Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/417

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time he also bought preferment for his father Robert, who, it must be supposed, had embraced the monastic life. The New Minster of Winchester had now been for three years, since the death of its last Abbot Ralph, in the hands of Flambard. Herbert now bought the abbacy for his father. This twofold simony naturally gave great offence, and formed a fertile subject for the eloquence of the time, both in prose and verse. The reign of the father was short; two years later Flambard again held the wardship of New Minster. The career of the son in his East-Anglian bishopric was longer and more varied, and we shall come across him again in the course of our story. At present it is only needful to say that Herbert very soon repented of the shameful way by which he had climbed into the sheepfold, that he went to Rome, that he gave up his ill-gotten bishopric into the hands of Pope Urban, and received his staff from him again in what was deemed to be a more regular way. Herbert's repentance was to his credit; and, as things stood at the moment, there was perhaps no better way of making amends. But the course which he took was not only one which was sure to bring on him the displeasure of the Red King; it was in the teeth of all the customs of William the Great and of the kings before him. A journey to Rome, without the royal licence, and seemingly taken by stealth, the submission to a Pope whom the King had not acknowledged, the surrender to anypro papa non tenere, nec suæ consue-*]*