Therefore, my father, make haste to come, that our mother church of Canterbury, long troubled and desolate for your sake, suffer no longer the desolation of souls. Witness bishop Gerard, and William, bishop elect of Winchester, and William Warelwast, and earl Henry, and Robert FitzHamon, and Hamon the sewer,[27] and others as well my bishops as my barons. Farewell. THE INVESTITURE CONTROVERSY (1100-1107). =Source.=--Eadmer, _Historia Novorum in Anglia_, ed. Rule, pp. 119, 128, 131, 134. (Rolls Series.) A few days after his return, Anselm came to the king at Salisbury and was welcomed by him; he accepted the king’s excuse for having assumed the royal dignity without waiting for the benediction of him whose right he knew it to be, and was thereupon required to do homage to the king according to the custom of his ancestors, and to receive the archbishopric from the king’s hand. He answered that in no wise either would he or could he consent so to do, and when asked why, he immediately set forth in plain words what he had agreed to on these and certain other matters in the council at Rome, saying in conclusion, “If the lord the king will accept these terms, and accepting, observe them, there shall surely be a firm peace between us; but if not, I do not see that my remaining in England will be either useful or honest; especially as, if he has granted any bishoprics or abbacies, I must altogether reject communion both with him and with those who have accepted them. I have not returned to England to dwell there, unless the king will obey the Pope of Rome. Therefore I beg that the king will make what order he will, that I may know which way to turn.” The king, on hearing this, was gravely disturbed. It seemed to him a serious matter to lose the investitures of churches and the homage of prelates, but not less serious to suffer Anselm to leave the realm before he himself was fully established on the throne. On the one hand he thought he would be losing as it were half the realm, and on the other he feared that Anselm would go to his brother Robert, who had by that time returned to Normandy from Jerusalem, and persuading him to submit to the apostolic see, which he knew to be a most easy thing to do, would make him king of England. A truce, therefore, from controversy on either side was asked for until Easter.... To this Anselm consented....