and going to England, there to submit himself to the judgment of the English bishops. He accepted the latter alternative, and followed the King, leaving his diocese ruined and his people dispersed. In England, Rufus dangled him along between fear and hope, till at last the disheartened prelate returned to the Continent, having ambiguously consented to pull down those towers. But instead, he set to work to repair the devastation of his diocese. The reiterated mandate of the King was not long in following him, and this time coupled with an accusation of treason. Hildebert's state was desperate. His clergy were forbidden to obey him, his palace was sacked, his own property destroyed. Such were William's methods of persuasion. Then the King proposed that the bishop should purge himself by the ordeal of hot iron. Hildebert, the bishop, the theologian, the scholar, was almost on the verge of taking up the challenge, when a letter from Yves, the saintly Bishop of Chartres, dissuaded him. At this moment, with ruin for his portion, and no escape, an arrow ended the Red King's life in the New Forest. It was the year of grace 1100.
Now, what a change! Henry Beauclerc was from the first his friend, as William Rufus to the last had been his enemy. Hitherto Hildebert has appeared weakly endeavouring to elude destruction, and perhaps with no unshaken loyalty in his bosom toward any cause except his dire necessities. Henceforth, sailing a calmer sea, he repays Henry's favour with adherence and admiration. He has no support to offer Anselm of Canterbury, still struggling with the English monarchy over investitures; nor has he one word of censure for the clever cold-eyed scholar King who kept his brother, Robert of Normandy, a prisoner for twenty-eight years till he died.
Hildebert had still thirty years of life before him; nor were they all to be untroubled. Shortly after the Red King's death, he made a voyage to Rome, to obtain the papal benediction. To judge from his poems, he was deeply impressed with the ruins of the ancient city. Returning he devoted himself to the affairs of his diocese and to rebuilding the cathedral and other churches of Le Mans. In 1125, in spite of his unwillingness, for he was seventy years old, he
