Treason of the Bishop of Durham.
Different statements of his conduct. whose doings as a wielder of the temporal sword we have heard in northern, in western, and in eastern England.[1] But we should not have expected to find as partner of their doings the very man whose high promotion had filled the heart of Odo with envy. It was indeed the most unkindest cut of all when the Bishop of Durham, the man in whose counsel the King most trusted, turned against the benefactor who had raised him so that all England went at his rede. What higher greatness he could have hoped to gain by treason it is hard to see. And it is only fair to add that in the records of his own bishopric he appears as a persecuted victim,[2] while all the writers of southern England join in special reprobation of his faithlessness. The one who speaks in our own tongue scruples not to make use of the most emphatic of all comparisons. "He would do by him"—that is, Bishop William would do by King William—"as Judas Iscariot did by our Lord."[3] We should certainly not learn from these writers that, after all, it was the King, and not the Bishop, who struck, or tried to strike, the first blow.
It is certainly far from easy to reconcile the different accounts of this affair. At a time a little later the southern account sets Bishop William before us as one who "did all harm that he might all over the North."[4] But at Durham it was believed that at all events a good deal of harm had been already done by the King to the Bishop; and the Bishop claims to have at an earlier time done the best of good service to the King.[5] That service must have been rendered while
