Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/454

 sick of a sickness which both himself and others deemed to be unto death.

The heart of the Red King was not yet wholly hardened; with sickness came repentance. Believing himself to be at the gates of the next world, his conscience awoke, and he saw in their true light the deeds which he had been so long doing in this world. He no longer jested at his own crimes and vices; he bemoaned them and began to think of amendment. The great men of the realm, bishops, abbots, and lay nobles, pressed around his sick bed, looking for his speedy death, and urging him to make what atonement he could for his misdeeds, while he yet lived. Let him throw open his prisons; let him set free his captives; let him loose those who were in chains; let him forgive his debtors—it is again assumed that a debt to the Crown must be a wrongful debt—let him provide pastors for the churches which he holds in his hands; above all, let him set free the head church of all, the church of Canterbury, whose bondage was the most crying wrong of his kingdom. All this they pressed, each to the best of his power, on the no longer unwilling mind of the King. It bethought them moreover that there was one not far off, who was more skilled than any of them in healing the diseases of the soul, and whose words would