Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/465

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down into a yet deeper widowhood, widowhood during the life of her pastor. He himself would be the first victim; none of them would dare to give him help, and then the King would trample them too under his feet at pleasure. He then burst into tears; he parted from the assembly, and went to his own quarters, whether in the city of Gloucester or at the unnamed place where he had before been staying. The King, foreseeing no further difficulties, gave orders that steps should be taken for investing him without delay with the temporal possessions of the see. But a whole train of unlooked-for hindrances appeared before Anselm could be put into possession of either the temporal or the spiritual powers of Lanfranc.

At this first stage of the story, as at every other, as long as the scene is laid in England, we are struck in the strongest way by the fact that every one concerned takes the ancient customs of England for granted. If those customs have changed from what they may have been under Cnut or Eadward, they have at least not changed to the advantage of the Roman see, or indeed of the ecclesiastical power in any shape. Hildebrand has no followers either in England or in Normandy. No one has called in question the right either of the King of the English or of the Duke of the Normans to invest the prelates of his dominions with the pastoral staff. There is not one word in the whole story implying that any one had any scruple on the subject. Anselm clearly had none. He had received