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Five successive Popes, Leo, Victor, Stephen, Nicholas, and Alexander, himself, had sent Legates to England, who excommunicated Stigand. Stigand was therefore not able to Crown William as King, as this was the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[49]
Nonetheless, Stigand and William remained on good terms, until, during a visit of William to the Continent in 1067, the Normans in England behaved with particular brutality. Stigand switched sides, and, with Edgar the Atheling, fled to safety in the camp of refuge in Ely, East Anglia.
They were besieged by William the Conqueror, and Stigand was captured.[50] Pope Alexander’s Legates, as instructed, demanded the deposition of Stigand, and, at a General Council held at Winchester after King William’s Coronation, the deposition was duly voted.[51] Stigand was imprisoned at Winchester, where he died.
King William determined that he would not have his brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, as his new Archbishop, nor would he promote his Chaplain and Chancellor, Herfast. He assembled a Council of Bishops, Abbots, and other Nobles, in order to discuss a suitable candidate for the vacant Archbishopric.
After this consultation, William offered the Archbishopric to Lanfranc, the Abbot of the Royal Monastery of Saint Stephen at Caen, France, to whom he had once offered the Archbishopric of Rouen, which Lanfranc had refused.
When Lanfranc also refused the See of Canterbury, the determined King sent his Queen, Matilda, and his son, Robert (a former pupil of Lanfranc), accompanied by a contingent of Norman Nobles, to persuade him, to no avail.
Abbot Herluin of Bec, Normandy, was called upon to exert his influence, again without result. William then ordered the Papal Legates to go to Normandy, and convene a Council of Bishops, Abbots, and Nobles, to prevail upon Lanfranc to accept the Kings offer. Reluctantly, Lanfranc crossed to England, where he engaged in intensive talks with William, who only persuaded him by invoking the recommendation which had been expressed by Pope Alexander.[52]
Lanfranc was finally elected by a Council on 15 August 1070, the Feast of the Assumption, and Consecrated on 29 August, the Feast of Saint John the Baptist.[53]
When Lanfranc wrote to Pope Alexander and to the Archdeacon Hildebrand that they defend him against the pretensions of the Archbishop of York, and that they send him the Pallium as his symbol of primacy, Hildebrand wrote a Letter in reply, claiming that it was not the custom to send the Pallium, but that the recipient come to Rome to have it bestowed; and besides, he and the Pope wanted to confer personally with Lanfranc about pressing matters.
In 1071, therefore, Lanfranc and Archbishop Thomas of York travelled to Rome to receive their Pallia.[54]
Subsequently, Pope Alexander wrote to Archbishop Lanfranc, ordering him to see to the state of the Monastery of Winchester, and expressing annoyance that he had not yet procured the release of the Bishop (Stigand), perhaps out of negligence, perhaps out of disobedience, perhaps fearing punishment by King William.[55]
In 1072, Alexander commanded the reluctant Canon of Kraków Cathedral, Stanislaus of Szczepanów, who had been elected unanimously by the Cathedral Chapter, to accept appointment as the ninth Bishop of Kraków in succession to Bishop Lampert.[56]
PART EIGHT FOLLOWS.
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