Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/189

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in date. The keeping prelacies vacant was one of the devices of Randolf Flambard, and it could hardly have been brought into play during the very first year of Rufus. The influence of Lanfranc too would be powerful to hinder so public an act as the keeping vacant of a bishopric or abbey; it would be less powerful to hinder a private transaction on the King's part which might be done without the Primate's knowledge. Add to this, that, while the filling a church or keeping it vacant was a matter of fact about which there could be no doubt, the question whether the King had or had not received a bribe was a matter of surmise and suspicion, even when the surmise and suspicion happened to be just. It is then not wonderful that we find Rufus charged with corrupt dealings of this last kind at a very early stage of his reign. We have seen that Thurstan, the fierce Abbot of Glastonbury, was, by one of the first acts of Rufus, restored to the office which he had so unworthily filled, and from which the Conqueror had so worthily put him aside. And we have seen that it was at least the general belief that his restoration was brought about by a lavish gift to the King's hoard. But three prelacies, two bishoprics and a great abbey, which either were vacant at the moment of the Conqueror's death or which fell vacant very soon after, were filled without any unreasonable delay. Stigand, Bishop of Chichester, died about the time of the Conqeror's death, whether before or after, and his see was filled by his successor before the end of the year. Geoffrey's own tenure was short; he died in the year of the rebellion, and, as his see did*