THE VACANT BISHOPRICKS. 1052. 339 that the Bishoprick was formally bestowed.1 What the CHAP. IX. King and his Witan gave, the King and his Witan could doubtless take away, and they accordingly dealt with the sees of the outlawed Bishops exactly as they would have dealt with the Earldoms of outlawed Earls. It might Vacancy of Canterbury almost seem that the see of the chief offender, the Norman filled by Primate, was at once bestowed by the voice of the great Stigand. Assembly which restored Godwine. It was at all events bestowed within the year, while the Bishopricks of London and Dorchester were allowed to remain vacant some time longer. It may perhaps be thought that the appointment which was actually made to the see of Canterbury bears signs of being an act of the joyous fervour with which the nation welcomed its deliverance. It might have been expected that the claims of Elfric to the Primacy would have revived on the expulsion of Robert. Ælfric had been canonically elected by the monks of Christ Church; no one seems to have objected to him except the King and his Frenchmen; he possessed all possible virtues, and he was moreover a kinsman of Earl Godwine. But, in the enthusiasm of the moment, there was one name which would attract more suffrages than that of any other Prelate or Priest in England. On that great Holy Cross Day the services of Stigand to the national cause had been second only to those of Godwine himself. As Robert had been the first to make strife, so Stigand had been the first to make peace, between the King and the great Earl. For such a service the highest place in the national Church. would not, at the moment, seem too splendid a reward. Elfric was accordingly forgotten, and Stigand was, either 1 See above, p. 66, and Appendix I. 2 The Peterborough Chronicle seems to record his appointment in the same breath with the other acts of September 15th. Immediately after the outlawry of Robert and the Frenchmen follow the words, "And Stigand Bisceop feng to bam arcebisceoprice on Cantwarabyrig." The Chronicler then turns to other matters. CHAP. IX. in the great Gemót of September or in the regular Gemót of the following Christmas, appointed to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury. With the Primacy, according to a practice vicious enough in itself, but which might have been defended by abundance of precedents, he continued to hold the see of Winchester in plurality. Handle given to the Normans by Robert's Importance This appointment of Stigand was one of great moment of this ap: in many ways. Amongst other things, it gave an excellent pointment. handle to the wily Duke of the Normans, and thus became one of the collateral causes of the Norman Conquest. The outlawed Robert retired in the end to his own monastery of expulsion. Jumièges, and there he died and was buried. But he did not die till he had made Europe ring with the tale of his wrongs. The world soon heard how a Norman Primate had been expelled from his see, how an Englishman had been enthroned in his place, by sheer secular violence, without the slightest pretence of canonical form. Robert told his tale at Rome;1 we may be sure that he also told it at Rouen. William treasured it up, and knew how to use it when the time came. In his bill of indictment against England, the expulsion of Archbishop Robert appears as a prominent count. It is bracketted with the massacre of Saint Brice, with the murder of Ælfred, and with all the other stories which, though they could not make William's claim to the Crown one whit stronger, yet served admirably to discredit the cause of England in men's minds. No one knew better than William how to make everything of this sort tell. The restoration of Godwine was an immediate 1 Will. Malms. Gest. Reg. ii. 199. "Romam profectus et de caussâ suâ sedem apostolicam appellans." In Gest. Pont. 116, he adds that he returned "cum epistolis innocentiæ et restitutionis suæ allegatricibus." 2 Hen. Hunt. M.H. B. 761 D. Of William's three causes for his invasion two are, “Primo, quia Alfredum cognatum suum Godwinus et filii sui dehonestaverant et peremerant; secundo, quia Robertum episcopum et Odonem consulem [see Appendix G] et omnes Francos Godwinus et filii sui arte suâ ab Angliâ exsulaverant." The third count is of course the perjury of Harold. So, in nearly the same words, Bromton, X Scriptt. 958. POSITION OF STIGAND AS ARCHBISHOP. 341 check to all his plans; it rendered his hopes of a peaceful CHAP. IX. succession far less probable. But the expulsion of Robert and the other Normans was a little sweet in the cup of bitterness. The English, with Godwine at their head, had in their insular recklessness of canonical niceties, unwittingly put another weapon into the hands of the foe who was carefully biding his time. ecclesias Even in England the position of Stigand was a very Doubtful doubtful one. He was de facto Archbishop; he acted as tical posisuch in all political matters, and was addressed as such in tion of Stigand. royal writs. We hear of no opposition to him, of no attempt at his removal, till William himself was King. He was undoubtedly an able and patriotic statesman, and his merits in this way doubtless hindered any direct steps from being taken against him. And yet even Englishmen, and patriotic Englishmen, seem to have been uneasy as to his ecclesiastical position. For six years he was an Archbishop without a pallium; it was one of the charges against him that he used the pallium of his predecessor Robert. At last he He receives obtained the coveted ornament from Rome, but it was from from the the pallium the hands of a Pontiff whose occupation of the Holy See Antipope was short, and who, as his cause was unsuccessful, was not 1058. looked on by the Church as a canonical Pope. In fact, in strict ecclesiastical eyes, Stigand's reception of the pallium from Benedict the Tenth seems only to have made matters worse than they were before. At any rate, both before and His minisafter this irregular investiture, men seem to have avoided re- commonly course to him for the performance of any great ecclesiastical avoided. rite. Most of the Bishops of his province were, during his incumbency, consecrated by other hands. Even Harold himself, politically his firm friend, preferred the ministry of other Prelates in the two great ecclesiastical ceremonies 1 On the ecclesiastical position of Stigand see Appendix CC. 2 We shall find many examples as we go on, and the general fact is asserted in the Profession made by Saint Wulfstan to Lanfranc. See Appendix CC. Benedict. trations CHAP. IX. of his life, the consecration of Waltham and his own coronation. One of our Chroniclers, not indeed the most patriotic of their number, distinctly and significantly denies Stigand's right to be called Archbishop.1 One cannot help thinking that all this canonical precision must have arisen among the foreign ecclesiastics who held English preferment, among the Lotharingians who were favoured by Godwine and Harold no less than among the King's own Normans. But at all events the scruple soon became rife among Englishmen of all classes. An ecclesiastical punctilio which led Harold himself, on the occasion of two of the most solemn events of his life, to offer a direct slight to a political friend of the highest rank, must have obtained a very firm possession of the national mind. Ulf succeeded by The case of Stigand is the more remarkable, because no Wulfwig. such difficulties are spoken of as arising with regard to the 1053-1067. position of another Prelate whose case seems at first sight to have been just the same as his own. If Robert was irregularly deprived, Ulf was equally so. Yet no objection seems to have been made to the canonical character of Wulfwig, who, in the course of the next year, succeeded Ulf in the see of Dorchester. It is possible that the key to the difference may be found in the fact of the long vacancy of Dorchester. That long vacancy may be most naturally explained by supposing that some application was made to Rome, which was successful in the case of Wulfwig and unsuccessful in the case of Stigand. We can well conceive that the deprivation of Ulf may have been confirmed, and that of Robert, as far as the Papal 1 Chron. Ab. 1053. See Appendix CC. 2 Unless indeed some such feeling lurks in the words of the Abingdon Chronicler, 1053; "Se Wulfwi feng to dam biscoprice pe Ulf hæfde be him libbendum and of adræfdum." If we may trust a doubtful charter in Cod. Dipl. iv. 102, Wulfwig had been the King's Chancellor, “regiæ dignitatis cancellarius." Perhaps he was succeeded by Regenbald. See below, P. 357. DISPOSAL OF THE OTHER SEES. 343 power could annul it, annulled. It must be remembered CHAP. IX. that Ulf, on account of his utter lack of learning, had found great difficulty in obtaining the Papal approval of his first nomination. The sins of Robert, on the other hand, seem to have been only sins against England, which would pass for very venial errors at Rome. This difference may perhaps account for the different treatment of their two successors. At any rate, Wulfwig seems to have found no opposition in any quarter to his occupancy of the great Mid-English Bishoprick. And he seems to have himself set the example of the scruple which has been just mentioned against recognizing Stigand in any purely spiritual matter. Along with Leofwine, who in the same Leofwine Bishop of year became Bishop of Lichfield, he went beyond sea to Lichfield. receive consecration, and the way in which this journey is 1053-1067. mentioned seems to imply that their motive was a dislike to be consecrated by the hands of the new Metropolitan.1 London The see of London was treated in a different way from William of those of Canterbury and Dorchester, and in a way which was retains his certainly most honourable to its Norman occupant. We Bishoprick. have seen that it is not certain whether Bishop William accompanied Robert and Ulf in their escape from England.2 It is certain that, if he left England, he was before long invited to return and again to occupy his see. This may have been the act of Harold after the death of his father. It is an obvious conjecture that Harold would be somewhat less strict in such matters than his wary and experienced parent, and that he would listen with somewhat more favour to the King's requests for the retention or restoration of some of his favourites. But it is certain that a 'Chron. Ab. 1053. See Appendix CC. 2 See above, p. 329. 3 Thierry (i. 202) makes Godwine resist the retention of any Normans, especially of Bishop William and of the Lotharingian Hermann, Bishop of the Wilsætas. For his authority he quotes "Godwinus Comes obstiterat (Ranulphus Higden, p. 281)." To say nothing of going to R. Higden on such a point, any one who makes the reference will find that the words |