of the day, without feeling that, in that day of England's darkest degradation, he was looked on as the one man who still kept alive in the nation the recollection of a God of justice and purity. It is, therefore, from the election of Anselm to the see of Canterbury that I date the second and far more important stage in the rise of the English nation after the Norman Conquest.

The method and object of Anselm's work was, it need hardly be said, the revival of the English Church, and its identification with the English people. The struggle between him and Rufus soon began. The corruption which Rufus had brought into the Church he did not intend to reform for Anselm's sake, and he insolently demanded that Anselm should himself take part in it by paying him for his appointment. Anselm refused, and appealed to the King not to trample under foot the laws of God.2 One worthy supporter, the excellent Wulstan,3 gallantly enlisted under the banner of the new Archbishop. Encouraged by this help, Anselm next determined to

Johann. Saris. Vita S. Anselmi, p. 163.

2 Ibid.

3 admer's Hist. Nov., Book I. p. 23.

meet the King face to face, and appeal to his conscience, and to beg him to provide a remedy for the evils of the kingdom.

One after another he set forth the hideous corruptions which were growing up in the kingdom, and demanded a council of bishops to settle them. Rufus was evidently puzzled at an enthusiasm for which he could see no reason such as his mind could grasp. And what would be done in this matter for you?' he asks. If not for me,' said Anselm, 'something I hope would be done for God and for you.' At last the King is roused into his natural fury, and exclaims, 'Your predecessor would never have dared to speak such words to my father, and I will do nothing for you.' Nor would there have been more hope in the council of bishops for which Anselm, in his noble trustfulness, had asked. The greater part of the bishops, we are informed by the Chronique de Normandie,' 2 were Normans at the time of William I.'s death, and those appointed since then, of whatever race, were of course mere minions of Rufus.

1 Eadmer's Hist. Nov., Book I. p. 24.

'Deprived

2 Chap. 1. p. 117. 'Les Prélats d'Angleterre, dont la pluspart estoyent Normans.’

of the help of his suffragans,' Anslem 'departed of his own accord,' yielding to the hardness of the times,' or, as Henry of Huntingdon bitterly but truly puts it, Anselm left the country 'because the vile King would suffer nothing good to remain in it.' 2

Yet he did not go without comfort or hope, either at home or abroad, nor was mere flight from England his object. He saw now that the link which could bind the English Church to the people was not to be found in the bishops but in the monks. Here, in spite of simony and impurity, there was still to be found some zeal for the cause of God. The Abbot of St. Alban's 3 had headed the most strenuous opposition to the Conqueror. The monks of Croyland had hastened to do honour to the bones of Waltheof. The Abbot of St. Augustine had helped to lead the movement which wrung the liberties of Kent from the Conqueror; 5 while in the north, St. Cuthbert,

1 Guill. Malmesb., Book IV. vol. ii. p. 499.

2 See, too, Florent. Wigorn., p. 41.

Matt. Paris. Vit. Abb., S. Alb., p. 48.

3

4 Ord. Vital., same note as on p. I. See also Sim. Dunelm. de Gest. Reg. Ang., p. 209 (ed. and vol. as above).

5 Thorn, as in page 5.

scorning to leave the defence of his people to the hands of a subordinate, descended himself to drive William from his Church, and afterwards punished. his oppressive delegate by blows from his pastoral staff. We may well believe that Lanfranc's zeal for monastic reform was quickened by other motives than a mere love of learning. While, then, we look upon Anselm at this time as the leader of all that was true and faithful in the English people, we must not forget the little group of monks who clustered round their spiritual father. But it was not to any body of Englishmen that Anselm chiefly looked for help. Though he 'understood' from the touching appeal of the soldier to him to be strong in fighting for them against the devil, that 'the spirit of the people was on his side,' he trusted himself too little to take the leadership that was offered him, and he appealed to the one authority from whom he supposed that strength and help might yet be expected. Much as we may regret that Anselm should even have wished to revive the papal au

1 Sim. Dunelm. Hist. de Dunelm. Eccl., chap. xix. and xx., pp. 42, 43 (ed. and vol. as above).

2 Anselmus pater, as Eadmer calls him.

* Eadmer's Hist. Nov., Book I. p. 29.

thority in England, it is not he, but Rufus and Ralph of Durham whom we must blame.

William of Normandy had thrust out law and freedom, and made the hopes of Englishmen centre on the personal character of one man. When his successor struck at the roots of morality and corrupted the leaders of the Church, the only hope for England of which anyone could conceive was in the ruler whom they supposed to be the perfect representative of Christ upon earth. And this hope Anselm, as an Italian, had a certain right to cherish. While, therefore, we look upon the defiance of the papal authority as one of the healthiest features in the struggle with which Langton's life was occupied, we must not forget that we owe it to the ideal which Anselm set before himself, and which he supposed to be realized by the Pope, that there still remained an English people to join in the struggle.

And if we look below the surface of things, we shall find that the work which Anselm did was in one respect as weakening to the authority of the Pope as that of Langton. Had Urban been the ideal Vicar of Christ whom Anselm and his followers at first imagined him to be, the history of