Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/152



At this stage the King speaks for the first time, and, in this first speech the words of William the Red are mild enough. He had hoped, he said, that the Bishop would have first made answer to the charges which had been brought against him, and he wondered that he had taken any other course. But the charge had not yet been formally made. Amid the Bishop's protests about the rights of his order, this somewhat important point was pressed by one of his fellow-rebels. This was Roger the Bigod, he who from the castle of Norwich had done such harm in the eastern lands, but who now appears as an adviser of the king against whom he had been fighting a few months before. Let the charge, he said, be brought in due form, and let the Bishop be tried according to it. After more protests from the Bishop, the charge was made by Hugh of Beaumont. It contained a full statement of the Bishop's treason and desertion, as already described, and the time is said to have been when the King's enemies came against him, and when his own men, Bishop Odo, Earl Roger, and many others, strove to take away his crown and kingdom. It is demanded that, on this charge and on any other charges that the King may afterwards bring, the Bishop shall abide by the sentence of the King's court. We have