CHAPTER 34: The king flouts the decisions of the Holy See [680]
CHAPTER 34
The king flouts the decisions of the Holy See [680]
AFTER having covered a great distance on land, and with the help of God and a ship traversed the wide ocean, he and all his train arrived at their native shore alive and unscathed, to the unbounded joy of his subjects who had been languishing and calling out with tears to the Lord for their absent bishop. He returned bearing the standard of victory, that is the decision of the Apostolic See, and peaceably presented himself before the king to show him the written judgement of the pope in which the whole synod had concurred and which each member had signed. He delivered the document all stamped with bulls and seals, then summoned the clergy and principal inhabitants of the district to the place where the synod usually met and there read out to them the decrees of the Apostolic See, sent from Rome to bring back peace to the churches. Some of them, because the document contained proposals that went against the grain or which they simply refused to accept, contumaciously rejected it. Others – and this is far more detestable – imperilled their souls by alleging that those very letters which the Holy See had sent to comfort them had been obtained through bribery. Then, at the command of king and counsellors and with the consent of the bishops who had usurped his see, Wilfrid was condemned to prison for nine months, there to be kept without any mark of honour to his rank. No sooner had the letters been opened and read out than – the very thought makes us tremble – the king flew into a rage and, urged on by his flattering minions, defied the judgement of St Peter, of him to whom God gave the power of loosing and binding; not content with this he swore by his soul’s health that Wilfrid should be despoiled of all but his clothes and put in solitary confinement, that his subjects be scattered far and wide and no friend be allowed to come near him. The queen, moreover, took away his reliquary full of relics of the saints and – I can hardly bear to tell it – wore it as a necklace both at home in her chamber and when she rode forth in her chariot. But this deed brought her nothing but harm, just as befell the Philistines when, after routing the people of Israel, they carried off the ark and dragged the Holy of Holies through their cities.