Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/469

 King William the Red was now again quite another man from what he had been when he lay on his sick bed at Gloucester.

The King's sickness is said to have lasted during the whole of Lent; but he seems to have been restored to health early enough to hold the Easter Gemót at Winchester. Anselm was there, in company with his guardian Bishop Gundulf and his friend Baldwin the monk of Bec; but there is no mention of any business being done between him and the King. Doubtless the needful letters had not yet come from Normandy, even if Anselm had so soon brought himself to write those which were needful on his own part. By this time William was again in full health, and, with his former state of body, his former state of mind had also come back. He had repented of his repentance; he had fallen back into all his old evil courses with more eagerness than ever. All the wrong that he had done before he fell sick was deemed to be a small matter compared with the wrong which he did after he was restored to health. It is to this stage of his life that one of the most hideous of his blasphemous sayings is assigned. Instead of thankfulness for his renewed health, he looked on his sickness as a wrong done to him by his Maker, for which he would in some way have his revenge. It was now that he told Bishop Gundulf, whom we can fancy faintly exhorting him to keep in the good frame of mind which he had put on while he lay on his sick bed—"God shall never see me a good man; I have suffered too much at his