We have seen that the success of William I, compared with the failure of his contemporaries (though their policy was the same as his), was due to three main causes: to the strength of his political position, to the absence of ecclesiastical opposition within the country, and to his zeal for reform in the Church, which made him so much less vulnerable to attack on ecclesiastical grounds than they were. This third advantage was immediately thrown away by his successor. William II's rule of the Church was purely selfish, in his own and not in its interests. He cared nothing for reform, he appropriated Church property and left sees, and especially abbeys, vacant; on the ecclesiastical side he became immediately vulnerable. He was undoubtedly, from his point of view, unfortunate in his archbishop, for William I could not have tolerated Anselm's unquestioning obedience to the Papacy. But Lanfranc and William I could never have worked in harmony had William been of the same temper as his son; Lanfranc was no time-server as were so many of William II's bishops. William II exposed himself, as Philip I and Henry IV had done, to the criticism that lay control meant the secularisation of the Church. He antagonised all who were zealous for reform and drove them into the papal camp; and he provided a mark for the Papacy to shoot at.