Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/645

 *

"Power is in his hands; he says what pleases him. What he refuses now he may perhaps grant another day. I will multiply my prayers." Anselm had there-*fore to stay in England. But the formal charge against him was withdrawn. Perhaps the King had merely made it in a fit of ill humour, and had long given up any serious thought of pressing it. And, if he really wished to annoy Anselm, he had now a way in which he might annoy him far more thoroughly and with much greater advantage than by any mere temporal suit.

This year was a year of gatherings, alike for counsel and for warfare. The seeming submission of Wales was soon found to be utterly hollow. From Midsummer till August William was engaged in another British expedition, one which brought nothing but immediate toil and trouble, but of whose more distant results we shall have again to speak. On his return he summoned, perhaps not a general Gemót, but at any rate a council of prelates and lords, to discuss grave matters touching the state of the kingdom. We would fain hear something of their debates on other affairs than those of Anselm; but that privilege is denied us. We only know that, when the council was about to break up, when all its members were eager to get to their homes, Anselm earnestly craved that his request to go to Rome might be granted, and that the King again refused.

William Rufus seems never to have been happy save when he was himself moving and keeping everybody else in motion. It must have been in his days as in the days