Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/371

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no archbishop in southern England; the rite was done by Osmund himself with the help of his two nearest episcopal neighbours, Walkelin of Winchester and John of Bath. The ceremony had thus a specially West-Saxon character. The three bishops who came together at Salisbury represented the three—once four—churches, among which the old West-Saxon diocese, the diocese of Winchester, had been parted asunder. But at Salisbury too, the elements, if somewhat less hostile than at Winchcombe and London, were by no means friendly. Five days only after the hallowing, the lightning fell, as at Winchcombe; the peaked roof or low spire which sheltered the tower—doubtless of wood covered with lead—was thrown down, and its fall did much damage to the walls of the new minster.

A day later by a month had been fixed for another ceremony of the same kind, the crowning of the work of a prelate who seems to have wished for a more stately ceremony and a greater gathering than the almost domestic rite which had satisfied Bishop Osmund. Remigius, Almoner of Fécamp, Bishop of Dorchester, Bishop of