Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/518

 Anselm then saw that he was casting his words to the winds, he rose and went his way.

It may be that William Rufus spoke truly, and that Lanfranc would not, in any case, have dared to speak to the Conqueror as Anselm dared to speak to him. Lanfranc, with much that was great and good in him, was not a prophet of righteousness like Anselm. But it is far more certain that Lanfranc was never put to the test. The Conqueror never gave him any need to speak to him as Anselm had now need to speak to his son. What we blame in William the Great, what men like Wimund of Saint Leutfred dared to blame in him, Lanfranc could not blame. The position of Lanfranc in England involved the position of William. And, once granting that position, there was comparatively little to blame in the elder William. The beheading of Waltheof, the making of the New Forest, stand almost alone; and the beheading of Waltheof was at least no private murder; it was the judgement of what was in form a competent court. The harshness and greediness with which the Conqueror is justly charged was, after all, a small matter compared with the utter unlaw of his son's reign. And on the two subjects of Anselm's present discourse, the elder William needed no rebuke at any time. His private life was at all times absolutely blameless, and, neither as Duke nor as King, did he ever turn his ecclesiastical supremacy into a source of gain. On both those points Lanfranc had as good a right to speak as Anselm; but on those points he was never called on to speak to his own master. Whether, in Anselm's place, he would have dared to speak as Anselm did, we cannot tell. But surely the holy boldness of Anselm cannot be looked on as in any way blameworthy, as either insolent or untimed. To him at least the time doubtless seemed most fitting.