who had been formerly in his service, approached in a boat, and told him that the bishop of London, being at the point of death, much desired to see him. Flambard unsuspiciously stepped into the boat, was rowed down the river, and forced on board a ship, which immediately proceeded to sea. A storm arose; some of those who had engaged to murder him, became afraid; his promises induced a part of them to put him on shore: so that in three days he reappeared at court, to the terror of his enemies. To console him, the king gave him the bishopric of Durham, but not without, what we may call, the ecclesiastical reliefa present of 1000%. When this worthless prelate was appointed, the see of Durham had for some time been vacant; it would have continued so for many years longer but for his favour with the king. Many other benefices William refused to fill up. Among them was Canterbury, which had been vacant four years; and which he declared should have no archbishop but himself while he lived. There can be no doubt that his threat would have been verified; that half the cathedrals and monasteries in the kingdom would have been without prelates, for at this time there was a schism in the popedom,- had not the monarch been assailed by a serious fit of illness. In his alarm he released many prisoners; restored to several churches and monasteries the manors which he had usurped from them; forgave all offences against the crown; and promised amendment of life, should God restore him to health. At this season the bishops who surrounded his sick-bed, had little difficulty in persuading him to nominate a successor to Lanfranc, and his choice fell on Anselm, abbot of Bec in Normandy, who happened to be present, and whom Lanfranc himself had expressly recommended for his successor. The intimation was a sorrowful one to the abbot, who well knew the character of the king, and who had no wish to pass his declining years in perpetual disputes with so fierce and unprincipled a tyrant. He refused the dignity; but in vain. He was dragged

1033

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1093.

to the bed of Rufus; a crosier was forced into his hands; and Te Deum was chanted in thanksgiving for the event. The new archbishop protested that his election was illegal; that he was not the subject of Rufus, but of Robert duke of Normandy. Both Robert, however, and the archbishop of Rouen, ordered him to remain in the dignity; and his friends, at length, persuaded him that the interests of religion required his compliance.*

St. Anselm was by birth an Italian, and born in the year 1033. Having lost his mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, and being treated with severity by a harsh father, he precipitately left his home, and passed into France. There the fame of Lanfranc, prior of Bec, drew him into Normandy. The ardour with which he applied to study soon gained him the favour of his master; nor did he long hesitate to assume the cowl in that monastery. In a few years, Lanfranc being placed over the new foundation of Caen, the priorship of Bec was given to Anselm. His elevation at so early an age as twenty-seven, gave great offence to the older monks; who, though they were compelled to bend before the authority of their abbot Herluin, were not slow to form a faction against him. His manners, however, were so mild, that he disarmed the most bitter of his opponents, and in reality turned dislike into affection. He had no wish for the dignity, which, as he truly said, distracted his mind from study, and his heart from constant communion with God; and he applied to the archbishop of Rouen for a release from the unwelcome burden. But the prelate, who knew that the men most anxious to escape dignities are the fittest to fill them, refused his request, and read him a lecture on the duties which he owed to others duties far more

*Eadmerus, Historia Novorum, p. 15-19., necnon Vita S. Anselmi (apud Bollandistas, Acta Sanctorum, Die Aprilis xxi.). Johannes Carnotensis, Vita ejusdem (apud Wharton, Anglia Sacra, tom. ii.). Wilhelmus Malmesburiensis, De Gestis Pontificum, p. 218., necnon De Regibus, p. 69. dericus Vitalis, Historia, p. 678-682. Ingulphus Croylandensis, cum Continuatione Petri Blesensis, p. 16—111.

Or

agreeable to Heaven than even that of self-improvement. Without receiving the absurd, however harmless legends which Eadmer collected respecting his conventional life, we may believe that it was in every respect exemplary. He is particularly praised for the charity with which he sought the infirmary; for the tender care with which he prescribed for the bodily, no less than the spiritual ailments of his brethren. Thus passed his life, useful to himself as well as to others; for whatever might be his anxiety to benefit mankind, he never lost sight of his studies. All the hours which he could abstract from his higher duties, he passed in contemplation, or in the composition of books. On the death of the abbot Herluin, the community cast their eyes on him as the successor. That he was loth to accept the office, we may readily believe; since it would inevitably cast a greater load on his shoulders than the one he had so reluctantly borne. On his knees he is said to have besought them to desist from their purpose; to elect some other monk in his stead; but they were too well acquainted with his virtues to hear him, and in the sequel he was compelled to sacrifice his own I will to theirs. A better abbot could not have been found. The taste for learning which Lanfranc had been so diligent to create, he considerably fortified, thus spreading the renown of his monastery throughout Europe. His liberality to the poor, who were daily fed in the hospitium, was so great—not unfrequently he persuaded his monks to send from their own table the untouched viands that there was reason to apprehend a famine. But he exhorted all to confidence in God; and his biographers tell us that immediately after such assurances, either a vessel would arrive from England with provisions, or some rich noble would visit the monastery, and leave a memorial of his benevolence. That the fame of such a man should be widely diffused, need not surprise us. His old friend Lanfranc, whom he visited at Canterbury, regarded him as the only man fitted to succeed him in so arduous a trust; and it was doubt

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less owing to his recommendation that Rufus, in his momentary repentance, remembered that he was nominated to that high dignity. "You know not what you are doing," said he to the prelates who forced him to accept it; "you are joining to the same plough a feeble old sheep with a wild bull."*

The vexations which Anselm had foreseen soon arrived. No sooner did the king feel that he should 1100. recover than he revoked the pardons he had granted,

reclaimed the debts which he had forgiven, detained his prisoners, and reverted to his former tyrannical acts. Of his detestable immorality the strongest language is used by contemporary writers: it outraged all decency ; and his example being imitated by his youthful courtiers, made his court the abode of the most disgusting debauchery. Before Anselm would do homage to such a monster, or receive the episcopal consecration, he' allowed some months to elapse. But other circumstances also tended to this delay. It was his first duty to procure the restoration of the manors which had been severed from the church; but to his applications, an evasive answer or a positive refusal was returned · evasions as regarded those of Canterbury, but explicit enough as regarded those of other churches or monasteries. When he entreated the king to nominate suitable persons to the vacant abbeys, Rufus demanded, “What concern is this of yours? Are not the abbeys

mine ? Do what you please with your own farms, and allow me to do what I please with my abbeys!" No words could more clearly evince the monarch's determination to render the altar the obsequious handmaid of the throne. In fact, the very day Anselm entered Canterbury, proceedings were instituted against him in the king's name by the notorious Flambard for some im

*Eadmerus, Vita S. Anselmi, lib. i. cap. 1-6. (apud Bollandistas, Acta Sanctorum, Die Aprilis xxi. p. 856-878.). Johannes Carnotensis, Vita ejusdem (apud Wharton, Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 155-163.).

Luxuriæ scelus tacendum exercebat, non occulto, sed ex impudentia coram sole. Huntingdon, p. 216. Nefandissimum Sodomæ scelus noviter in hac terra divulgatum, jam plurimum pullulavit, multosque suâ immunitate fœderit.-Eadmer, p. 24. This noviter is worthy of consideration.

puted breach of the royal prerogative: his tenants were constrained to pay their rents into the exchequer ; and the persons to whom William had sold the manors were encouraged to retain them. Yet, though by these and other vexatious proceedings the primate was reduced to such poverty that he could not support a household, and that for the very necessaries of life he was indebted to the abbot of St. Albans, he was commanded, in accordance with the system of Flambard, to raise a sum for the king, proportionate to the value of his benefice. With much difficulty he collected 500l., which was rejected as insufficient. Anselm is to be severely blamed for this criminal condescension to the tyrant's rapacity: by complying, however reluctantly, with the newly raised demand, he was leaving a fatal example to other prelates; he was authorising the most ruinous simony, and subjecting the ecclesiastical tenants, on whom the burden of the contribution must ultimately fall throughout the realm, to the oppressive exactions of all new dignitaries. It may, indeed, be urged in his excuse, that as the schism of the popedom was pending, he had no superior whom he could invoke to his aid; but this is a poor justification. The truth is, he was for a moment constrained by what he doubtless at the time regarded as mere prudence: but his better reason appears soon to have returned; for scarcely had he left the royal presence, where his money had been so contemptuously rejected, when he distributed the whole of it to the poor. Another cause of his disgrace was the freedom with which he reproved the flagitious conduct of the king: had he, like the more prudent of his brethren, looked indifferently on it, he would doubtless have been a favourite: for the relation of Eadmer distinctly implies that from the mcment he assumed the duty of monition, he was beheld with dislike. William, however, could not dispense with money, and it was whispered to the archbishop, that if he would offer 1000l. instead of 500%., he would regain the smiles of royalty. This time he was not