Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/507

 *English Wulfstan stood not by him—before the altar of Saint Martin of the Place of Battle, seemed like a representative of universal Christendom, of universal peace and love. The holy man from Aosta sang his mass in honour of the holy man of Tours. And he sang it on the spot where Harold of England had stood by his standard in the morning, where William of Normandy had held the feast of victory in the evening, the morning and evening of the most memorable day in the history of our island since England became one kingdom.

From the hill of Battle William went back to the hill of Hastings, now crowned by the castle into which the hasty fortress of his father had grown. Six years earlier the Bishop of Durham, charged with treason, had in answer, pleaded that he had kept Hastings and its castle in the King's obedience. Notwithstanding that answer, he had been banished; he had been recalled, and he now stood, with all his former authority, chief counsellor of the King, chief enemy of the Archbishop. On the morrow of the dedication of Saint Martin's, William of Saint-Calais joined with Anselm in the long-delayed consecration of the elect of Lincoln. The rite was done in the church of Our Lady within the castle of Hastings, by the hands of the same prelates who had the day before dedicated the church of Battle. It was to the see of Lincoln, not to the see of Dorchester, that Robert Bloet was consecrated. Thomas of Bayeux was not there to repeat his protest. He would have been there in vain. The bishop-elect had, in the course of his chancellorship, got together the means of settling such questions. His bishopric, granted at the time of the King's repentance, had cost him nothing. It was now a matter of regret with Rufus that it had