Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/662

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with every strict churchman. But there is another point in which the case of Anselm and the case of Thomas agree as distinguished from the case of William of Saint-Calais. In this last case nothing turned on any promise of the Bishop to obey the customs of the realm. Much in the case of Anselm, much more in the case of Thomas, turned on such a promise. In each case the Archbishop pleads a certain reservation expressed or understood; but there is a wide difference between the reservation made by Anselm and the reservation made by Thomas. The favourite formula with Thomas, the formula which he proposes, the formula which he is at Clarendon with difficulty persuaded to withdraw and on which he again falls back, is "saving my order." Anselm has nothing to say about his order; he is not fighting for the privileges of any special body of men; he is simply a righteous man clothed with a certain office, the duties of which office he must discharge. It is not his order that he reserves; he reserves only the higher and more abiding names of God and right.

As for the cases themselves and the tribunals before which they were heard, we must always remember that our reports, though very full, are not official. Their authors therefore use technical or non-technical language at pleasure. They assume familiarity with the nature of the court and its mode of procedure; they do not stop to explain many things which we should be very glad if they had stopped to explain. But it is clear that the nature of the proceedings was not exactly the same in the three cases. And it is singular that, in point of mere procedure, there seems more likeness between the case of Anselm and the case of Thomas than there is between either and the case of William of Saint-Calais. William