adherent. Anselm was indeed treated by them as Englishmen, whether by race, by birth, or by adoption, whether Edmund, Thomas, or Anselm, commonly were treated by Popes. He was made a tool of, and he got no effectual support; but Urban was not prepared for such active wickedness as the Red King asked of him.
William and his counsellors outwitted by the Legate.
He is driven to a reconciliation with Anselm.
William was now thoroughly beaten at his own
weapons. The craft and subtlety of Randolf Flambard,
of William of Saint-Calais, of the Achitophel of Meulan
himself, had proved of no strength before the sharper
wit of Walter of Albano. The King complained with
good right that he had gained nothing by acknowledging
Urban.[1] In truth he had lost a great deal. He had
lost every decent excuse for any further attack upon
Anselm. The whole complaint against Anselm was that
he had acknowledged Urban. But the King had now
himself acknowledged Urban, and he could not go on
persecuting Anselm for simply forestalling his own act.
In legal technicality doubtless, if it was a crime to
acknowledge Urban when the King had not yet acknowledged
him, that crime was not purged by the King's
later acknowledgement of him. Rufus himself might
have been shameless enough to press so pettifogging
a point; but he had learned at Rockingham that no
man in the land, save perhaps a few servile bishops,
would support him in so doing. There was nothing
to be done but for William to make up his quarrel with
Anselm, to make it up, that is, as far as appearances
went, to make it up till another opportunity for a
quarrel could be found. But till such opportunity was
found, Anselm must be openly and formally received
into the King's favour.[2] The thing had to be done;*
