A.D. 1094.] TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON". therefore, in hostile array, traversed all Wales, but not being able to follow the enemy through the passes of the mountains and the thick woods, he returned home without having effeeted much. The same year the stars seemed to fall from heaven so thickly that they could not be numbered. A Frenchman observing one fall of a larger size than the rest, noted the place, and sprinkled water thereon, upon which he was much astonished to see smoke issue with a hissing noise from the spot. How king William made Anselm pay a thousand pounds. At this time William king of England wishing to circumvent Anselm archbishop of Canterbury, demanded of him, without delay, the sum of one thousand pounds ; asserting that he had a right to demand it, because he had admitted Anselm so readily to the archbishopric. But Anselm thinking it the same thing whether he paid this sum before or after his promotion, considered either conduct as deserving of severe punishment ; and because he could not fill the king's coffers except by wounding his own conscience, he chose to incur the king's displeasure rather than a loss of his own character with danger to his soul at present, and to sow the seeds of future confusion and scandal in the church of God. But that he might do his duty, as he had ever done, faithfully to the church, he asked the king's licence to go and receive the pall from pope Urban. At the mention of the pope's name, the king was violently incensed, for at that time there was a schism in the Roman church. Wibert, archbishop of Ravenna, had been impudently obtruded by force on the papacy by the emperor Henry, who claimed the right of nominating the pope without the interference of any other person. King William, therefore, in the same way, asserted that no archbishop or bishop of his dominions should have respect to the court or the pope of Rome, as he had the same privileges in his kingdom which the emperor had in his empire. Anselm, therefore was arraigned before the king on this head and accused of high treason. On the opposite side were certain of the bishops who refused to render to the archbishop the obedience which was his due ; and all, except Gundulf bishop of Rochester, consented to the madness of the king,