replied:  “What are abbeys to you?  Are they not mine?  Go and do what you like with your farms, and I will do what I please with my abbeys.”  So they parted, these two potentates, the King saying to his companions, “I hated him yesterday; I hate him more to-day; and I shall hate him still more to-morrow.  I refuse alike his blessings and his prayers.”  His chief desire now was to get rid of the man he had elevated to the throne of Canterbury.  It may be observed that it was not the Pope who made this appointment, but the King of England.  Yet, by the rules long established by the popes and accepted by Christendom, it was necessary that an archbishop, before he could fully exercise his spiritual powers, should go to Rome and receive at the hands of the Pope his pallium, or white woollen stole, as the badge of his office and dignity.  Lanfranc had himself gone to Rome for this purpose,—­and a journey from Canterbury to Rome in the eleventh century was no small undertaking, being expensive and fatiguing.  But there were now at Rome two rival popes.  Which one should Anselm recognize?  France and Normandy acknowledged Urban.  England was undecided whether it should be Urban or Clement.  William would probably recognize the one that Anselm did not, for a rupture was certain, and the King sought for a pretext.

So when the Archbishop asked leave of the King to go to Rome, according to custom, William demanded to know to which of these two popes he would apply for his pallium.  “To Pope Urban,” was the reply.  “But,” said the King, “him I have not acknowledged; and no man in England may acknowledge a pope without my leave.”  At first view the matter was a small one comparatively, whether Urban was or was not the true pope.  The real point was whether the King of England should accept as pope the man whom the Archbishop recognized, or whether the Archbishop should acknowledge him whom the King had accepted.  This could be settled only by a grand council of the nation, to whom the matter should be submitted,—­virtually a parliament.  This council, demanded by Anselm, met in the royal castle of Rockingham, 1095, composed of nobles, bishops, and abbots.  A large majority of the council were in the interests of the King, and the subject at issue was virtually whether the King or the prelate was supreme in spiritual matters,—­a point which the Conqueror had ceded to Lanfranc and Hildebrand.  This council insulted and worried the primate, and sought to frighten him into submission.  But submission was to yield up the liberties of the Church.  The intrepid prelate was not prepared for this, and he appealed from the council to the Pope, thereby putting himself in antagonism to the King and a majority of the peers of the realm.  The King was exasperated, but foiled, while the council was perplexed.  The Bishop of Durham saw no solution but in violence; but violence to the metropolitan was too bold a measure to be seriously entertained.  The King hoped that Anselm would resign, as his situation was very unpleasant.