Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/153

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this statement only in the version of Bishop William himself or of a local partisan. Yet there is no reason to doubt that it is a fair representation of the formal charge which was brought in the King's court. That charge brings out quite enough of overt acts of treason to justify even the strong words of the Peterborough Chronicler. With the secret counsels of the rebels during Lent it does not deal; what share Bishop William had had in them might be hard to make out by legal proof, and the charge is quite enough for the King's purpose without them. But it brings out this special aggravation of the Bishop's guilt, that, after the rebellion had broken out, after military operations had begun, the Bishop was still at the King's side, counselling action while he was himself plotting desertion. The flight of Bishop William, as we have already told it, really reads not unlike the flight of Cornbury and Churchill just six centuries later; and it would be pressing the judgement of charity a long way to plead in his behalf the doctrine that in revolutions men live fast. We may notice also that nothing is said about the Bishop's harryings in Northern England. They might, according to the custom of the time, be almost taken as implied in the fact of his rebellion; or they might be among the other charges which the King had ready to bring forward if he thought good.

The formal charge was thus laid before the Court, and it was for the Bishop to make his answer. It was the same as before. Hugh of Beaumont might say what he chose; only according to his own ideas of canonical rule would he answer. By this time the wrath of the lay