de St. Saen, who had married Robert's natural
daughter, and who, being a man of probity and honour beyond what was
usual in those ages, executed the trust with great affection and
fidelity. Edgar Atheling, who had followed Robert in the expedition
to Jerusalem, and who had lived with him ever since in Normandy, was
another illustrious prisoner taken in the battle of Tenchebray [w].
Henry gave him his liberty, and settled a small pension on him, with
which he retired; and he lived to a good old age in England, totally
neglected and forgotten. This prince was distinguished by personal
bravery: but nothing can be a stronger proof of his mean talents in
every other respect, than that, notwithstanding he possessed the
affections of the English, and enjoyed the only legal title to the
throne, he was allowed, during the reigns of so many violent and
jealous usurpers, to live unmolested, and go to his grave in peace.
[FN [t] H. Hunt. p. 379. M. Paris, p .43. Brompton, p. 1002. [u]
Eadmer, p. 90. Chron. Sax. p. 214. Order. Vital. p. 821. [w] Chron.
Sax. p. 214. Ann. Waverl. n. 144.]

[MN 1107. Continuation of the quarrel with Anselm, the primate.]
A little after Henry had completed the conquest of Normandy, and
settled the government of that province, he finished a controversy,
which had been long depending between him and the pope, with regard to
the investitures in ecclesiastical benefices; and though he was here
obliged to relinquish sonic of the ancient rights of the crown, he
extricated himself from the difficulty on easier terms than most
princes who, in that age, were so unhappy as to be engaged in disputes
with the apostolic see. The king's situation, in the beginning of his
reign, obliged him to pay great court to Anselm: the advantages which
he had reaped from the zealous friendship of that prelate had made him
sensible how prone the minds of his people were to superstition, and
what an ascendant the ecclesiastics had been able to assume over them.
He had seen, on the accession of his brother Rufus, that, though the
rights of primogeniture were then violated, and the inclinations of
almost all the barons thwarted, yet the authority of Lanfranc, the
primate, had prevailed over all other considerations: his own case,
which was still more unfavourable, afforded an instance in which the
clergy had more evidently shown their influence and authority. These
recent examples, while they made him cautious not to offe