Return To Favour
After the court adjourned, St-Calais was held as a prisoner at Wilton Abbey until his followers in Durham relinquished the castle. Once the castle was back under the king's control, St-Calais was released, and left for Normandy, and no more was heard of his appeal to Rome. Pope Urban II did write to the king in 1089 requesting that St-Calais be restored to his see, but nothing came of it. In Normandy, St-Calais quickly became one of Duke Robert's principal advisors and his chief administrator. On 14 November 1091 he regained the favour of William Rufus, and was restored to his see. Duke Robert had persuaded the king to allow Bishop William's return, perhaps in recognition of a service St-Calais performed for the king by brokering the end of a siege in Normandy that the king's forces were about to lose. The end of the siege prevented the loss of the castle.
St-Calais returned to Durham on 11 September 1091, with a large sum of money and gifts for his church. Thereafter he remained in the king's favour. In fact, in 1093 his lands were restored without the need to perform feudal services. For the rest of his life, St-Calais remained a frequent advisor to the king. It was St-Calais, along with Robert, Count of Meulan who negotiated with Anselm, the abbot of Bec, in 1093 over the conditions under which Anselm would allow himself to be elected Archbishop of Canterbury.
St-Calais managed the king's case against Anselm at Rockingham in 1095, when Anselm wished to go to receive his pallium from Pope Urban II. At that time St-Calais opposed Anselm's attempt to appeal to Rome over the issue, and steadfastly maintained the king's position against Anselm, even advocating that the archbishop be deprived of his lands and sent into exile. Later, when the king was negotiating with Walter of Albano, the papal legate sent by Urban to convey the pallium to Anselm and to secure the king's recognition of Urban as pope, St-Calais was the king's chief negotiator. The clerical reformers, Eadmer among them, who supported Anselm in these quarrels, later tried to claim that St-Calais had supported the king out of a desire to succeed Anselm as archbishop if Anselm was deposed, but it is unlikely that St-Calais seriously believed that Anselm would be deposed. St-Calais secured grants from the king in return for his services. His efforts on behalf of the king earned him hostile accounts in Eadmer's later writings.
Read more about this topic: William De St-Calais
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