After the Arrow

By Val Morgan

On August 2nd 1100, King William Rufus was shot by an arrow whilst out hunting and died of the wound. Was it murder?

Here is the story of what happened after that fatal arrow plunged the kingdom into years of disruption and uncertainty when exceptional personalities were playing for high stakes in a country wracked by violent disputes and long-drawn-out controversies.

After the Arrow brings to life the people who struggled with the most divisive issues of their day and the people who bore the cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781528954396

Val Morgan

Val Morgan is a writer and retired academic. She lives near Colchester.

Book preview

Chapter One

The World Turns

IN THE AFTERNOON OF AUGUST 2nd 1100, an open cart drawn by a single stocky horse was making its way along a track in Brockenhurst forest. On it lay the corpse of a man in his prime. The shaft of an arrow protruding from his neck indicated the cause of death. One arm was flung overboard, being left to dandle up and down to the jarring of the forest track, fingers curved towards the ground as if reaching out for it, or waving it goodbye. This was the final journey of William Rufus. Until two hours ago he had been King of England. Now he was a corpse on the way to burial.

As word spread, gawkers came to gather about the cart but they were not allowed to slow it. Keeping a steady pace, drawing a shambling procession in its wake, it rattled over the track. Three of the king’s huntsmen, longstanding veterans of the forest, men who knew the king and made no judgements upon him, pushed back the jostlers, preventing them from viewing the body over which a huntsman’s jerkin had been laid. In overall charge was a man who had appointed himself to the task, being the first to find the king dead in the forest.

Robert of Castle St Mary’s had found him and raised the alarm. On his own authority, while confusion reigned among the royal entourage who scattered in all directions, he had given orders for the removal of the body. Having sent an urgent message to forewarn the Prior of Winchester, he sequestered a passing woodsman’s cart and, in company with the huntsmen and his own two sons, set out to convey the king’s earthly remains to Winchester for burial.

It was full night when the silent procession reached the New Minster. By then the gawkers had mostly dispersed; a few townsfolk gathered but, being told that the rumours were false, that this was not the king, they lost interest and drifted away. Although no courtier by training, Robert was aware that news of such magnitude should not be carelessly given out. As the cart ended its journey at the great west doors, Prior Godfrey was waiting, leaning on his staff. Robert dismounted.

‘Thank you, prior,’ he said. ‘There is no order. All is confusion. Henry gone; the court dispersed. No-one to arrange these obsequies. If it proves we have done wrong in this, I will answer for it.’

Godfrey nodded. ‘I pray you, bring in the body. It will lie in the choir beneath the tower.’

With these words Godfrey buckled himself to confront one of the worst moments in his long and devoted life of service to the church. To bury a king hugger-mugger with concealed and impromptu rites was fraught with risk. Even more so when that king had a scurrilous reputation and was viewed by most prelates as a reprobate, an enemy of the church, a sinner and blasphemer. Godfrey had heard the stories but he had known the king and did not believe them all. Nevertheless, the mortal remains of William Rufus presented him with a predicament. The king had died unshriven, struck down in all his sins. Since his sins consisted largely of extorting money from the church continually and with rapacity over the entire length of his thirteen-year reign, he was hardly likely to excite genuine mourning among the episcopate. Godfrey wondered what his late bishop would have advised. Good old Bishop Walkelin, who had died two years ago, would have known what to do. But Godfrey of Cambrai was out of his depth. This matter was of the greatest significance. The disposal of a royal corpse was an affair of state, with huge implications for the clerics who participated in it. Their actions might be re-examined in the light of changing circumstances. At some time, questions would be asked, justifications required, a reckoning called for. One day a new king might say: ‘Why did you do that, why was this not done?’

Full of misgivings, Prior Godfrey turned and led the way down the nave to the choir. There workmen were still digging and had not reached a sufficient depth. The body of the king was carried by his huntsmen and Robert’s sons who placed it in a wooden coffin where it would lie all night.

‘Is this all?’ asked Robert shocked at the meanness of the preparations.

‘What else can we do?’

‘But – a king!’

‘He was struck down in his hunting gear, without ornaments of any sort. Where is his court? Where are his followers? Who is there to tell us how to proceed? Besides, we may be ordered at some later date to undo everything we have done.’

Robert understood. Godfrey did not want to be responsible for doing either too much, or too little. Who, at this precise moment, knew what was right or correct or pleasing to the powerful? The government had collapsed, bringing an end to law and order. The courtiers and nobles had scattered in all directions. It was each man for himself until a new government under a new monarch could be established. In this situation, what was he, Godfrey of Cambrai, a simple prior, to do? As a compassionate man he knew only what would square with his conscience. A decent burial in a plain coffin, prayers for a sinner, supplications for the repose of a soul. Any man had a right to these and these would be granted to William Rufus.

Robert looked at the corpse in the coffin.

‘What shall we do with that?’ he said, nodding towards the fletching and shaft which stuck from the neck.

Godfrey followed his gaze. ‘It is the arrow of God’s justice,’ he said. ‘It is not meet to touch it.’

During the night, the workmen left off their digging and went away. Robert and his sons, along with the huntsmen who had followed the body all along the route, stole some sleep until midnight when the monks came to sing the Benedictine night office in the choir. Godfrey, troubled in his heart by the events of the day, took pity on the dead king and adapted the service by having the monks sing words from specially selected Psalms.

‘The sorrows of death have encompassed me,’ they chanted. ‘O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.’

From another Psalm came words that evoked the reprehensible conduct of the king’s life.

‘Deliver my soul, O Lord, from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue…’ sang the monks. ‘Sharp arrows of the mighty… My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.’

This was Godfrey’s way of doing neither too much, nor too little, balancing appeals for mercy on the sinner’s soul with reminders of just how full of sin that soul was.

When the monks went aloft by the night stairs, Godfrey took a candle to the altar, leaving another by the coffin. ‘I will pray for him,’ he said. Robert paced about in the thin pool of light while his sons and the huntsmen slouched, lounged or drifted in and out of fitful sleep on the stone floor, dog-weary for they had been up before dawn the previous day. Robert was wondering how he would describe these events to Aefled, his wife at home in Castle St Mary’s. Even though the king’s body lay only feet away, it was impossible to grasp the truth of his shocking death. So suddenly taken off in the enjoyment of his favourite sport, at the apex of his power and in full health. Even more incomprehensible was that he, Robert, a mere provincial castellan, should be the one to keep vigil over the royal corpse this night. He was not even attached to the household of the king but of his brother, Henry. Henry had not been near his brother when the fatal arrow was shot, they had parted in order to take up their positions at the butts scattered in different parts of the forest. Apart from a couple of bowmen at some distance, the only person near the king had been Walter Tirel and he had disappeared. Was it Tirel’s arrow in the king’s neck? And was it there as the result of a deliberate aim, or a tragic accident?

Robert’s elder son rose, stretched and stabbed his way through the dark towards his father. ‘What is going to happen?’ he whispered.

‘To us? Or to him?’ Robert gestured to the coffin.

‘To the kingdom.’

‘A new reign.’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think?’

Robert’s elder son had inherited his propensity for terse speech which often made their conversations models of abridgement. Yesterday Robert fils had been in the forest with his brother, William, working the dogs with the fewterers and other squires in the service of Henry. They had been far from the spot and had seen and heard nothing. When the alarm was raised, they had gone in search of Henry but were told that he and his followers had mounted their horses and ridden away. No one knew where. Like everyone else, young Robert was trying to put together a picture of what had happened. What had turned an afternoon of sport into a national catastrophe?

Three hours after Matins, it was time for Lauds. The monks came down again and Godfrey led them in prayers. Assembled around the coffin in the choir they looked as though they were giving rites to the king as they sang the Laudate Psalms:

‘Praise the Lord from the depths of the earth… Kings of the earth and all people, princes, and all judges of the earth… Let them praise the name of the Lord…’

It was as if these words were drawing attention to shameful absences. No prince or judge, no magnate or noble was anywhere to be seen as the king’s improvised obsequies were conducted by a handful of monks before a congregation of huntsmen.

Robert had been in the forest not far from Henry and his party. His job that afternoon had been to supervise the collection and transport of the kill to the hanging sheds. Learning that the royal party had fired and brought down two stags, he was making his way towards the king’s shooting butt when a horseman had galloped out onto the track ahead of him, too far away to make out who it was. Later he thought it might have been Walter Tirel but he could not be sure. Going to the butts, he found the place deserted and ominously quiet, not even the song of a bird. Then he saw the king lying in a pool of blood with an arrow sticking from his neck.

It was still there. Robert went to the coffin and looked down at the shaft. It should be removed. It was disturbing. Somehow, with that thing in his neck, the king was still dying, tormented, not at rest.

After the blessing and dismissal, the monks returned to their dormitory to sleep before Prime. The workmen returned to continue their digging. By now the sky was lightening with the dawn of a new day, Friday 3rd August. Today they would bury the king.

***

When news broke of the discovery in the forest, Henry galloped straight to Winchester, aware that what he did next would have infinite consequences for himself and the kingdom. The death of a king without heirs or a clear line of succession opened a dangerous void of power. To prevent the whole kingdom expiring in lawlessness and anarchy, Henry must act. If his brother was dead, he must assert his right to the throne, get the backing of the barons and clergy, and get moving. Swift action was vital because another brother stood in the way: Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy.

In Winchester, he met up with those who had been in the forest and had scattered when the news broke: William of Breteuil, Robert Fitzhaimo, Robert of Meulan and his brother, Henry Beaumont, Gilbert and Roger FitzRichard, members of the powerful Clare family. Gathered in council with these courtiers, Henry demanded their support. William of Breteuil, thinking to sound a reasonable note of caution, misjudged the force of Henry’s resolve. Breteuil reminded them that, in former times, they had all sworn fealty oaths to Robert Curthose.

‘What does an oath matter now? Are we to sit on our hands until he comes? If you support me, I will absolve you of your oaths.’

The greatest challenge to Henry’s seizure of the throne was the imminent return of Robert Curthose from the pilgrims’ war to liberate Jerusalem. Once back in Normandy, he would set about asserting his dominance in the duchy so that he could challenge Henry’s right of succession. As far as Henry was concerned, Robert posed the most significant short-term threat. In the long term he would probably, by one means or another, must be put out of the way. From this moment his oath to Robert was null.

Henry’s reasoning was straightforward: the king was dead, he was the only claimant present on the scene, transfer of power must be swift, therefore he must be recognised as king with immediate effect. Speed was the first essential, the second was discretion. Let there be no official announcements, no letters sent out to sheriffs for promulgation to the people, not yet, not until the thing was done. His plan was to present a fait accompli, leaving no room for dissent. The first thing was to obtain control of the royal treasury, located in the Conqueror’s castle at Winchester. Having secured the strongroom and mint, Henry took control of the whole castle, winning over the constable and seizing the arsenal. He summoned scribes to write letters to the Bishop of London, the clergy of Westminster and Bishop Gerard of Hereford, urging their support for what would come next. He assembled all the barons, those that had come with him to Winchester and those who could be called from the surrounding area, including Henry de Port, the principal lay magnate of the county, and got them by dawn the following day to acclaim him king. Leading the acclamations was Robert of Meulan, along with Henry of Beaumont, Earl of Warwick, Robert Fitzhaimo and, eventually, William of Breteuil. This show of support was then touted among the English as an election according to their old rights of accession and, being familiar to them, did not meet with open disfavour. These things done; Henry turned his thoughts to his coronation. Only a coronation could give legitimacy to all his foregoing actions and establish the legality of his reign.

‘It must be in Westminster,’ he said. ‘If we leave today, we can reach London by Saturday night.’

Never once, in all this time, did he give a thought to his brother, William Rufus, whose body lay unburied in the New Minster half a mile away.

It was the ever-scrupulous William of Breteuil who reminded him. On the morning of Friday 3rd August, Breteuil said to him, ‘My lord, word has come from Prior Godfrey. What is to be done for your brother’s obsequies?’

Henry, who was dashing about trying to order everything for their immediate removal to Westminster, paused momentarily. ‘I have a high opinion of Godfrey,’ he said. ‘Let him handle it as he will.’

‘What representation will you send?’

‘You go, Breteuil,’ said Henry. ‘Take a handful of barons, take Henry Beaumont, if you will. Meulan will come with me.’

And so, it was done. Henry with his entourage, accompanied by the dependable Robert of Meulan, rode out of the bailey of Winchester castle about noon that day, just as the bell of the New Minster was tolling for the office of the dead.

***

Thirty miles from Winchester on the other side of Brockenhurst forest, Ranulf Flambard was laid up in the prior’s house at Christchurch. At just the moment when he might need to shift himself at speed, a feverish sickness had stranded him with only a small household and his servant, Firmin, for company. In the grip of stomach pains, vomiting and violent headaches, he had taken to his bed, showing symptoms not unlike those which had stricken King William at Gloucester in the spring of 1093 when everyone thought he would die. Flambard’s health was of the doughty kind and he often worked through bouts of sickness. But this illness had laid him low and, unaware of the momentous events happening nearby, he had no idea of the danger he was in. Then, late in the afternoon of Friday 3rd August, a monk from Christchurch Priory brought the news.

‘The king was struck down in a hunting accident yesterday. Shot by the bow of one of his companions,’ said the monk. ‘The city is in alarm. Henry has taken the treasury and the castle. They have acclaimed him king.’

Flambard raised himself and, turning a little to one side as though he was about to vomit, said: ‘King William is dead?’

‘Dead and carried to New Minster for burial.’

‘May God have mercy on his soul.’

Flambard turned away and lay down again with his eyes shut. He was thinking that William had made a fatal error in the estimation of his brother’s character. William had told him, only a few weeks ago, that he did not trust Henry. Yet at Henry’s request he had sent Flambard away. But would things have worked out differently had Flambard been on hand? As chief minister and financial agent, he had served the king for thirteen years and known him better than any man alive. He had advised and informed him, weathered his moods, protected his interests and generally so welded his life to the king’s, that he felt suddenly bereft of purpose. But could he have saved him?

King William dead! Flambard could barely grasp the fact. It was nothing less than the complete collapse of his world. What would he do, where would he go? Well, perhaps it doesn’t matter now, he thought. Perhaps this illness will see me off, too.

Firmin turned to the monk. ‘How do we know this is not just rumour? What authority do you have?’

‘The authority of Prior Godfrey who buried King William this very day. And there’s more. As soon as Henry was acclaimed, he nominated William Giffard as Bishop of Winchester.’

‘So,’ croaked Flambard from the depths of his bed, ‘he has filled old Walkelin’s vacancy. Well, that’s one way of winning over the church.’

The monk seemed surprised. ‘I thought, as Bishop of Durham, your grace, you would be pleased that Henry is addressing the scandal of the vacancies.’

Flambard groaned, suspecting that he would not be Bishop of Durham much longer.

When the monk had finished telling his news, Firmin gave him an offering and shooed him away.

Flambard lay back and closed his eyes as if to blot out the horrible realisation that he had been right. Right to suspect Henry. It could not be otherwise. Henry had worked some malevolent practice against one brother in order to seize the throne of England before the other brother could return to scotch his chances. He had suspected that Henry was planning something. But no, it could not be. Even Flambard had not thought him capable of the treacherous slaying of his brother. Duplicitous, yes, subtle in his gambits, ingratiating, sly. A cat who wove his soft form around legs to stumble them, who sat purring in laps then pounced suddenly.

Suppose it had been a tragic accident. Should a man be blamed because he takes hold of a situation offered by the hand of God and adapts it to his pre-eminent advantage?

‘The cat,’ murmured Flambard. ‘The question is, Firmin, did the cat pounce when the bird was already dead?’

‘Master, I think you know that the pouncing of the cat and the dying of the bird are more intimately linked than that.’

‘But I must not know that, Firmin. I must not know that. Forbear to say it. Forbear to think it. All the monks and clerics of this kingdom will know that William Rufus was struck down by God’s justice. That is what I must know.’

Firmin brought some watered wine and helped him to drink. Afterwards Flambard lay back, aware that he was trapped by this untimely illness. He knew that Henry would strike against him at the first opportunity. They had never been on good terms. Their enmity was of a lazy, covert kind, never openly expressed nor based on any precise incident or cause of resentment or revenge. Antagonistic natures and mutual ill-will threw them into opposition. Vague animosity, mistrust, perhaps even a twisted sort of admiration, compounded a mixture of negative feelings each to the other. At the very least, thought Flambard, Henry had been jealous of the unbreachable trust William had placed in him. But although Ranulf Flambard had been an efficient and loyal servant to William Rufus throughout his reign, he was quite aware that he had witnessed, and participated in, a great deal of ill government.

‘You know, Firmin,’ said Flambard, with a scintilla of his old spark, ‘it’s amazing how much misrule a realm can survive. But, taken all round, William was not so bad a king.’

‘Master, what can you expect from this new king?’

‘Nothing good, my loyal Firmin,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing good.’

***

Immediately after the hurried burial of William Rufus at Winchester, Robert and his sons rode the seventy miles to London at a forced pace in order to witness the coronation of his successor. They arrived just in time. Henry had reached London, as planned, late on Saturday night and, after a few hours’ sleep, was crowned the next day, Sunday 5th August, a mere three days after his brother’s death. Sunday coronations had been the practice of English kings for as long as anyone could remember and Henry was keen to uphold the tradition.

Standing in the nave of St Peter’s Abbey, Westminster, craning to see over the shoulders of London burghers and guildsmen massed at the rear, Robert wondered how he was going to describe this scene to his wife. Even though it had been arranged in frantic haste, he thought that the ceremony achieved a surprising measure of polish. The last time he had witnessed anything similar was seven years ago at the consecration of the foundation stones of Durham Cathedral. But this was altogether more magnificent, more spectacular; a ceremony charged with great solemnity. Yet something jarred. There was an undercurrent of menace. Robert was not the only one to feel that the repercussions from this act of crowning, inaugurating the reign of a man long kept from power, had every likelihood of plunging the country into war.

Bishop Maurice of London, called upon to perform the coronation at two days’ notice, was wholly unacquainted with the ritual and had to improvise as best he could from the first ordo that came to hand. But even if Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, had been present to perform it and not in exile where he had been for the last three years, he could barely have improved on the ceremony since he had no better understanding of these things than Maurice. Anyway, as Henry knew only too well, the only part that really mattered was the anointing. Even more than the crowning itself, it was the anointing that would transform him from a mere mortal into a consecrated deputy of Christ on earth. The holy chrism, dabbed in little crosses about his body and on his brow, would keep him safer than whole armies.

Another notable absentee from the proceedings was Thomas, Archbishop of York, the very same who had consecrated Anselm seven years earlier. Being infirm and elderly he could not undertake the journey, even had there been time. Thus, the two great pillars of the English church were absent and Henry had to make do with Bishop Maurice of London and Gerard Chancellor, Bishop of Hereford who, between them, devised a ceremony that did not disgrace the church and satisfied Henry.

Coronation had developed into a sanctification of the cooperation between churchmen and kings. Through this elaborate and potent ritual any man who had inherited a throne, or made his way to it by whatever means of political intrigue or bloodshed, could be transformed into a holy person. In exchange for some public pledges to keep the peace and maintain justice and mercy, churchmen had the power to legalise kingship. Above all, Henry was hungry for legitimacy. Kept out of power, forced to rove between his brothers, begging crumbs from their tables, witnessing all their mistakes and what he viewed as their shameless neglect of good government, spending his entire adult life up to the age of thirty-one as an observer of misrule, Henry at last felt liberated, justified and ready to make his mark.

He began at once. Standing before the altar, he publicly declared a threefold promise: to keep the peace, to prohibit iniquities and to maintain just laws. On this platform he would base his reign, as kings had done before him. But Henry went one better. These pledges, making known the terms on which he had received the support of barons and clergy, were to be written into a charter and issued that very day. It was his way of expunging the abuses of his brother’s reign. Of course, he was aware that William Rufus had issued written promises in 1093 at the time of his recovery from illness. They had been placed by Anselm on the altar of Gloucester Cathedral where they remained, ignored. William had never made any effort to keep, renew, or promulgate them. Henry demonstrated the difference of his proceedings by having the fourteen clauses of this charter widely disseminated and soon copied into compilations of law. There would be a record of them, whereas William’s promises were written on wind and running water. But Henry’s charter of liberties, once vaguely promised to the Jews of Poultry, made no mention of the Jews. This was a charter to satisfy the church, the baronage and common laity, both English and Norman, and, as he put it himself, all people of good will.

In an abbey ablaze with candles in jewelled sconces, resounding to chants and clouded with incense from gilded thuribles, Henry prostrated himself before the altar and made sacred pledges before God. Afterwards, stepping outside into a fierce August day, the thirty-one-year-old king, seeming tall, smiling, wearing state robes, crowned, bearing the staff and sceptre, stood before massed ranks of cheering Londoners and was popularly acclaimed. Yet he was troubled. Events had happened with such astonishing speed that they might now run out of control. Even with the coronation under his belt, he knew himself very far from secure.

Immediately afterwards, Westminster began to fill up as everyone who had estates and offices hurried to court to do homage to the new king. Earl Hugh of Chester, whose great bulk was laid up with gout, sent word that he recognised and welcomed Henry’s kingship. As a reward, one of the Earl’s sons, Robert, a monk of Saint Evroult, was nominated as Abbot of St Edmundsbury. Another son of an important magnate, Richard, a member of the powerful Clare family, was nominated as abbot of Ely. By such elevations, Henry was trying to secure the support of the foremost families who alone could ensure his survival as king. As the news spread to the furthest provinces, to Wales and the northern borders, a steady stream of castellans, barons, magnates and churchmen came to pledge their fealty. Robert de Bellême, his brother, Roger the Poitevin, and the king’s cousin, William, Count of Mortain appeared at court with motives that were unclear, even dubious. Their English estates were too large to put at risk by staying away but their fathers had supported Duke Robert in 1088 and there was a strong possibility that they would again change sides should Curthose attempt to seize the crown.

At this crucial moment, three things headed Henry’s list of things to do, all equally important. Anselm, the exiled Archbishop of Canterbury must be recalled urgently, placated and won over. In this way Henry would demonstrate his credentials as a good Christian monarch. It was imperative, too, that all the new bishops and abbots he had appointed should be confirmed in their titles by consecration. Lastly, and closest of all to his personal satisfaction, he wanted Anselm to officiate at his marriage.

That was the second point on his agenda. He must marry and put to shame the long bachelorhood of his brother. He must secure heirs to his line, unlike William who had carelessly left the way open for him. Marriage at the first opportunity, marriage to a suitable lady of high birth and undoubted virtue would bring about popular acceptance of his accession. But it needed the approval of the church. Anselm, as primate of the church in England, was necessary to bestow it.

Thirdly, at an even more personal level, certainly a baser one, he wanted to be rid of Ranulf Flambard. For thirteen years Flambard had been the minister and financial agent of William Rufus, encouraging the king’s oppressions, abusing his goodwill, leading him astray. Flambard would be sure to oppose his accession. He must be put out of the way. Besides, he knew that Flambard suspected him of things too deep and too secret ever to be brought to light. He must be stopped.

On the morning after the coronation Henry gave the order.

‘Find Flambard,’ he said. ‘Arrest him.’

***

In the third year of his exile, Anselm was staying at the monastery of La Chaise Dieu in Auvergne. With him were Baldwin of Tournai, his man of affairs, and Eadmer, his devoted servant and scribe. Both men had been at his side for years and had followed him into exile, trekking restlessly around the monasteries and great religious houses of France, sometimes staying a few days, sometimes many months. After a long sojourn with Archbishop Hugh at Lyon, they had left on August 5th, quite unaware that King William was dead and that his successor was being crowned that very day. Escaping the heat, they had travelled up to the remote high country of the Livradois with its forests and cooling rivers. On a splendid hill of granite with a cluster of houses at its feet, the great Romanesque monastery of La Chaise Dieu, with its stubby towers and shady cloisters, was giving welcome to the exiled archbishop. Towards the end of their stay, in the teeth of a violent thunderstorm, two exhausted monks turned up, one from Canterbury and the other from Bec, bringing news of the death of King William. Out hunting in the forest of Brockenhurst, the king had been struck by an arrow in circumstances that were unclear to jurisprudence but to the clergy were as transparent as glass: God had pronounced judgement and rid the world of a sinner.

While Eadmer readily accepted the king’s death, considering it justly deserved by a despot who had long tormented his master, Anselm was more forgiving. It was not in his nature to dwell on the long bout of quarrels that had embittered their relations from the moment of his election to the day he went into exile but to remember the few occasions of their reconcilement.

‘May God have mercy on his soul,’ said Anselm, unknowingly echoing the words of Ranulf Flambard. They had known the king better than most men and both paid him the tribute of regret.

‘I would not, for God’s love, have wished him such an end. Brothers, we must pray for him.’

And Anselm, curiously moved, without a trace of bitterness, led prayers for the man with whom he had battled up and down England for four years and who was the cause of his exile.

Although turned out of England, Anselm was at home in monastic houses anywhere. Benedictine daily rhythms, the company of learned men, the society of admiring monks, reading, discourse and the upkeep of a wide and varied correspondence, filled the void of exile to such a degree that he had written to the new pope, Paschal II, only the year before, asking the Holy Father not to force him to return to England while King William reigned. He had not worded it quite like that but that is what he meant.

‘And now,’ said Anselm, drawing Baldwin and Eadmer together to discuss the matter, ‘God has called the king out of the world.’ He studied his hands for a moment, twisting the episcopal ring on his finger. Then he looked up and asked quaveringly: ‘Ego in qua re?’ It was his favourite question: ‘What am I to do?’

‘God’s mighty purpose is revealed in this, master,’ said Baldwin. ‘Surely, now, letters will come from England, recalling you from exile. To save the messengers a long hike up these hills, I suggest we return forthwith to Lyon.’

Ready to accept this practical advice, Anselm set off with his entourage the following day, to return to Lyon where he could take counsel with the learned Hugh, a man on whom he increasingly relied for guidance and advice. Although not fully cognisant of God’s purpose, Archbishop Hugh was, at least, well briefed on papal policy.

The year before, at Easter 1099, that policy had been forcefully expounded at a great Council of the Church at St Peter’s in Rome. Even now Anselm remembered it with a hot flush of pained embarrassment. It marked a moment in his life as awkward and befuddling as the dreadful scene of his election in 1093 when, in shameful scrimmage around the sickbed of William Rufus, he had been catapulted into the Archbishopric of Canterbury, a post he had never sought and did not want. At the Council of Rome, the pope pressed hard on the issue of lay investiture and, when he did not receive the support he was expecting, decided to shake everyone up by threatening to issue anathemas and excommunications. For years, ever since Pope Gregory had first condemned it, the custom of lay investiture had rankled the papacy. Although a longstanding practice among the kings and rulers of Europe, it was increasingly seen as a threat to the power of the pontificate. Kings should not be allowed to choose and appoint prelates to the great posts of the church. Abbots, bishops and archbishops should not be nominated and invested by laymen, even kings. At one point in the proceedings of that unforgettable council, when the Bishop of Lucca was reading out the decrees, he had worked himself into such a passion that he banged his pastoral staff on the floor and started shouting at the assembly.

Such fury had astonished Anselm. He had the distinct impression that the ground was shifting under his feet. Lay investiture had become a hot issue and one in which Anselm, innocently enough, was thoroughly implicated. William Rufus had invested him with the Archbishopric of Canterbury. He had made homage to the king. And now he was in exile. This was a scandal to the curia who insisted on seeing him as a victim of the king’s malpractice. But Anselm had believed himself on firm ground, he had only been doing what had been done before, what was expected, what had heretofore not been exposed as any sort of scandal. But a