The meeting adjourned. gives the Archbishop a kind of alternative. Anselm must understand that, if he goes, the King will seize the archbishopric into his own hands, and will never again receive him as archbishop.[1] There was some free expression of feeling in these assemblies; for this announcement of the King's will was met by a storm of shouts on different sides, some cheering the King and some the Archbishop.[2] Some at last, the moderate party perhaps, proposed and carried an adjournment till the morrow, hoping meanwhile to settle matters in some other way.[3]
Thursday, October 15, 1097.
Anselm and the bishops and lords.
The next morning came; as so often before, Anselm
and his friends sat waiting the royal pleasure. Some
bishops and lords came out and asked Anselm what
his purpose now was about the affair of yesterday.
He had not, he answered, agreed to the adjournment
because he had any doubt as to his own purpose,
but only lest he should seem to set no store by the
opinion of others. He was in the same mind in which he
had been yesterday; he would again crave the King's
leave to go. Go he must, for the sake of his own soul's
health, for the sake of the Christian religion, for the
King's own honour and profit, if he would only believe
it.[4] The bishops and lords asked if he had anything
else to say; as for leave to go to Rome, it was no use
talking; the King would not grant it. Anselm answers
that, if the King will not grant it, he must follow the
scripture and obey God rather than man. We here see
that Anselm had brooded over his griefs till he had
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 38. "Si iverit, pro certo noverit quod totum archiepiscopatum in dominium meum redigam, nec ilium pro archiepiscopo ultra recipiam."
- ↑ Ib. "Orta est ex his quædam magna tempestas diversis diversæ parti acclamantibus."
- ↑ Ib. "Quidam permoti suaserunt in crastinum rem differri, sperantes eam alio modo sedari."
- ↑ Ib. "Indubitanter sciens quod causa meæ salutis, causa sanctæ Christianitatis, et vere causa sui honoris ac profectus, si credere velit, ire dispono."
