“ But the Northumbrians, hastening all night to Durham, at daybreak broke through the gates with great violence, and on all sides surprised and slew the earl’s followers. The struggle was fiercely waged; the knights were struck down in houses and streets, and the combatants attacked the bishop’s house in which the earl had been received, and since they could not endure the darts of the defenders, burned down the house with all who were therein. So great was the multitude of the slain, that almost every part of the city was filled with blood; for out of seven hundred men only one escaped. ”

“ His mighty men grieved and the poor men murmured thereat, but he was so hard that he cared not for the hatred of them all, and they must follow the king’s will withal, if they would live or hold land or chattels, or even have his peace. Ah! that any man should be so haughty and lift himself up and count himself above all men. May God Almighty shew his soul lovingkindness and forgive him his sins. These things we have written of him, both the good and the evil, that good men may follow after the good and altogether eschew the evil, and go in the way that leads us to the kingdom of heaven. ”

“ But by the vehement demand of the whole people and by the wonderful devoutness of the new king, you have been recalled to the primacy which for God’s sake you abandoned. Thanks be to God that episcopal authority ever abides in you, and that though you are set among a barbarous folk, you cease not to proclaim truth in spite of the violence of tyrants and the favour of the mighty, in spite of the kindled fire and the outstretched hand. ”

“ Wherefore, reverend father, humbly and devoutly I bow the knee to your holiness and beseech you to beseech the supreme Judge, whose award and pleasure has granted this triumph, so glorious and so profitable to me, that it may not turn to my loss and damage, but to the beginning of good works and the service of God, and to the maintenance and strengthening of the estate of God’s Holy Church in peace and tranquillity, that henceforth it may persist in freedom and not be shaken by any shock of battle. ”

“ Be sure that no man shall wrest you from our friendship, if you abstain from investitures, if you yield to the church due honour and preserve its freedom ordained by God. Indeed, by the judgment of the Holy Ghost, we prohibit kings and princes and all laymen alike from investitures of churches. It is not fit that a mother should be sold into slavery by a son, receiving a spouse whom she has not chosen. For her Spouse she has our King and Lord, and may He keep you of His mercy in power and piety, and lead you from an earthly to a heavenly kingdom. ”

“ All the chief men of the whole realm came together, bishops, abbots and all the nobles, looking for nothing but his death. The sick man was urged to take thought for the salvation of his soul, to open the prisons, to set free the prisoners, to unloose the bound, to pardon debts, to restore to liberty the churches still in bondage under his lordship, by setting pastors over them, and above all the church of Canterbury, “the oppression whereof,” they said, “lays a hateful burden upon the whole church of Christ in England.” ”

“ One day one of the chief men of the realm, a favourite of the king, happened to say to him among other things in the course of conversation: “We have never known a man of holiness so great, we honestly believe, as Anselm abbot of Bec; he loves nothing beside God, and, as the whole of his work makes manifest, he covets nothing transitory.” ”

“ They had done homage to him and sworn oaths, but had held no faith; they were all forsworn and brake their fealty; for every mighty man built his castles and held them against him; and they filled the land full of castles. They cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle-works. When the castles were made, they filled them with devils and evil men. ”

“ Know ye that I, by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the barons of the realm of England, have been crowned king of the same realm. And because the realm was oppressed by unjust exactions, I, out of reverence for God and out of the love which I have towards all of you, grant first that the Holy Church of God be free, so that I will neither sell it nor put it to farm, nor, upon the death of archbishop or bishop or abbot, will I take aught of the lordship of the church or of the men, until a successor enter therein. ”

“ He was a very great bishop in Normandy, at Bayeux was his bishop’s see, and he was the foremost man beside the king. He had an earldom in England, and when the king was in Normandy, then was he the mightiest in this land; and him he put in prison.
Among other things is not to be forgotten the good peace that he made in this land, so that a man who himself were aught might fare unhurt throughout his realm with his bosom full of gold. And no man durst slay another man, how much evil soever he had done to the other.... ”

“ He who had been justiciar of the whole of England and greatly feared by all men, was twice impleaded by the king at the end of his life before a justice of low birth, and twice condemned with disgrace in the heaviest damages; whereby his anguish of heart so affected him, that when I, now his archdeacon, sat by him at dinner, I saw that he had been moved to tears. I asked the cause, and he replied, “At one time my attendants were sumptuously clothed; now the fines exacted by the king, whose favour I have always sought, have reduced them to sheepskins.” ”

“ Wretched men died of hunger; some went seeking alms, who were sometime rich men; some fled out of the land. Never yet had more wretchedness been in the land, nor did heathen men ever do worse than they did; for everywhere they spared neither church nor churchyard, but took all the goods that were therein, and then burned the church and all together. Nor spared they a bishop’s land, nor an abbot’s, nor a priest’s, but robbed monks and clerks, and every man another who anywhere could. ”

“ The husbandmen left the fields, houses were emptied of their inmates, whole cities went abroad. There was no regard for ties, love of country was of small esteem, God alone held men’s vision. Stored up barns, hoarded treasures, all that might satisfy the tiller’s eager hopes or the miser’s greed, were abandoned; they hungered only after the journey to Jerusalem. Joy went with the travellers, grief oppressed those who stayed at home. ”

“ Yea! this land was filled with monks, and they lived their life after the rule of St. Benedict, and Christianity was such in his day that every man that would followed what belonged to his degree. Also he was full worshipful; thrice he bare his crown each year as oft as he was in England; at Easter he bare it in Winchester, on Whitsunday at Westminster, at Midwinter in Gloucester. And then there were with him all the mighty men over all England, archbishops and bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights. ”

“ The nobles, given over to gluttony and lust, used not to attend church in the morning in Christian fashion, but lay in bed till late hours and idly listened to the service of matins and masses from the lips of a hurrying priest. The people, unprotected in their midst, were the prey of the stronger folk, who drained their substance or sold their persons into distant lands, that they might heap up treasure upon treasure, albeit excess of feasting rather than of wealth is the instinct of this race. ”

“ We give thanks to the Lord, the King of kings, who by the grace of His goodwill has raised you to the throne, and by the grace of His goodwill and of His ineffable mercy has watched over you as a Christian king. We ask, therefore, that He may make the good beginnings of your reign grow to better things, and to the end watch over His gifts bestowed upon you. For you have repudiated the impiety of the king your brother, which, as you see, has been terribly avenged by the divine judgment ”

“ When the famous conqueror of England, king William, a kinsman by blood of the same prelate, had subdued the further limits of the island to his sovereignty and cowed the hearts of rebels by terrible examples, he decreed that the subject race should submit to a written law and a written code, to prevent thereafter the existence of an easy means of error. ”

“ The negotiations and peaceable settlement of these schemes occupied the king for a space of four years,78 during the whole of which he stayed in Normandy. And yet the peace, so brilliant, so carefully devised, and the hopes of all men, raised so high, were brought to confusion by the uncertainty of man’s lot. It was decided to return to England, and on the evening of the 24th of November the king set sail at Barfleur; a fair breeze filled his sails and brought him safe to his realm and noble heritage. ”

“ And when all men, even they who lectured in the schools on the vanity of the world, were obsequious to him, and he himself, honoured as the father and god of all, loved and valued the world overmuch, with what countenance, with what temper would I have regarded any man who should have told me then that this splendour, which all admired, was contemptible? ”

“ So the elder and more prominent men summoned a council, and making common provision, in their judgment, for the good estate of the realm, unanimously conspired to elect him king. They urged that the whole realm was liable to the chances of evil fortune, where the fount of all governance and the head of justice was lacking. It was vital to them at once to establish a king, who should restore peace for the common good, punish rebels by force of arms, and justly administer the laws. ”

“ Some of the powerful laity, stirred to envy that they should be surpassed by clerks in their wealth of heaped-up treasure and the size of their towns, cherished in their hearts a sullen jealousy. So they poured their discontents into the king’s ear, urging that it would all unquestionably turn to the king’s destruction, since, as soon as the empress came, they would welcome their lady by surrendering their castles, drawn to her by the memory of her father’s favours ”

“ After the conquest of the realm, after the just overthrow of the rebels, when the king himself and the king’s barons traversed the new country, a careful enquiry was made touching those who fought against the king in battle and saved themselves by flight. To all of these, and to the heirs also of those who had fallen in battle, all hope of the lands and estates and revenues which they had before possessed was denied; they thought it much to enjoy the privilege of continuing to live under their enemies. ”

“ Meanwhile a grumbling multitude of husbandmen used to flock to the king’s court, or, what he thought worse, often used to press about him as he passed by, offering their ploughs as a sign of the decay of agriculture, for they were oppressed by innumerable hardships on account of the victuals, which they brought from their homes through all parts of the realm. The king listened to their complaints, and after taking counsel with the nobles, sent throughout the realm the wisest and most discreet men whom he knew for the purpose. ”

“ They crushed the natives with spirit, and civilised them with patience; to ensure peace they imposed upon them law and ordinances, and brought the land to such fertility and abundant plenty, that you would deem it in no wise inferior to the most fruitful part of Britain. ”

“ He was very strong and stern over his land and his men and towards all his neighbours, and much to be feared; and through evil men’s counsels, that were ever comfortable to him, and through his own covetousness, he was ever tormenting this people with an army and unjust taxes, whereby in his days all right fell, and all unright in the sight of God and of the world uprose. ”

“ It seemed to him a serious matter to lose the investitures of churches and the homage of prelates, but not less serious to suffer Anselm to leave the realm before he himself was fully established on the throne. On the one hand he thought he would be losing as it were half the realm, and on the other he feared that Anselm would go to his brother Robert, who had by that time returned to Normandy from Jerusalem, and persuading him to submit to the apostolic see, which he knew to be a most easy thing to do, would make him king of England. ”

“ You know how often I appealed to him, as well by myself as by the bishops, especially in the council summoned last year for this purpose, and yet I won nothing but disfavour. It can escape no man, who thinks aright, that I ought to love my mortal brother, but much rather ought to regard the cause of my immortal Father. Therefore, since God has judged my brother, permitting him without my connivance to fall into the power of the mighty, in my right as legate I have asked you all to assemble hither, that the kingdom be not imperilled for lack of a ruler. ”

“ For hence come forth strivings, dissensions, envyings, contentions and the like, which cast down those who love them into eternal pains. And the more exalted be a man’s rank, the more exact should be his obedience to commands. Wherefore I, Thomas, now ordained metropolitan of the church of York, having heard and understood the argument, make absolute profession of canonical obedience to you, Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and to your successors ”

“ I know that there were many laymen of the same nation, of every sort and condition, who were pleasing to God. Let my narrative escape injustice; all are not alike included in this condemnation; but as in times of peace the wisdom of God full often cherishes the evil with the good, so in times of captivity His sharp displeasure not seldom constrains the good with the evil.
Now the Normans, to speak of them also, were at that time and still are in dress bravely apparelled and in their food delicate but not excessive; a people accustomed to warfare, and without it scarce able to live. ”

“ This so done, king William turned again to Normandy. A rueful thing he did, and a more rueful thing befel him. How more rueful? He fell sick and was sorely stricken. What can I say? Sharp death that passes by neither mighty men nor humble, took him. He died in Normandy on the day next after the Nativity of St. Mary (9 September) , and he was buried at Caen in the monastery of St. Stephen, which he had formerly built and afterwards richly endowed. Ah! how false and how unstable is the wealth of this world. ”