[Sidenote: In England.]

His policy towards England affords another instructive contrast. Both
in Normandy and in England William the Conqueror practised investiture
of his bishops and abbots and held his ecclesiastics in an iron grip.
He refused the papal demand for homage for his English kingdom and he
would allow no papal interference with his clergy without the King's
permission. Archbishop Lanfranc also only consented to accept the
decree against married clergy with a serious limitation--while married
canons were to dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already
married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy
in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But
William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval
of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the
principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the
tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man
to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a
dangerous enemy. Consequently no question of the lawfulness of
investiture was mooted during his lifetime. Gregory contented himself
with threats against Lanfranc. But the English Archbishop owed a
grudge to Gregory, who had treated with a culpable indulgence the
great heresiarch Berengar after Lanfranc had vanquished him and
convicted him of heresy; and Lanfranc knew that under William's
sheltering favour he was safe from the papal ban.

Thus, while in France Gregory would have to face an united people, in
England he shrank before the personality of the King. In Germany, on
the other hand, he found a blameworthy King and a discontented people.
All the elements were present for the successful interference of an
external power. Moreover, the peculiar relations in which this