed to the Pope, who had been so anxious to go
to the Pope, but who, when he had the means of going,
had never gone, stood now fully ready to carry out the
Imperial teaching that what seems good to the prince has
the force of law. This man, so ready of speech—that we
have seen long ago—but, in Eadmer's eyes at least, not
rich in any true wisdom, was all this time stirring the
King up to wrath against Anselm, and doing all that he
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 28. "Respondeam quod Deus inspirare dignabitur."
- ↑ "Suspicati ilium aut quid diceret ultra nescire aut metu addictum statim cœpto desistere."
- ↑ "Persuaserunt inducias nulla ratione dandas, sed causa recenti examinatione discussa, supremam, si suis adquiescere consiliis nollet, in eum judicii sententiam invehi juberet."
