Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/462

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the Kings bed. The King held out the staff; the Abbot, though his arm was stretched out against his will, held his hand firmly clenched. The bishops strove to force open his fingers, till he shrieked with the pain. After much striving, they managed to raise his forefinger, to place the staff between that one finger and his still closed hand, and to keep it there with their own hands. This piece of sheer violence was held to be a lawful investiture. The assembled crowd—we are still in the sick king's room—began to shout "Long live the Bishop." The bishops and clergy began to sing Te Deum with a loud voice. Then the bishops, abbots, and nobles, seized Anselm, and carried rather than led him into a neighbouring church—was it the great minster of Ealdred or its successor growing up under the hands of Serlo? —while he still refused and struggled and protested that all that they did went for nothing. A looker-on, Anselm himself says, might have doubted whether a crowd in their right mind were dragging a single madman, or whether a crowd of madmen were dragging a single man who kept his right mind. Anyhow they reached the church and there went through the ceremonies which