Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/653

 the truth that men may differ as to what is duty towards God, and that no lawgiver or administrator of the law can possibly listen to every scruple which may be urged on such grounds in favour of disobedience. To Anselm's mind the case was clear. A custom which hindered him from going to consult the Vicar of Saint Peter for his own soul's health and for the good of the Church was a custom contrary to God and right, a custom which ought to be cast aside and disobeyed. No man who feared God would hinder him from going to the head of Christendom on God's service. He ended with a parable. The King would not think himself well served if any powerful vassal of his should by terrors and threatenings hinder any other of his subjects from doing his duty and service to him.

It was perhaps not wholly in enmity that the Count of Meulan, who at Rockingham had frankly professed his admiration of Anselm, joined the King at this stage in trying to turn off the matter with a jest. The Primate, he said, was preaching them a sermon; but prudent people could not admit his line of argument. And certainly Anselm's present line of argument, the assertion of individual conscience against established law, could not be admitted by any legislative or judicial assembly. A disturbance followed; the barons who had stood by the Archbishop when he lay under a manifestly unjust charge joined in the clamour against him when he declared that the law of the land was something to be despised and disobeyed. But Anselm's conscience was not disturbed; he sat quiet and silent, with his face towards the ground, till the clamour wore itself out. He then finished his sermon, as Count*