While this process of systematized robbery was going on, the King
suddenly fell ill. In his alarm lest death was at hand, he determined
to make reparation to the defrauded and insulted priesthood. He
invited Anselm, the abbot of a famous monastery in Normandy, to accept
the archbishopric. Anselm, who was old and feeble, declined, saying
that he and the King could not work together. "It would be," said he,
"like yoking a sheep and a bull."
But the king would take no refusal. Calling Anselm to his bedside, he
forced the staff of office into his hands. Anselm became the champion
of the freedom of the Church. But when the King recovered, he resumed
his old practices and treated the Archbishop with such insult that he
left the country for a time.