Speech of Robert of Meulan.
- demn him according to my will, I will condemn you."[1]
The common spokesman was found in him whose counsel was held to be as the oracle of God.[2] Count Robert of Meulan spoke, and his speech was certainly a contrast to that of Bishop William, though both alike, these two special counsellors, confessed that Anselm had been too much for them. "All day long were we putting together counsels with all our might, and consulting how our counsels might hang together, and meanwhile he, thinking no evil back again, sleeps, and, when our devices are brought out, with one touch of his lips he breaks them like a spider's web."[3]
The King and the bishops. When the temporal lords, the subtlest of counsellors among them, thus failed him, the King again turned to his lords spiritual. "And you, my bishops, what do you say?" They answered, but their spokesman this time is not mentioned; Bishop William, it would seem, had tried and had failed. They were grieved that they could not satisfy the pleasure of their lord. Anselm was Primate, not only of the kingdom of England, but of Scotland, Ireland, and the neighbouring islands—lands to which William's power most certainly did not reach at that moment. They were his suffragans;[4] they could not
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 30. "Per vultum Dei si vos illum ad voluntatem meam non damnaveritis, ego damnabo vos." The oath "per vultum Dei" is the same as that "per vultum de Luca." See Appendix G.
- ↑ "Robertus quidam ipsi regi valde familiaris" would seem to be no other than the Count of Meulan. We shall hear of him by name later in the story. It might be Robert the Dispenser (see above, p. 331), but that seems much less likely.
- ↑ "De consiliis nostris quid dicam, fateor nescio. Nam cum omni studio per totum diem inter nos illa conferimus, et quatenus aliquo modo sibi cohereant conferendo conferimus, ipse, nihil mali e contra cogitans, dormit, et prolata coram eo statim uno labiorum suorum pulsu quasi telas araneæ rumpit."
- ↑ "Primas est, non modo istius regni, sed et Scotiæ et Hiberniæ, necne adjacentium insularum, nosque suffraganei ejus." We have had one or two other cases, in which, in Eadmer's language at least, the Archbishop of York is spoken of as the suffragan of Canterbury.
