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.The name of Robert is not mentionedamong those included in this judgment, and later Henry justi-fies his conduct toward his brother on the ground of politicalnecessity, not of legal right.The result of all these measures-we may believe it would have been the result of the con-quest alone was to put an end at once to the disorder, privatewarfare, and open robbery from which the duchy had so longsuffered.War enough there was in Normandy, in the lateryears of Henry s reign, but it was regular warfare.The TERMS OFlicense of anarchy was at an end.Robert was carried over CHAP.to England, to a fate for which there could be little warrantin strict law, but which was abundantly deserved and fullysupported by the public opinion of the time.He was keptin prison in one royal castle or another until his death,If Henry s profession was true, as it pro-eight years later.bably was, that he kept him as a royal prisoner should bekept, and supplied him with the luxuries he enjoyed so much,the result was, it is possible, not altogether disagreeable toRobert himself.Some time later, when the pope remon-strated with Henry on his conduct, and demanded the releaseof Robert, the king s defence of his action was so completethat the pope had no reply to make.Political expediency,the impossibility of otherwise maintaining peace, was theburden of his answer, and this, if not actual justice, must stillbe Henry s defence for his treatment of his brother.Henry returned to England in time for the Easter meetingof his court, but the legalization of the compromise withAnselm was deferred to Whitsuntide because the pope wasabout to hold a council in France, from which some actionaffecting the question might be expected.At WhitsuntideAnselm was ill, and another postponement was necessary.At last, early in August, at a great council held in the king spalace in London, the agreement was ratified.No-formalstatement of the terms of this compromise has been givenus by any contemporary authority, but such accounts of itas we have, and such inferences as seem almost equallydirect, probably leave no important point unknown.Of allhis claims, Henry surrendered only the right of investiturewith ring and staff.These were spiritual symbols, typicalof the bishop s relation to his Church and of his pastoralduties.To the ecclesiastical mind the conferring of themwould seem more than any other part of the procedure theactual granting of the religious office, though they had beenused by the kings merely as symbols of the fief granted.Some things would seem to indicate that the forms of canoni-cal election were more respected after this compromise thanthey had been before, but this is true of forms only, and ifwe may judge from a sentence in a letter to the pope, inwhich Anselm tells him of the final settlement, this was CONFLICT THECHAP.not one of the terms of the formal agreement, and WilliamVIIof Malmesbury says distinctly that it was not.In all elsethe Church gave way to the king.He made choice of theperson to be elected, with such advice and counsel as hechose to take, and his choice was final.He received thehomage and conferred investiture of the temporalities ofthe office of the new prelate as his father and brother haddone.Only when this was completed to the king s satisfac-tion, and his permission to proceed received, was the bishopelect consecrated to his spiritual office.To us it seems clear that the king had yielded only whatwas a mere form, and that he had retained all the real sub-stance of his former power, and probably this was also thejudgment of the practical mind of Henry and of his chiefadviser, the Count of We must not forget, how-ever, that the Church seemed to believe that it had gainedsomething real, and that a strong party of the king s sup-porters long and vigorously resisted these concessions inhis court.The Church had indeed set an example, for itselfat least, of successful attack on the absolute monarchy, andhad shown that the strongest of kings could be forced toyield a point against his will.Before the century was closed,in a struggle even more bitterly fought and against a strongerking, the warriors of the Church looked back to this exampleand drew strength from this success.It is possible, also,that these cases of concession forced from reluctant kingsserved as suggestion and model at the beginning of a politi-cal struggle which was to have more permanent results.Allthis, however, lay yet in the future, and could not beby either party to this earliest conflict.The agreement ratified in was the permanent settle-ment of the investiture controversy for England, and underit developed the practice on ecclesiastical vacancies whichwe may say has continued to the present time, interruptedunder some sovereigns by vacillating practice or by a moreor less theoretical concession of freedom of election to theChurch.Henry s grandson, Henry II, describes this prac-tice as it existed in his day, in one of the clauses of the Con-stitutions of Clarendon.The clause shows that some at leastof the inventions of Ranulf Flambard had not been discarded, THE END OF1107and there is abundant evidence to show that the king was CHAP.VIIas he said he was, the customs of hisreally stating ingrandfather s time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]