PAPAL ENCROACHMENTS. 51 episcopal functions; but it was at the request of King Aldfrid, who had in the mean time succeeded Ecgfrid. This proves something; but the sequel of the story proves more. Wilfrid offends again is again deprived; again appeals to Rome; and presents himself together with his accusers before Pope John, the successor of Agatho. Once more the decision is in favour of the bishop; and the pope on this occasion writes to the two kings, Ethelred and Aldfrid, to re-install him in his see, from which, it was his opinion, he had been unlawfully expelled. Ethelred (who had now abdicated in favour of Conred and had retired to a monastery) stood his friend, and advised compliance with the wishes of the pope; but Aldfrid scorned to receive him 1, and if we are to believe the bishop's biographer, expressed in no very measured terms his contempt for papal rescripts.2 But it cost him dear, his death following shortly after, which Bede insinuates was a judgment upon him for this act of contumacy.3 This was about the year 704. Again, there exists a letter addressed to Pope Leo. III., by the bishops and clergy of England, protesting against the necessity of their metropolitan spending his labour in travelling to Rome for the pall, or his money in purchasing it, when the early records of the church went to prove that some archbishops had not received it at all, and that none had bought it at a price; happy times, they add, in which the apostolic see did not expose itself to the 1 Bede's Eccl. Hist. 447. 2 Reynolds, 31. reproach which St. Peter cast on Simon, "Thy money perish with thee." This was about the year 798. The pope, therefore, was ready to rush in with the first opportunity, and at length one presented itself. William requested the assistance of Rome to remodel the English church after the great Norman revolution; his request, we may be sure, was readily complied with. Certain cardinal priests are despatched, who endeavour to approximate Rome and Canterbury, by preaching on behalf of the pope, the pall, personal homage to the apostolic see, and the right of investiture to bishoprics; and though efforts are made to saddle upon England a permanent representative of the pope, under the title of Legate (a name perhaps derived from the military officer whom the Roman emperors used to send out to govern a province), this latter proposal is for the present abortive. In some of the other measures they appear to have sped better; for we may observe that on the demise of each archbishop successively (with few exceptions) there now occurs a memorandum of a vacancy in the see of twelve months or more, during which it is reasonable to suppose that the metropolitan elect was making application to Rome personally, or by proxy, for confirmation of his appointment and peaceable possession of the mitre.2 Sometimes this interval is protracted to several years, the right of investiture being in such cases most likely a bone of contention between the king and the pope, and the subject not 1 Angl. Sacr. i. 461. 2 Angl. Sacr. i. 6. et seq. RIGHT OF INVESTITURE. 53 admitting of a more speedy adjustment. Indeed, this was a question of great intricacy; one, in which the most dispassionate lookers on must have found it difficult to strike a balance between the evil and the good. If, on the one hand, the pope was permitted to present to the sees and abbeys of England, he would fill the country, perhaps with foreigners, certainly with creatures of his own, and then what was to become of the independence of the national church? On the other hand, if the king presented, rapacious as the early Norman monarchs were, he might make a profit of his privilege, put up the sacred offices to auction, as King Rufus actually did; or retain in his own hands, as that same tyrant was found to have done at the day of his death, an archbishopric of Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, together with a dozen good abbeys, and then what was to become of the very existence of the national church ?2 It was probably these latter considerations that induced Archbishop Anselm, a sincere friend and wellwisher, as it should seem, to his church, to throw it more effectually into the hands of the pope, by procuring from him an injunction that no prelate, abbot, or priest, should receive investiture of any dignity ecclesiastical whatsoever from a layman. King Henry, perhaps unwilling to risk a rupture at one and the same time with his church at home, with a strong faction of his nobles who supported it, and gave evidence of their intention to do so with spirit by the oath they subsequently i Angl. Sacr. i. 6. 2 Angl. Sacr. i. 272. imposed upon Stephen', and with the papal power now grown formidable, gave way, and granted to the cathedrals and collegiate churches of his realm license to elect any of their own body into abbey or bishopric, thereby waving a right which by an act of usurpation the kings had assumed since the conquest, of conferring mitres and monasteries on whom they would.2 Thus the authority of the Saxon synod, in which the bishops and clergy combined with the king for ecclesiastical elections, was in some measure restored, and though certainly less independent and absolute than formerly 3, it was something that it had again a voice: at present, it should appear, that the theory of ecclesiastical appointments was this, the chapters elected, the king approved, the pope confirmed the choice. But there were here too many parties having too many conflicting interests to admit of perpetual harmony. Accordingly the struggle begins; and now the pope has his right of investiture; and now the king cripples it by suspending the temporalties of the see during its vacancy, and leaving his holiness nothing to present unto but the bare episcopal office 5; and now he accepts the king's candidate to the rejection of him whom the chapter had unanimously chosen 6; and now again he seems to take upon himself the sole responsibility of the appointment on the principle that "my name is Leo." 7 On the whole, the strife 1 Angl. Sacr. i. 284. 3 Bede's Eccl. Hist. 352. 400. 2 Angl. Sacr. i. 274. 5 Angl. Sacr. i. 44. 48. 7 Angl. Sacr. i. 43. FUNCTIONS OF LEGATE. 55 issued out as it was natural it should, in the despot; the pope prevailed; his legate (for by the end of the reign of Henry I. a legate had established a right of road into England) was ever upon the watch; and the opposition of the national clergy, which was considerable, to the advances of this active emissary, was taken off by identifying the legate with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. This was a master-stroke of policy; it at once removed the leader of the insurgents, and grafting the unfounded pretensions of the legate on the acknowledged rights of the archbishop, made him in his latter character the best of stalking horses for papal encroachments. When the high spirit of the clergy would have tempted them to resist him in one capacity, their sense of what was due to him in his other capacity kept them in check; to abstract the legate from the metropolitan was impossible; the functions of the two were in constant conflict; and it must have been felt that there was a drag on the church which was pulling it in pieces. He, however, as the pope's representative, continued to convene provincial synods and preside in them; to exercise all manner of jurisdiction; to withdraw from the cognisance of parliament ecclesiastical grievances; to interfere with the diocesan courts, and excite the just jealousy of the bishops by supplanting them in some of their most ancient and indisputable rights. Questions touching the probate of wills, administrations, appeals, visitations, and the like, afforded but too much opportunity for collision, and the church was scandalised by a contest, |