The effect of such legislation was to separate the clergy from the laity, and to connect the Church much more nearly with Rome. This policy, which in after times was the source of so much evil, was rendered harmless during the reign of William by his great power and decision. He always claimed the position of supreme head of the Church in England, nor would he suffer any encroachments from the Papal See. On more than one occasion he exhibited this determination. To the end of his reign he insisted upon giving the ring and staff to his bishops. He would not allow any of his soldiers to be excommunicated without his leave, and when Hildebrand, occupying the Papal throne as Gregory VII., demanded that he should both pay Peter’s pence and declare himself the Pope’s man, he replied, the money he would pay, as his predecessors had, that the homage he would refuse, as he had neither himself promised it, nor had his predecessors paid it. In many respects the change was doubtless for the better. The bishops were on the whole more learned men, and education was improved. The spirit of self-denial for the sake of the Church, and the consequent establishment of foundations and cathedrals, was revived, and the Church, brought into better discipline, was more able to play its proper part of mediator and peace-maker in an age of violence. The distribution of patronage was not, however, without its dark side. In many instances ecclesiastical position was given in reward of services to men qualified rather to be soldiers than clergymen; and complaints exist of the tyrannical manner in which these soldier-abbots or bishops behaved to their English inferiors. [Sidenote: Final struggle against the Normans under Hereward. 1070.] [Sidenote: William conquers him. 1071.]