the king from that time to meddle at all with ecclesiastical preferments, to grant investitures, or dispose of vacant churches, upon any pretence whatsoever, and threatened him with excommunication, if he did not comply with the decrees which banished such practices from the church. Henry felt high resentment against the pontiff for the arrogance and ambition which he discovered, but thought it prudent to dissemble for a while, as he was engaged in war with the Saxons, and upon the point of marching against them. He therefore wrote to the pope, acknowledging that he had done amiss in exposing ecclesiastical benefices to sale, but promised amendment in that respect; that he would cause the decrees against simony and the marriages of the clergy to be punctually complied with; and that upon his return from Saxony he would send an embassy to Rome, to settle every matter in dispute between his holiness and himself, to their mutual satisfaction. In the mean time a conspiracy was formed at Rome against the pope, from which he narrowly escaped with his life. It is supposed to have been projected by Guibert archbishop of Ravenna, who, from the favour in which he stood with Henry, had reason to expect that he should be appointed to the pontifical chair, if Gregory could be removed out of the way. The person employed to put it in execution was Cincius, son of the prefect of Rome, who on some account had been excommunicated and imprisoned by the pope. Having made his escape, he became the willing instrument of a scheme which promised him the sweets of revenge. He therefore secretly raised a body of armed men, with whom he suddenly rushed into the church where Gregory, in his pontifical robes, was performing mass on the night of Christmas-day, and falling upon him, beat him unmercifully, gave him a large wound in the forehead, and dragged him by the hair out of the church, whence he was carried to the house of Cincius, with the design, as was supposed, of conveying him out of Rome. But the magistrates being immediately informed of what had happened, the alarm was spread over all the quarters of the city, and the house of Cincius was soon surrounded by an enraged populace, who threatened to put him and his accomplices to the sword, if he did not immediately give the pope his freedom. Intimidated at their menaces, Cincius threw himself at the pontiff's feet, and upon receiving a promise of forgiveness on condition of visiting, by way of penance, the holy places at Jerusalem, he set the pope at liberty, who was received by bishops of Lombardy, and of the marche of Ancona, who, assembling at Pavia, not only confirmed it, but swore upon the Gospels that they would no longer acknowledge Gregory for pope. This sentence, together with letters from the king and council of Worms, were by a trusty agent sent to Rome, where they were delivered into the pope's hands while presiding at the opening of a council which he had summoned to meet in that city. Gregory received this sentence, of which the purport was proclaimed by the agent aloud, so as to be heard by the whole assembly, with wonderful calmness and self-possession, and by his interference prevented the agent from falling a sacrifice to the fury of some of his zealous friends. But the next day, having caused the king's letter, and that of the council of Worms, to be read, and excited the highest resentmerft of the council by an inflaming speech against the king and the bishops, he thundered out, with great solemnity, a sentence of excommunication against the king; declared him deposed from the throne of his ancestors; and impiously took upon him to dissolve the oath of allegiance which his subjects had taken to him as their lawful sovereign. At the same time he excommunicated by name some of the bishops who had been most active at the council of Worms, and the other bishops, both German and Lombard, he cut off from the communion of the church, and threatened with an anathema, if they did not within a limited time repent of their wickedness, and return to their duty. Upon the rising of the council, Gregory took care to acquaint the whole world with the decree, and within a few days afterwards wrote a long letter to the bishops, lords, and faithful of the Teutonic kingdom, in justification of his conduct towards the king, and exhorting them to join him against the enemies of St. Peter and his church, declaring all excommunicated who should side with the deposed prince. War being thus declared on both sides, Gregory omitted no measures necessary to strengthen his party, and, aided as he was by the superstition of the times, as well as the resentment of several princes whom Henry had disobliged, or who wished to shake off his authority, soon created a formidable body of confederates in his support. He first brought over three princesses to his party; one of whom was the king's mother, and the others his aunt, the duchess Beatrix, and his cousin-german the countess Mathilda. The two last were very powerful in Italy, where they had large estates, and were entirely devoted to the interests of This the pontiff. The letters also which Gregory wrote to Germany, produced all the effects that he could wish from them. Several of the bishops, even some who had assisted at the council of Worms, withdrew from the king's communion as soon as they heard that he had been excommunicated by the pope in council. The Suabian princes, with duke Rodolph at their head, the duke of Bavaria, the duke of Carinthia, and the bishops of Wurtzburgh and Worms, revolted against Henry; and the Saxon princes, whose former quarrels with the king had lately been terminated by their defeat and submission, followed their example. formidable confederacy encouraged the pope to think of raising some other person to the throne, in the room of Henry; and he accordingly wrote another letter to the princes, bishops, and people of Germany, empowering them to choose another king, if Henry did not, by a sincere repentance, render himself worthy of being replaced on the throne, which he had forfeited by his disobedience to the apostolic see. Upon the receipt of this letter, the confederate princes and bishops held a numerous diet at Tribur, near Mentz, when they came to a resolution to refer all matters in dispute to a diet of the whole empire, to be assembled at Augsburg in the following year, at which the pope should be present in person, who, after hearing both sides, should pronounce definitive sentence. In the mean time they declared the king suspended from his royal dignity, and added, that if he did not obtain absolution before the anniversary of his excommunication, he should be for ever excluded from the throne. Henry now found himself so generally deserted in Germany, that he was obliged to submit to the ignominious terms prescribed by the diet, and was advised by his friends to go into Italy, to implore in person the clemency of the pontiff, and to procure his absolution at any rate, before the meeting of the diet at Augsburgh. To this degrading advice Henry yielded, and with his wife and infant son, after sustaining uncommon hardships in the passage of the Alps amidst the rigours of an extremely severe winter, arrived in Italy. He was there speedily attended by the counts and bishops of Lombardy, who encouraged him to revenge the treatment which he had received from the pope, and offered to assist him with men as well as money. In the mean time Gregory had proceeded as far as Lombardy in his way to Augsburg, attended by the countess Mathilda, whose close intimacy with Gregory afforded too much reason for propagating many scandalous reports. Upon hearing of the king's arrival, and of the reception which he had met with from his Italian subjects, the pope retired, by the advice of Mathilda, to the strong hold of Canosa, in the diocese of Reggio, which belonged to her, where he was guarded by her troops. While Gregory continued in this fortress, many German bishops, as well as laymen, who had been excommunicated for taking part with the king, repaired to him barefooted, clothed in haircloth, to pray for absolution and forgiveness, which they did not obtain without submitting to severe penance and mortification. The pontiff also soon enjoyed the malignant pleasure of seeing the king added to the number of his humiliated supplients. For Henry, instead of putting himself at the head of the troops which the Italian lords had assembled to assist him in revenging his injuries on the pope, went with a small retinue to a place in the vicinity of Canosa, and from thence sent deputies to Gregory, to acquaint him with his arrival in Italy; and also humbly to implore his holiness's absolution, declaring his willingness to keep his crown or resign it, as he should by him be found guilty or innocent of the crimes laid to his charge. After much difficulty the pope was prevailed upon to admit the king to his presence; but not before he had passed through a scene of humiliation, which displayed as much meanness on his part, as it did hardheartedness, pride, and unmanly tyranny, on the part of the pontiff. For upon Henry's arrival at the outer gate of the fortress, he was told by the guards that he must dismiss all his attendants, and enter alone. At the next gate he was required to divest himself of the ensigns of royalty, and to put on a coarse woollen tunic; in which dress, and barefooted, he was suffered to stand for three whole days at a third gate, exposed to the severity of the weather, fasting from morning till night, and imploring the mercy of God and the pope. At length, the persons of distinction who were with Gregory, greatly affected at the sufferings of the king, began to complain of the unparalleled severity, of the pope, which they justly said was more becoming a tyrant than an apostolical father or judge. These complaints the countess Mathilda freely reported to the pope; when he thought proper to consent that the king should be admitted to him on the fourth day. At that meeting between Gregory and Henry, the lordly pontiff with much difficulty granted the king absolution, after he had subscribed to very degrading terms, and among others that he would submit to the judgment which the pope, at a time and place appointed, should give upon the accusations made against him; and that in the mean time he should not assume the title of king, or wear the ornaments or exercise the functions of royalty. When the Lombard lords heard of the treatment which the king had met with, and his opprobrious convention, they were highly incensed not only against the pope, but against Henry, whom they accused of cowardice and treachery, in forsaking his best friends, and submitting meanly to beg absolution of a man whom they were determined no longer to acknowledge as their spiritual head. They would even have proceeded to depose him, and to place his son, yet an infant, on the throne, had he not appeased their resentment by breaking his convention with the pope, resuming his title and other marks of royalty which he had laid down, and putting himself at the head of their forces to support his injured rights, and check the pope's immoderate ambition. When the confederate German princes heard of this change of conduct in Henry, they assembled at Forcheim, in the beginning of the year 1077, and elected Rodolph, duke of Suabia, king in his place. In the mean time Gregory, sensible that the forces of Mathilda alone would not enable him to make head against those of the king in the approaching contest, left Canosa, and returned to Rome; whence he afterwards undertook a journey into Apulia, where he entered into a treaty with Robert Guiscard, and the other Norman chiefs, whom he engaged to defend the pretensions of the Roman see. With the assistance of his new allies, and the troops of Mathilda, the pontiff was enabled successfully to maintain his cause in Italy against the Lombards, while Henry was carrying on the war in Germany against Rodolph, and the confederate princes. In the years 1078 and 1079, Gregory held councils at Rome, in which several bishops were excommunicated and deposed, for supporting the cause of Henry, and Berenger's opinion relating to the Eucharist was condemned, as we have already noticed in the Life of that celebrated man. In the mean time the war was proceeding between Henry and the confederates in Germany, with various success; until the latter having gained an important victory, Gregory, in a council held at Rome in 1080, excommunicated anew the vanquished prince, and sending a crown to Rodolph, declared him the lawful king of Germany. Henry, however, was soon in a capacity again to take the field with a powerful army, and having gained several advantages over his rival, resolved that the new insult which the pope had passed upon him should not go unpunished. Accordingly he summoned a council of German bishops to meet at Mentz, who adjourned their sessions to Brixen, in the Tirol, where they were joined by many of the Italian bishops, and German and Italian princes. In this council Gregory was accused of oversetting the hierarchy, and making himself sole monarch of the church; encouraging sedition and rebellion; persecuting, excommunicating, and deposing a peaceable king, and placing a rebel on the throne. For these crimes they unanimously decreed that he should be deposed, and another chosen in his room; and they were equally unanimous in electing Guibert archbishop of Ravenna to that dignity, who on his subsequent consecration took the name of Clement III. This election was followed soon afterwards by an event which gave an advantageous turn to the affairs of Henry, and threw the Romans, and such of the Italians who adhered to Gregory, into no little consternation. This was the entire defeat of Rodolph, in an obstinate and bloody battle, in which the usurper received a mortal wound, of which he soon died at Mersberg. But Gregory remained unshaken even by this disastrous event, and determined to persevere in his measures at all hazards. With this resolution he wrote to his adherents in Germany, exhorting them to continue firm in their attachment to the apostolic see, and to proceed, after they had deliberately fixed upon a proper person, to the election of a new king; while he also applied to Robert Guiscard, and the Normans, to remind them of their engagements, and to claim their assistance if it should be wanted. From the answers which he received he flattered himself that he had nothing to fear from the king, and, assembling a council at Rome in the year 1081, again excommunicated Henry and his adherents. In the same council he thundered out a sentence of excommunication and anathema against Guibert, and such as received or owned him as pope. Henry's victory over Rodolph, however, enabled him to change his scene of action, and to march to Italy, to revenge the treatment which he had received from Gregory, whose subjugation he imagined would effectually contribute to put an end to the troubles in Germany. He was joined, upon his entering Italy, by most of the Italian princes, no less provoked against the pontiff than the king himself was, as they saw a war kindled by his wild ambition and obstinacy, in the bowels of their country. He met with no opposition till he approached Rome, when the countess Mathilda, at the head of a considerable army, offered him battle. Henry proved conqueror, and immediately laid siege to the city. Owing to the heat of the climate, and the resolute defence made by the garrison, he was twice obliged to withdraw, in order to recruit his forces; but in a third attempt he made himself master of the greatest part of the city, in the year 1084, when Gregory retired for safety to the strong castle of St. Angelo. On the next day after his entrance the king caused Guibert to be enthroned in the papal chair, and consecrated; after which he received the imperial crown from the hands of the new pontiff, and was acknowledged emperor by the Romans. Henry now laid close siege to the castle of St. Angelo, and hoped speedily to have his grand enemy in his power; but he was disappointed through the valour of Robert Guiscard, whom Gregory had created duke of Apulia and Calabria. That prince, finding that the pope was reduced to the last extremity, collected a numerous army, with which he marched expeditiously into the neighbourhood of Rome. At his approach the emperor found it necessary to retire towards Lombardy, and Robert, after an ineffectual resistance from the Romans, forced his way into the city, and carried Gregory in triumph to the Lateran palace. But by this time the Romans were so incensed against the pope, whom they considered as the author of the many calamities which they suffered, that apprehensions were entertained of his safety at Rome, and he thought it prudent to place himself under the protection of duke Robert at Salerno. In that place he died, in 1085, having held the see of Rome a little more than twelve years, and leaving Europe involved in complicated calamities to which his wicked ambition gave rise. His character is sufficiently developed in the features which we have already described, and the uniform tendency of all the grand measures of his pontificate. He was the first pope who claimed the power of deposing princes, and absolving subjects from their oaths of allegiance. He also laid claim to most of the kingdoms and states of Europe, and by the boldness of his pretensions, and his menaces of exercising his ecclesiastical authority, terrified many of their sovereigns and rulers into acknowledgments of their being feudatories and vassals of the apostolic see. We shall mention some instances of this nature, which we have reserved for this place in order not to interrupt the thread of the preceding narrative. The kingdoms of Spain, he pretended, had from time immemorial belonged to the Roman church; and when the count de Ronci applied to him for permission to retain the lands he might conquer from the Saracens, Gregory granted his prayer, on condition that he should hold them in the name of St. Peter; observing, that he "had rather that they should remain in the hands of the Infidels, than that Christians should possess them, who might refuse to do homage to the holy see." From the kings and princes of Castile and Arragon he also demanded tribute, as their sovereign lord; which they were mean enough to pay. As to France, Gregory ordered his legates to exact the sum of a penny a year from every house in that kingdom, in token of their subjection to St. Peter and his see. The right to this tribute he pretended to found on a statute of Charlemagne, which he said was lodged in the archives of St. Peter; but as such a statute is to be found no-where else, it is universally looked upon as a forgery. It appears to have answered Gregory's purpose, however, and to have placed this kingdom among his tributaries. He sent a legate to William the Conqueror, king of England, to complain of a neglect which had taken place in the payment of the money which was yearly sent to Rome, under the name of Peter-pence, and to require the king to take an oath of fealty to the sovereign pontiff. The king promised in a letter to the pope, that more regularity should be observed in remitting the money to Rome; "but as to the oath," said he, "I neither have nor will take it, because I have never promised it, nor do I ever find that it was taken by any of my predecessors to yours." This resolute answer the pope highly resented, and threatened that he should be made sensible that he had provoked the wrath of St. Peter; but as William remained unmoved by his menaces, knowing the bold spirit of the man, Gregory did not venture to proceed to an open rupture with him. Solomon king of Hungary he arrogantly reprimanded, for having dared to accept the investiture of his realm from the emperor; and upon his being driven from his throne by his cousin Geisa, acknowledged the usurper, because he consented to hold his dignity as a fief of the Roman see. Ladislaus, Geisa's successor, was obliged to submit to the same humiliation, in order to prevent the disturbances which he knew the pope would raise and foment among his subjects, if he attempted to resist the apostolic yoke. The two islands of Corsica and Sardinia Gregory claimed as a patrimony of St. Peter; and by threatening the magistrates with invasions from the Normans, Tuscans, Lombards, and even some ultramontane princes, VOL. IV. who, he said, offered to yield one half of those countries to him, and to pay homage for the other, succeeded in bringing them to acknowledge his sovereignty. He claimed the power of setting up, as well as deposing, kings; and in order to subject Dalmatia to his see, conferred the title of king upon Demetrius, duke of that country, upon his taking an oath to pay a yearly tribute, and on all occasions to behave as a faithful vassal of St. Peter. He even pretended to extend his jurisdiction to Russia; and when the son of the czar Demetrius came to Rome, to visit the tombs of the apostles, he made him partner with his father in the kingdom, requiring him, on that occasion, to take an oath of fealty fealty to the pope and his successors. "Your son," says he, in a letter to Demetrius, "has been with me, requesting that I would make over your kingdom to him, in the name of St. Peter. His petition appeared just, and I granted it." As the Poles had from the time of their conversion sent a yearly present in money to St. Peter, in testimony of their zeal for the support of the catholic faith, Gregory exacted this from them as a tribute due to him and his successors, as sovereign lords of the country; and the dread which that nation entertained of the apostolic thunders led them to acquiesce in the ignominious claim. To the kings of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, he sent haughty admonitory letters, and orders for the government of their political conduct in the style of a sovereign to his vassals, as well as legates to regulate the ecclesiastical affairs of their countries, and to teach them how they ought to demean themselves towards the holy see. In Italy, the Normans, masters of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, and the dukes of Benevento, Capua, and Aversa, and almost all the other princes, the country being divided into several small independent principalities, were obliged to acknowledge themselves vassals of the pope, and to swear allegiance to him, in order to prevent their dominions from being invaded by their more powerful neighbours, whom Gregory never failed, whenever occasions offered, to excite against them, till he had brought them into subjection to him and his see. He also exercised the same supreme, unlimited, uncontroulable authority over bishops, and the ministers of the church, in spiritual matters. In Spain, in Germany, in France, and in all other countries but England, he reigned with despotic authority. But William would not suffer any of the English, nor indeed of his Norman bishops, to submit to his commands, or to go to Rome when summoned thither by the pope, 3 Y |