Anselm seems to have taken a more constitutional view of the way by which the King's consent and help was to be got than the Roman Legate was likely to take. Anselm says that they would meet to no purpose, except when the King, the bishops, and the nobles, were all near to be referred to.[1] This reads very much as if Anselm was aware of some underhand practices between the King and the Legate, and had no mind to meet the emissary of Rome except when he himself would have the constitutional voice of the nation to back him. But as things stood at the moment, circumstances seem to have hindered the meeting for which Walter seems to have wished and Anselm not to have wished.
The King's northern march.
Anselm entrusted with the defence of Canterbury.
We are now in the thick of the revolt of Earl Robert
of Mowbray, the tale of which will be told in full in
the next chapter. The King was on his march northward
to put down the revolt. King, Archbishop, and
Legate, had parted as if the Legate at least was not to
see either of the other two again in England.[2] At such
a time the desired conference could not be held; and
Anselm himself was bound for the time within a very
narrow local range. While the King marched on towards
Northumberland, the Archbishop was entrusted with the
care of Canterbury, perhaps of Kent generally, against
- [Footnote: *remus, nisi regi suggestum esset, ut ejus assensu et auxilio ad effectum
perduceretur quod disponeremus." The military history which this letter casually opens to us, and of which we have no mention elsewhere, will come in the next chapter.]
- ↑ "Expecto reditum domini mei regis, et episcoporum et principum qui cum eo sunt, quatenus illi quæ agenda sunt, opportune et rationabiliter suggeramus." So in the next letter (Epp. iii. 36) he says more distinctly that he would like to meet the Cardinal, "si congruo tempore factum esset, id est quando dominus meus rex, et episcopi, et principes hujus regni vobis præsentes aut propinqui erant."
- ↑ Epp. iii. 36. "Vos ab illis et ego a vobis discessimus, veluti non nos in hac terra amplius invicem visuri."
