enjoyed so much, the result was, it is possible, not altogether disagreeable to Robert himself. Some time later, when the pope remonstrated with Henry on his conduct, and demanded the release of Robert, the king's defence of his action was so complete that the pope had no reply to make. Political expediency, the impossibility of otherwise maintaining peace, was the burden of his answer, and this, if not actual justice, must still be Henry's defence for his treatment of his brother. Henry returned to England in time for the Easter meeting of his court, but the legalization of the compromise with Anselm was deferred to Whitsuntide because the pope was about to hold a council in France, from which some action affecting the question might be expected. At Whitsuntide Anselm was ill, and another postponement was necessary. At last, early in August, at a great council held in the king's palace in London, the agreement was ratified. No formal statement of the terms of this compromise has been given us by any contemporary authority, but such accounts of it as we have, and such inferences as seem almost equally direct, probably leave no important point unknown. Of all his claims, Henry surrendered only the right of investiture with ring and staff. These were spiritual symbols, typical of the bishop's relation to his Church and of his pastoral duties. To the ecclesiastical mind the conferring of them would seem more than any other part of the procedure the actual granting of the religious office, though they had been used by the kings merely as symbols of the fief granted. Some things would seem to indicate that the forms of canonical election were more respected after this compromise than they had been before, but this is true of forms only, and if we may judge from a sentence in a letter to the pope, in which Anselm tells him of the final settlement, this was not one of the terms of the formal agreement, and William of Malmesbury says distinctly that it was not. In all else the Church gave way to the king. He made choice of the person to be elected, with such advice and counsel as he chose to take, and his choice was final. He received the homage and conferred investiture of the temporalities of the office of the new prelate as his father and brother had done. Only when this was completed to the king's satisfaction, and his permission to proceed received, was the bishop elect consecrated to his spiritual office.