Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/588

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A Norman king of England was surely as worthy of such powers as a Norman Great Count of Sicily; and throughout these disputes we ever and anon see the vision of the "Sicilian Monarchy," as something at which kings of England were aiming, and which strict churchmen condemned, whether in Sicily or in England. It is even possible that Gerard and William of Warelwast may have discussed the matter with some members of the Sicilian embassy which about this time brought the daughter of Count Roger to Pisa as the bride of King Conrad. Close intercourse between the Norman princes of the great Oceanic and the great Mediterranean island is now beginning to be no small element in European politics. Some commission of this kind from the Pope was what William's heart was set upon; he thought he had good right to it; he thought that his hope of it could not be doomed to disappointment. Did the proudest of men look forward, as an addition to royal and imperial power, to a day when he might fill a throne in the mother church of England, looking down on the patriarchal chair, as the empty thrones of later Williams still look down on the lowlier metropolitan seats of Palermo and Monreale?

The dates show that the journeys must have been hasty, and that the business was got through with all speed. The two clerks could not have left England before the middle of March, and May was not far