A.D. 1092. J ILLNESS OF "WILLIAM II. pressing business, which when he had completed, he retired to rest : but as he passed the door of the chapter-house, he saw the abbat and brethren, who had died that year, sitting in due form within. Frightened at the sight he attempted to make his escape, but by the abbat's command, he was caught by the brethren, and brought before the chapter. The abbat then rebuked him, and ordered him to be scourged ; after which he was told that it was presumptuous for any one to make gain by the death of another, particularly as all men must one day or another die, and that it was a wicked thing to defraud a monk after death of one year's aid from the living, when he had passed his whole life in service at the church. "Go, " said the abbat, "yo u will soon die ; be a warning then to others by your fate, as you have already been to them a pattern of avarice." How king William, on a sick bed, promised to reform the laws. A.D . 1092. William the second was now at Gloucester, confined to his bed by illness, during the season of Lent. Being in fear of death, and suffering pain from his disease, he promised to amend the laws and give peace to the Lord's house; wherefore he gave the archbishopric of Canterbury to the venerable Anselm, abbat of Bee, and the bishopric of Lincoln to his chancellor Robert Bloet.* But no sooner did the king recover than he was worse than he had been before ; for he regretted beyond measure that he had not sold the bishopric of Lincoln, particularly as Thomas, archbishop of York, complained of bishop Robert, that the city of Lincoln and province of Lindsey belonged wholly to his province, and that the dispute between them could not be settled until bishop Robert had bargained to pay the king five hundred pounds for his church's liberty ; and this was at the time set down as a simoniacal act in the king, though it was afterwards justified. In the same year, Malcolm,f king of Scots, entering England on a plundering expedition, was intercepted and slain. With him perished his son also, who, if he had lived, would have been his heir. When his * Robert Bloet died Jan. 10, 1123. + He was slain on St Brice's day (Nov. 13th), by the earl of Northumberlan or his steward. See Florence of Worcester and the Saxon Chronicle.