Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/171

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still repeatedly forbidden to cross, even alone. In answer to an earnest message that he might be allowed to go to Rome, the King sent Walkelin Bishop of Winchester with two companions, one of them Hugh of Port, a well-known Domesday name, to summon him to send Geoffrey for trial to Durham and to appear himself in London at the Christmas Gemót to answer for the deeds of his men. In defiance of all prayers and protests, the King's officers kept the Bishop in ward night and day; in his sadness he sent a message to the Counts who had given him the safe-conduct, praying them by the faith of their baptism to have him released from his imprisonment and allowed to cross the sea. They answered his appeal. At their urgent prayer, the King at last let him cross. He sailed to Normandy, where he was honourably received by Duke Robert, and—so the Durham writer believed—entrusted with the care of his whole duchy. Perhaps it was owing to these new worldly cares that, though we often hear of him again, we do not hear of him as a suppliant at the court of Rome.

The tale of Bishop William of Durham is long, perhaps in some of its stages it is wearisome; but it is too important a contribution to our story to be left out or cut short. It sets before us the earliest of those debates in the King's court of which we shall come