only if some money could be squeezed out of Anselm in the process of doing it, the chivalrous King would be the better pleased.
Whitsun Gemót at Windsor. May 13, 1095.
The King's message to Anselm.
The Legate's coming revealed to Anselm.
The feast of Pentecost came, and with it the second
of the assemblies at which the rebellious Earl of
Northumberland refused to show himself. The King and
his Witan were at Windsor; the Archbishop was keeping
the feast at his manor of Mortlake. On the octave he
was himself, according to the truce made at Rockingham,
to appear at Windsor. In the course of the Whitsun-week
a message was brought to him from the King,
bidding him go to Hayes, another of his manors nearer to
Windsor, in order that messages might more easily go to
and fro between him and the King.[1] He went, and Eadmer
went with him. The next day nearly all the bishops
came to him; some of them, it will be remembered, had
kept the King's favour throughout, and the others who
had lost it had bought it again. Their object was to try
to persuade the Archbishop to give money to the King
for the restoration of his favour. Anselm answered
stoutly, as before, that he would not so dishonour his
lord as to treat his friendship as something which
could be bought and sold.[2] He would faithfully discharge
every temporal duty to his lord, on the one
condition of being allowed to keep his obedience to Pope
Urban. If that was not allowed, he would again ask
for a safe-conduct to leave the kingdom. They then
told him—the secret must have been still kept, though
Urban was acknowledged—that the Bishop of Albano
had brought a pallium from the Pope; they did not
- [Footnote: tenus amorem suum redderet, cui crudeliter iratus nihil poterat cupitæ damnationis
pro voto inferre."]
