lity. But the barons began to declare their respect for the brave old
man at Canterbury.

At last, when Anselm was summoned to appear before the King's Court, to "do
the King right," on a trumped-up charge of having failed to send an
adequate supply of troops for the King's service, he felt the position was
hopeless. Anselm's longing had been to labour with the King, as Lanfranc
had laboured, to promote religion in the country, and he had been
frustrated at every turn. The summons to the King's Court was the last
straw, for the defendant in this Court was entirely at the mercy of the
Crown. "When, in Anglo-Norman times you speak of the King's Court, it is
only a phrase for the King's despotism."[6] Anselm took no notice of the
King's summons, and decided to appeal to Rome. For a time William refused
permission for any departure from England, but he yielded in 1097, and
Anselm set out for Rome.

He stayed at Rome and at Lyons till William was dead, for the Pope would
not let him resign Canterbury, and could do nothing to bring the King to a
better mind. Then, on the urgent request of Henry I., he returned to
England, and for a time all went well. Henry was in earnest for the
restoration of law and religion in England, and his declaration, at the
very beginning of his reign--the oft-quoted "charter" of Henry I.--to stop
the old scandals of selling and farming out Church lands, and to put down
all unrighteousness that had been in his brother's time, was hailed with
rejoicing.

Anselm stood loyally by Henry over the question of his marriage with Edith
(who claimed release from vows taken under compulsion in a convent at
Romsey), and his fidelity at the critical time when Robert of Normandy and
the discontented nobles threatened the safety of the Crown was invaluable.
But Henry was an absolutist, anxious for all the threads of power to be in
his own hands; and just when a great Church Council at the Lateran had
decided that bishops must not be invested by kings with the ring and staff
of their office, because by such investiture they were the king's vassals,
Henry decided to invite Anselm to receive the archbishopric afresh from the
King's hands by a new act of investiture. To Anselm the abject submission
of the bishops to the Red King had been a painful spectacle; and now Henry
was making a demand that would emphasise the royal supremacy, and the
demand was intolerable and impossible. Again Anselm stood practically alone