Ademars, lords of Limoges and Angouleme, who had been playing into the
hands of the French enemy. There was nothing to do but wait patiently,
which he did at St. Nicholas' Monastery, Angers, from February to the
beginning of March, 1199. Pope Innocent III.'s legates were also there,
and they passed three weeks together. He conferred ordinations near
here in the Abbey of Grandmont; refusing to ordain one of Walter Map's
young friends, who afterwards became a leper. The king, it was reported,
was full of huge threats and savage designs against his despisers, and
if the clergy trembled before, they now shook like aspen leaves. The
story of Hugh's predicament had got wind. The Hereford Canons wanted to
choose the witty Walter Map to be bishop. He was already Archdeacon of
Oxford, Canon of Lincoln, and Prebend of Hereford, but alas! he was also
a friend of the disfavoured bishop. This fact is worth some emphasis, as
it illustrates the large-mindedness of the saint. Walter was not only a
vigorous pluralist, much stained by non-residence, but he was a
whipster, whose lash was constantly flicking the monks, then in their
decline. If any one considers his description of the Cistercians; of the
desert life wherein they love their neighbour by expelling him; of their
oppression whereby they glory not in Christ's Cross but in crucifying
others; of their narrowness who call themselves Hebrews and all others
Egyptians; of their sheep's clothing and inward ravening; of their
reversals of Gospel maxims and their novelties; he will see that the
lash for Cistercians must have fallen a good deal also upon Carthusian
shoulders. Then Master Walter was towards being a favourer of Abelard
and of his disciple Arnald of Brescia, whose ascetic mind was shocked at
the fatal opulence of cardinals. Altogether Walter was a man who feared
God, no doubt, but hardly showed it in the large jests which he made,
which to our ears often sound rather too large. But Hugh recognised in
the satirist a power for righteousness, and certainly loved and favoured
him. Consequently the Hereford Canons with those of Angers and of the
Lincoln Chapter laid their heads together to compose the strife between
king and bishop: and the readiest way was of course for the latter to
compound with a round sum and get off home.

The wars made the whole country dangerous for travelling, and it was
neither safe to stay at home nor to move afield. But Job was not more
persistent aga