the primate, and sought to frighten him into
submission. But submission was to yield up the liberties of the Church.
The intrepid prelate was not prepared for this, and he appealed from the
council to the Pope, thereby putting himself in antagonism to the King
and a majority of the peers of the realm. The King was exasperated, but
foiled, while the council was perplexed. The Bishop of Durham saw no
solution but in violence; but violence to the metropolitan was too bold
a measure to be seriously entertained. The King hoped that Anselm would
resign, as his situation was very unpleasant.

But resignation would be an act of cowardice, and would result in the
appointment of an archbishop favorable to the encroachments of the King,
who doubtless aimed at the subversion of the liberties of the Church and
greater independence. Five centuries later the sympathies of England
would have been on his side. But the English nation felt differently in
the eleventh century. All Christendom sympathized with the Pope; for
this resistance of Anselm to the King was the cause of the popes
themselves against the monarchs of Europe. Anselm simply acted as the
vicegerent of the Pope. To submit to the dictation of the King in a
spiritual matter was to undermine the authority of Rome. I do not
attempt to settle the merits of the question, but only to describe the
contest. To settle the merits of such a question is to settle the
question whether the papal power in its plenitude was good or evil for
society in the Middle Ages.

One thing seems certain, that the King was thus far foiled by the
firmness of a churchman,--the man who had passed the greater part of his
life in a convent, studying and teaching theology; one of the mildest
and meekest men ever elevated to high ecclesiastical office. Anselm was
sustained by the power of conscience, by an imperative sense of duty, by
allegiance to his spiritual head. He indeed owed fealty to the King, but
only for the temporalities of his See. His paramount obligations as an
archbishop were, according to all the ideas of his age, to the supreme
pontiff of Christendom. Doubtless his life would have been easier and
more pleasant had he been more submissive to the King. He could have
brought all the bishops, as well as barons, to acknowledge the King's
supremacy; but on his shoulders was laid the burden of sustaining
ecclesiastical authority in England. He had anticipated this burden, and
would have joyfully