Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/146

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this first Assembly the Bishop refuses to plead otherwise than according to the privileges of his order. The demand is refused. He craves for the counsel of his Metropolitan Thomas of York and of the other bishops. This also is refused. He offers to make his personal purgation on any charge of treason or perjury. This is refused. The King insists that he shall be tried before the Court after the manner of a layman. This the Bishop refuses; but the King keeps his personal faith, and the Bishop is allowed to go back safely to Durham. We hear much of the ravages done on the Bishop's lands, both while he was away from Durham and after he had gone back thither. Of ravages done by the Bishop we hear nothing in this version. In this version William of Saint-Calais, blackest of traitors in the Peterborough Chronicle, is still the meekest of confessors.

We get no further details of the Bishop of Durham's story till the beginning of September. But in the meanwhile the Bishop wrote another letter to the King, again asking leave to make his purgation. The only answer, we are told, on the King's part was to imprison the Bishop's messenger and to lay waste his lands more thoroughly than ever. But, from the beginning of September, the story is told with great detail. By that time southern England at least was at peace, and by that time too men who had taken a leading part in the rebellion were acting as loyal subjects to the King. On the day of the Nativity of our Lady an agreement was come to between the Bishop and three of the barons of