Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/450

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to be looked to. Between these two sets of affairs, Anselm was kept in England for five months. He then wished to go back to Normandy; but the King's leave, it seems, was needed, and the King's leave was refused.

This refusal is worth notice. It does not seem to have been done in enmity; at least it was not followed by any kind of further wrong-doing on the King's part towards Anselm. It really looks as if William had, not indeed any fixed purpose of appointing Anselm to the archbishopric, but a kind of feeling that he might be driven to appoint him, a feeling that things might come to a stage in which he could not help naming some archbishop, and that, if it came to that stage, he could not help naming Anselm. It is plain from what follows that the thought of Anselm as a possible archbishop was in the King's mind as well as in the minds of others. But certainly no offer or hint was at this stage made by William, nor was anything said to Anselm about the matter by any one else. Men no doubt knew Anselm's feelings, and avoided the subject. But at one point during these five months the vacancy of the archbishopric was brought very strongly before Anselm's mind, though not in a way which suggested his own appointment rather than that of anybody else. When the Midwinter Gemót of this year was held, the long vacancy, and the evils which flowed from it, became a matter of discussion among the assembled Witan. But they did not venture to attempt any election, or even to make any suggestion of their own; they did not even make any