Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/424

 four more primates, all taken from the regular orders, numbering among them at least one saint and one statesman, but no mere royal official. The first degradation of the archbishopric led to its greatest exaltation, in the person of Thomas of London. But Thomas of London, even in his most worldly days, was a very different person from Randolf Flambard.

Another point to be remarked is how utterly the notion either of ecclesiastical election or of election in the Great Council of the realm seems to have passed away. There is nothing like an attempt at the choice of an archbishop, either by the monks of Christ Church, the usual electors, or by the suffragan bishops, who afterwards claimed the right. It might have been too daring a step if the monks had done as they once had done in the days of King Eadward, if they had chosen an archbishop freely, and then asked for the King's approval of their choice. Eadward had rejected the prelate so chosen; William Rufus might have done something more than reject him. But we do not hear of their even venturing to petition for leave to elect; they do not, like the monks of Peterborough, make such a petition, and enforce it by the strongest of arguments. Nor do bishops, earls, thegns, the nation at large, venture to act, any more than the monks. They murmur, and that is all. No action on the subject is recorded to have been taken in any of the gemóts till the vacancy had lasted nearly four years; and we shall see that the action which was at last taken

was to be had by bribery; but it was to be bribery carried on in some very underhand way, not in the form of open gifts either to King Eadward or to Earl Godwine. The appointment of Stigand (see N. C. vol. ii. p. 347) might be said to be the reward of temporal services; but they were services done to the whole nation, and the reward was bestowed by the nation itself.]
 * [Footnote: p. 69, and above, p. 348) a notion afloat that the archbishopric of Canterbury