they professedly served, this contest had never disgraced the church. Pope Alexander II. died on the 20th of April, 1073, and was succeeded by the famous Hildebrand, archdeacon of Rome, who assumed the name of Gregory VII., and became the most turbulent and aspiring pontiff that had ever filled the chair of St. Peter. So boundless was the ambition of this haughty priest, that he claimed the supreme dominion of the whole world, and attempted to bring all emperors, kings, and princes, under subjection to his authority. In prosecution of these insolent pretensions, he despatched his legate, Hubert, into England, to assert his title to that kingdom, and to demand an oath of fealty from King William, together with the immediate payment of all the arrears of Peter-pence, which he affected to call a tribute. But though William owed many obligations to the see of Rome, for the countenance it had afforded him in his attempt on England, and though he professed great veneration for the bishops, he rejected the demand now made of homage, and that with becoming indignation, and only consented to send Peter-pence as a voluntary gift, in imitation of his predecessors. Still further to mortify the pride and resist the pretensions of the pope, he would not permit the Archbishop of Canterbury to leave the kingdom, though the latter was repeatedly enjoined by letters from Rome to come thither. These affronts wrought up the rage of Gregory to so high a pitch, that, in a letter to his legate, Hubert, A.D. 1078, he gave William the most opprobrious names, and threatened to make him feel the resentment of St. Peter. But either the latter was not so vindictive as his successor, Gregory, or King William was out of the reach of his resentment; for the threatened consequences never ensued.+ William the Conqueror exercised his supremacy over the church of England with a high hand, and introduced some important changes into both the state of its revenues, and of its general polity. Finding the English clergy and monasteries possessed of far too great a proportion of the riches of the kingdom, he stripped them of many of their estates, and sub • Spelman, Concil. 1. ii. p. 13. Du Pin, Eccles. Hist. cent. xi. c. 5. jected those they still retained to military services and pecuniary mulets. And so strict an eye did he keep over the clergy, in the exercise of discipline, and the government of the church, that he would not allow any of them to go out of the kingdom without his leave to acknowledge any pope, without his direction-to publish any letters from Rome, till he had inspected and approved them to hold any councils, or to make any canons, without his consent or to pronounce a sentence of excommunication on any of his nobles, without his permission. But the most considerable change which William made in the constitution of the church of England, was towards the conclusion of his reign, when he separated the ecclesiastical from the civil courts, which till that time had been united: a change that was attended with very important consequences both to church and state. Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, died, May 28th, A.D. 1089, having survived his great friend and patron, William the Conqueror, about twenty months. After their decease, William II., surnamed Rufus, the new king, was in no haste to fill the see of Canterbury with a successor, but kept all the possessions of the archbishopric in his own hands nearly five years. During this interval the bishops and clergy tried various methods to prevail upon the king to appoint a primate, but in vain. At one time, when they presented a petition, that he would give them leave to issue a form of prayer, to be used in all the churches of England-that God would move the heart of the king to chuse an archbishop, he returned this careless answer :-" You may pray as you please; I will do as I please." At length, however, being dangerously ill, and apprehensive he should die, he nominated Anselm, abbot of Beck, in Normandy, to the see of Canterbury. Anselm, at first, discovered great reluctance to accept of this high dignity, dreading the violent temper of the king, to which he was no stranger. "The plough of the church of England," said he, "should be drawn by two oxen of equal strength-the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury; but if you yoke me, who am a weak old sheep, with this king, who is a mad young bull, the plough will not go straight.+" But as Eadmer, Hist. p. 6. Seldeni Spicileg. p. 164. M. Paris, p. 4. WILLIAM RUFUS AND ANSELM. 53 men's refusals of places of power and emolument are seldom very obstinate, the scruples of Anselm at last gave way, and he consented to mount the archiepiscopal throne, December 4th, 1093, and on the 25th of September following, received investiture by the pastoral staff and ring. The anticipations of Anselm, relating to quarrels with the king, were not ill-founded; but that was as much owing to his own obstinacy and presumptuous bigotry, as to the king's temper. There was at this time a contest between two rival popes, Urban and Clement; but England hitherto had not acknowledged either of them. Previous to his exaltation to the primacy, Anselm had submitted to Urban, and now petitioned the king for leave to go to Rome, and receive his pall from the pontiff. The king was enraged beyond measure at this petition, which he declared, was directly contrary to that obedience which the archbishop had sworn in his oath of fealty, as well as to the laws of England. After much angry altercation, the dispute was referred to a great council of the nobility and prelates, which met at Rockingham, March 11th, 1095. To this council, on the first day of their assembling, Anselm made a long harangue; in which, among other things, he told them, "that he would much rather have been burnt alive than have been made an archbishop;" and concluded with proposing this question :-" whether his going to Rome to receive his pall from Pope Urban, was contrary to his oath of fealty, and the laws of England?" After due deliberation, the council returned for answer, that, "unless he yielded obedience to the king, and retracted his submission to Pope Urban, they would not acknowledge or obey him as their primate." On hearing this sentence, the archbishop lifted up his eyes and hands to heaven, and, with great solemnity, appealed to St. Peter, whose vicar, he declared, he was determined to obey, rather than the king; and upon the bishops declining to report his words, he rushed into the council, and pronounced them before the king and his nobility. The debates were then renewed with greater warmth than ever, and lasted the whole day; but ended in a confirmation of the former sentence. The primate begged to be allowed till next morning to deliberate upon his The king and council now flattered themselves that the answer. archbishop would resign his see; but if Anselm had any aversion to accept it, he discovered a much greater aversion to resign it. For, on the following morning, he both adhered to his former answer, and declared his determination to retain the archbishopric. When matters had come to this extremity, some of the nobility, who paid great deference to the sacerdotal character, and dreaded lest the passionate temper of the king would prompt him to some act of violence, proposed a truce till the octaves of Easter, which was accepted by both parties.* Despairing to conquer by violence the obstinacy of the archbishop, King William now had recourse to stratagem, and privately despatched two of his chaplains to Rome, with an offer to Urban, of acknowledging him as pope, if he would consent to the deposition of Anselm, and send a pall to the king, to be bestowed on whom he pleased. Urban, transported with joy at the accession of so powerful a prince, promised every thing, and sent Walter, bishop of Alba, his legate, into England with a pall. The legate passed through Canterbury, without seeing the archbishop; and arriving at court, prevailed upon the king to issue a proclamation, commanding all his subjects to acknowledge Urban II. as lawful pope. But no sooner had the king performed his engagements, and began to speak of proceeding to the deposition of the archbishop, and demanded the pall, that he might give it to the prelate who should be chosen in his room, than the legate changed his tone, and with a perfidiousness worthy the Man of Sin, declared plainly, that the pope would not consent to the deposition of so great a saint, and so dutiful a son of the church of Rome and moreover, that he had received orders to deliver the pall to Anselm; which he accordingly performed, with great pomp, in the cathedral church of Canterbury.+ One may easily imagine, how much a prince of William's haughty and passionate temper was enraged at this perfidious conduct of the court of Rome; but being occupied at the moment about an expedition into Normandy, he had no leisure to vent his resentment. After his return from Normandy, the quarrel between the king and the archbishop was revived, by that prelate's frequent and Eadmer, p. 31. + W. Malmsbury, de gestis Pontif. p. 125, &c. BREACH BETWEEN THE KING AND PRIMATE. 55 importunate applications for the royal permission to visit Rome, pretending it was for the good of his soul, and the benefit of the church. Wearied out with these incessant solicitations, the king at length commanded him to leave the kingdom, in eleven days, without taking any of his effects with him; telling him at the same time that he should not be permitted to return.' Anselm had no sooner extorted this passionate permission to depart the kingdom, than he hastened to Canterbury; where, having divested himself of his archiepiscopal robes, and assumed the garb of a pilgrim, he set out on his journey. Having reached Lyons, in France, he addressed a letter to the pope, giving an account of his grievances in England, and of his departure from it, and desiring the assistance and direction of his holiness; hinting that, since he had little prospect of doing any good in a country where justice and religion were so much despised by persons of all ranks, it would be right to allow him to resign his see. In the mean time, the King of England seized all the estates and revenues of Canterbury into his own hands, and declared all the acts of Anselm to be null and void.+ Having received an answer to his letter, with an invitation from the pope to proceed to Rome, Anselm set forward on his journey, on the Tuesday before Palm-Sunday, A.D. 1098, attended by two faithful friends Baldwin, his steward, and Eadmer, the historian, who officiated as his secretary. They were obliged to travel in disguise, and under borrowed names, to avoid the ambuscades that were laid for them by Clement, the antipope, and by several companies of banditti, who, being apprised that the Archbishop of Canterbury was on his way to Rome, with great treasures, were on the watch to intercept him. After much fatigue, and no little danger, they at length reached Rome, where they met with the kindest reception from the pope, who lodged them in his own palace. The extraordinary honours that were paid to Anselm by the pope, the nobility, and clergy of Rome, are blazoned by the monkish historians of that day in glowing colours. His holiness addressed him before the whole court, in a long speech, in which Eadmer, pp. 37-40. + Ibid. pp. 41-43. |