An assembly was held at Tribur, in the year 1076, to deliberate on this matter, at which it was resolved that Henry should be suspended from his royal dignity, and that he should forfeit his kingdom, if within a year he was not restored to the bosom of the Church.

Henry, in order to implore in person the clemency of the Roman Pontiff, passed the Alps amidst the rigour of a severe winter, and arrived in the month of February, 1077, at the fortress of Canusium, where Gregory then resided, with Mathilda, Countess of Tuscany. Here the suppliant Prince stood for three days in the open air, at the entrance of the fortress, with his feet bare, his head uncovered, and no other raiment, but a wretched covering of woollen cloth. On the fourth day he was admitted into the presence of the Pope, who agreed to absolve him on condition of his appearing at the approaching diet of the German princes, to answer to the charges brought against him; and that, if he was maintained in the throne, he should always be obedient and submissive to the Holy See. (Mosheim Cent. xi. Part ii. Condillac Cours d'Etude, &c. Tome 8me. p. 320-324.

It is true that Henry afterwards threw off the ignominious yoke imposed upon him by Gregory, but, as we shall afterwards learn, he at length fell a victim to the rancorous hatred of the Papal See.

The behaviour of Gregory to other sovereign princes was of a like nature. He pretended that the kingdom of France was tributary to the See of Rome, and commanded his legates to demand yearly the payment of that tribute. He treated Philip I. king of France, as a tyrant, threatened to depose him, and wrote letters to the bishops and nobles to raise all France in rebellion. (Mosheim, ubi supra Condillac, p. 330.) Gregory also pretended that all Saxony was a feudal tenure held in subjection to the See of Rome. He claimed Spain as the property of St. Peter.* He threatened the sovereign of Sardinia to despoil him of that island, if he did not acknowledge himself as a vassal of the holy See. He excommunicated Nicephorus, emperor of Constantinople. He call

* The Abbe Condillac quotes the following words from his letters to the kings of Spain. "I believe you are not ignorant that for several centuries St. Peter has been proprietor of the kingdom of Spain-that though that country has been for a long time invaded by the infidels, it cannot justly be denied to be his property, and that it belongs to the Holy Apostolical See."

ed on William the Conqueror, king of England, to discharge the arrears of Peterpence, a tribute paid to the Roman See, and also to do homage to him for the kingdom of England. William granted the former, but refused the latter, and the terror of his name procured for him a greater measure of forbearance on the part of Gregory than he showed to other monarchs.

I shall sum up the above account of the proceedings of this daring and wicked Pontiff, by a passage of the Catholic author, the Abbe Condillac, to whom I have already referred. (Condillac Cours d'Etude Hist. Moderne Tom. 8me. p. 131.) "In a word, he established himself the judge of all sovereigns. Always ready to launch excommunications against those who would not submit themselves, he gave to all, at one time counsels, at another, orders: sending legates into each kingdom to observe every thing that passed in it, and to carry his decrees."

Victor the Third held the Papacy for some months, in the year 1086, and was succeeded by Urban the Second. Both of these Popes renewed the former excommunications against Henry IV. emperor of Ger

many, and Urban encouraged Conrad his eldest son, who had declared himself king of Italy, in rebellion against his father. Henry, however, still sustained himself, and at a diet held at Aix la Chapelle, A.D. 1099, Conrad was declared incapable of succeeding to the empire, and Henry, the second son of the Emperor, was chosen king of the Romans, after having promised upon oath, never to take arms against his father.

Listening, however, to the wicked solicitations of Pope Pascal II. the successor of Urban, Henry (afterwards) the Fifth, took up arms under a pretext of religion; by the vilest deceit, he obtained possession of the person of the Emperor his father, and imprisoned him. He then repaired to the diet at Mentz, where the Pope's legates having repeated the sentence of excommunication against Henry IV. he was divested of the imperial dignity, A.D. 1106, and stripped of his royal robes by the hands of the Archbishops of Mentz and Cologne, and soon afterwards died at Liege. (Condillac Cours d'Etude, Tome 8me. p. 346-8. Mosheim cent. xii. part 2d. Modern Universal Hist. vol. xxix. p. 92–94.)

Thus did this wicked Pontiff, by exciting

the rebellion of a subject against his sovereign, and a son against his father, and encouraging a son and subject to break the oath of fidelity he had taken to his father and sovereign, come up to the description given by St. Paul of the Man of Sin, that he was to "oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped," and by pretending to a right to dethrone his sovereign, and to dissolve the oath of allegiance taken to him by his subjects, this Pope did in effect arrogate to himself the authority and attributes of God himself, "as God sitting in the temple of God, and showing himself to be God."

In the year 1155, the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa was obliged by Pope Adrian IV. to hold his stirrup when he dismounted from his horse. In the following century the Emperor Frederic the Second, having offended Pope Gregory the Ninth, by delaying to perform a vow he had made, to set out on a crusade for the Holy Land, was excommunicated by that Pontiff, A. D. 1227. In the next year, Frederic sailed for Palestine; but Gregory enraged that he had departed without obtaining the absolution of the Holy See, wrote to the Patriarch of Jerusalem; com