Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/143

 which made them eager to please him by gifts and service of all kinds.

The speed with which some of the greatest among the rebel leaders were restored to their old rank and their old places in the King's favour is shown by the way in which, within a very few months, we find them acting on the King's side against one who at the worst was their own accomplice, and who himself professed to have had no part or lot in their doings. We must now take up again the puzzling story of Bishop William of Durham. We left him, according to his own version, hindered from coming to the King by the violence of the Sheriff of Yorkshire, and suffering a seven weeks' harrying of his lands which carries us into the month of May. This is exactly the time when the national Chronicler sets the Bishop himself before us as carrying on a general harrying of the North country. It is likely enough that both stories are true; in a civil war above all it is easy, without the assertion of any direct falsehood, to draw two exactly opposite pictures by simply leaving out the doings of each side in turn. Anyhow the King had summoned the Bishop to his presence, and the Bishop had not come. The King now sends a more special and urgent summons, demanding the Bishop's presence in his court, that is, in all likelihood, at the Whitsun Gemót, or at whatever assembly took its place