But resignation would be an act of cowardice, and would result in the appointment of an archbishop favorable to the encroachments of the King, who doubtless aimed at the subversion of the liberties of the Church and greater independence.  Five centuries later the sympathies of England would have been on his side.  But the English nation felt differently in the eleventh century.  All Christendom sympathized with the Pope; for this resistance of Anselm to the King was the cause of the popes themselves against the monarchs of Europe.  Anselm simply acted as the vicegerent of the Pope.  To submit to the dictation of the King in a spiritual matter was to undermine the authority of Rome.  I do not attempt to settle the merits of the question, but only to describe the contest.  To settle the merits of such a question is to settle the question whether the papal power in its plenitude was good or evil for society in the Middle Ages.

One thing seems certain, that the King was thus far foiled by the firmness of a churchman,—­the man who had passed the greater part of his life in a convent, studying and teaching theology; one of the mildest and meekest men ever elevated to high ecclesiastical office.  Anselm was sustained by the power of conscience, by an imperative sense of duty, by allegiance to his spiritual head.  He indeed owed fealty to the King, but only for the temporalities of his See.  His paramount obligations as an archbishop were, according to all the ideas of his age, to the supreme pontiff of Christendom.  Doubtless his life would have been easier and more pleasant had he been more submissive to the King.  He could have brought all the bishops, as well as barons, to acknowledge the King’s supremacy; but on his shoulders was laid the burden of sustaining ecclesiastical authority in England.  He had anticipated this burden, and would have joyfully been exempted from its weight.  But having assumed it, perhaps against his will, he had only one course to pursue, according to the ideas of the age; and this was to maintain the supreme authority of the Pope in England in all spiritual matters.  It was remarkable that at this stage of the contest the barons took his side, and the bishops took the side of the King.  The barons feared for their own privileges should the monarch be successful; for they knew his unscrupulous and tyrannical character,—­that he would encroach on these and make himself as absolute as possible.  The bishops were weak and worldly men, and either did not realize the gravity of the case or wished to gain the royal favor.  They were nearly all Norman nobles, who had been under obligations to the crown.