Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/457

 *

also now made grants to some monasteries, and, what was more important than all, he filled the vacant bishoprics. The fame of one of the two appointments so fills the pages of our guides that we might easily forget that it was now that the staff of Remigius was given to Robert Bloet. We have heard of him already as an old servant of William the Great, and as trusted by him with the weighty letter which ruled the succession of the crown on behalf of William the Red. He was now the King's Chancellor. He bears a doubtful character; he was not a scholar, but he was a man skilful in all worldly business; he was not a saint, but he was perhaps not the extreme sinner which some have painted him. His consecration was put off for nearly a year; and we shall meet him again in the midst of a striking and busy scene when the next year has begun. For the present we need only remember that two bishops, and not one only, were invested, according to the ancient use of England, by the royal hand at the bedside of William Rufus.

We may take for granted that it took no such struggle to change the King's Chancellor into the Bishop-elect of Lincoln as it took to change the man on whom all eyes were now fixed into an Archbishop-elect of Canterbury. It was now a Sunday, the first Sunday in Lent; a gathering of bishops and other chief men stood around the King who was believed to be dying. He had solemnly repented; he must now make restitution. The