Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/72

 born jealousy of the Kings newly chosen counsellor, Odo had a long standing hatred against the other prelate who had so long watched over the King, and whose advice the King was bound by oath to follow. He bore the bitterest grudge against the Primate Lanfranc, as the inventor of that subtle distinction between the Bishop of Bayeux and the Earl of Kent which had cost the Earl five years of imprisonment.

Of the two personages who might thus be joined or separated at pleasure, it is the temporal chief with whom we have now to deal. Lent was now come. Of the spiritual exercises of the Bishop of Bayeux during the holy season we have no record; the Earl of Kent spent the time plotting with the chief Normans in England how the King might be killed or handed over alive to his brother. We have more than one vigorous report of the oratory used in these seditious gatherings. According to some accounts, they went on on both sides of the sea, and we are admitted to hear the arguments which were used both in Normandy and in England. Both agree in maintaining the claims of Robert, as at once the true successor, and the prince best fitted for their purpose. But it is on Norman ground that the necessity for an union between Normandy and England is set forth most clearly. The main

quasi cor regis erat."]odium anhelans, quod ejus consilio a fratre se in vincula conjectum asserebat."]
 * [Footnote: Cf. Ann. Wint. 1088. "Episcopus Willelmus Dunelmensis, qui paulo ante