Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/58

 could succeed in making kings believe that the Popes were the lawful possessors of all kingdoms, and that kings had their right of rule as a gift from them, the whole world might then be made subservient to the Church of Rome, and the Popes might then claim absolute obedience and command enormous wealth. But William was not to be frightened by even an iron-willed Hildebrand. He replied to those demands, that he would not hinder his subjects, if they wished it, from giving the Pope his pence; but it was to be understood to be a freewill offering, and not as a due. But on the matter of his submission for his crown, he boldly replied: "Fealty I have never willed to do, nor do I will to do it now. I have never promised it." And he added significantly, "Nor do I find that my predecessors promised it to yours."

Mr. Hore, in his history of the Church of England, bears out this same testimony. "Papal letters might not be received into the kingdom," he says, unless William "had himself first seen them. No suit might be carried to Rome without his sanction, nor were papal legates allowed to land in England without the royal license. At the same time, he did not overlook his own supremacy over the Church of England; the Church might pass no new canons unless they had been first approved by him, nor inflict ecclesiastical penalties on any of the king's vassals without his leave, nor might any clergyman leave the kingdom at his own will."

The independence of the Church from Rome, which William so strenuously maintained, was also upheld by the Primate Lanfranc whom William had brought over to fill the See from the Continent. The Pope ordered Lanfranc to go to Rome