In another transaction we must admire, as much as we may here condemn, the conduct of the church. Sweyn was a man of strong passions, and of irritable temperament. In a festival which he gave to his chief nobles in the city of Roskild, some of the guests, heated by wine, indulged themselves in imprudent, though perhaps true, remarks on his conduct. The following morning, some officious tale-bearers acquainted him with the circumstance; and in the rage of the moment he ordered them to be put to death, though they were then at mass in the cathedral—that very cathedral which had been the scene of his own father’s murder.[149] When, on the day following this tragical event, he proceeded to the church, he was met by the bishop, who, elevating the crosier, commanded him to retire, and not to pollute by his presence the house of God—that house which he had already desecrated by blood. His attendants drew their swords, but he forbade them to exercise any degree of violence towards a man who in the discharge of his duty defied even kings. Retiring mournfully to his palace, he assumed the garb of penance, wept and prayed, and lamented his crime during three days. He then presented himself, in the same mean apparel, before the gates of the cathedral. The bishop was in the midst of the service; the _Kyrie Eleison_ had been chaunted, and the _Gloria_ about to commence, when he was informed that the royal penitent was outside the gates. Leaving the altar, he repaired to the spot, raised the suppliant monarch, and greeted him with the kiss of peace. Bringing him into the church, he heard his confession, removed the excommunication, and allowed him to join in the service. Soon afterwards, in the same cathedral, the king made a public confession of his crime, asked pardon alike of God and man, was allowed to resume his royal apparel, and solemnly absolved. But he had yet to make satisfaction to the kindred of the deceased in conformity with the law; and to mitigate the canonical penance, he presented one of his domains to the church. The name of this prelate (no unworthy rival of St. Ambrose) should be embalmed in history. He was an Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastic, William, whom the archbishop of Bremen had nominated to that dignity, and who had previously been the secretary of Canute the Great. During the long period that he had governed the diocese of Roskild, he had won the esteem of all men alike by his talents and his virtues. For the latter he had the reputation of a saint (and he deserved the distinction better than nine-tenths of the semi-deities whose names disgrace the calendar), and for the former, that of a wizard. It is no disparagement to the honour of this apostolic churchman, that he had previously been the intimate friend of the monarch; nor any to that of Sweyn, that after this event he honoured this bishop more than he had done before. [Sidenote: 1070 to 1076.]