Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/151

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inference from that act of the Conqueror which had severed the jurisdictions which ancient English custom had joined together. He told the barons of the realm and the other laymen who were present that with them he had nothing to do, that he altogether refused their jurisdiction; he demanded, that, if the King and the Bishops allowed them to be present, they should at least not speak against him. The doctrine of ecclesiastical privilege had indeed grown, since, six and thirty years before, the people of England, gathered beneath the walls of London, had declared a traitorous archbishop to be deprived and outlawed, and had by their own act set another in his place. Yet the position of William of Saint-Calais was more consistent than the position of Lanfranc. William of Saint-Calais wholly denied the right of laymen to judge a bishop; Lanfranc, the assertor of that right, had been placed in his see on the very ground that the deposition of Robert and the election of Stigand were both invalid, as being merely acts of the secular power. Still, however logical might be the Bishop's argument, his claims were practically new, either in English or in Norman ears. If they had ever been heard of before, it had been only for a moment from the lips of Odo. And we may mark again that, though the words of William of Saint-Calais would have won him favour with Hildebrand, they won him no favour with Lanfranc. Lanfranc represented the traditions of the Conqueror, and in the days of the Conqueror, all things, divine and human, had depended on the Conqueror's nod.