The right of the emperors of Germany to nominate the popes had undergone many changes. Henry III., who was a prince of great abilities, resumed this right, which his predecessors had neglected, and named successively three popes, by his own, sovereign will, and without the intervention of a council of the church. From his time, however, the imperial authority began to decline in Italy; and during the minority of his son, Henry IV., several of the popes obtained the chair of St. Peter by bribery and intrigue. Alexander 11. was chosen pope in the year 1054, without consulting the imperial court, and maintained his seat, though the emperor actually nominated another. It was the lot of this emperor, Henry IV., who was not deficient in spirit, to have to do with a continued series of the most domineering and insolent pontiffs that ever filled the papal chair. Alexander II., instigated by Hildebrand, one of his cardinals, excommunicated Henry on the pretence of his having sold ecclesiastical benefices, and frequented the company of lewd women; and the effect of this arrogant procedure was, that the people of Italy began to spurn at the imperial authority. On Alexander's death, this same daring Hildebrand had interest to procure himself to be elected pope, without waiting for the emperor's permission. He took the title of Gregory VII., and meditating to shake off at once all dependence on the empire, his first step was to denounce excommunication against all those who received benefices from the hands of laymen, and against all who conferred them. This was a measure that struck not only against the right of the emperor, but against the privilege of all sovereigns, who, in their dominions at least, were in constant use of conferring benefices. Henry, the emperor, happened to be at war with the Saxons when he received a summons by two of his holiness's legates to come in person to Rome, and answer to the charge of his having granted the investiture of benefices. He treated this insolent message with proper contempt. Gregory had, at the same time, denounced a sentence of excommunication against Philip I. of France, and had likewise expelled from the pale of the church the Norman princes of Apulia and Calabria. What gave weight to sentences of this kind, which would otherwise have been held in derision, was that policy of the popes by which they took care to level their ecclesiastical thunder against those who had enemies powerful enough to avail themselves of the advantages which such sentences gave them against the party excommunicated. Henry, it must be owned, thought of rather a mean revenge against the pontiff. By his orders, a ruffian seized the pope while he was performing divine service, and after bruising and maltreating him, confined him to prison. The pontiff, however, soon recovered his liberty, and assembling a council at Rome pronounced a formal sentence of deposition against the emperor. This awful sentence ran in the following terms: In the name of Almighty God, and by our authority,

I prohibit Henry, the son of our emperor Henry, from governing the Teutonic kingdom and Italy. I release all Christians from their oaths of allegiance to him, and I strictly charge every person whomsoever never to serve or to attend him as king. What gave the whole force to this sentence of deposition and excommunication was the disaffection of most of the German princes to the person and interest of Henry. Taking advantage of the pope's bull, they assembled an army, surrounded the emperor at Spires, made him prisoner, and released him only on condition, that he should abdicate the throne and live as a private person till the event of a general diet at Augsburg, where the pope was to preside, and where he was to be solemnly tried for his crimes.

Henry, now reduced to extremity, was forced to deprecate the wrath of that power which he had formerly so much despised. Attended by a few domestics, he passed the Alps, and finding the pope at Canosa, he presented himself at his holiness's gate, without either guards or attendants. This insolent man ordered him to be stripped of his clothes, which were exchanged for a haircloth; and, after making him fast for three days, condescended to allow him to kiss his feet, where he obtained absolution, on condition of awaiting and conforming himself to the sentence of the diet of Augsburg. The people of Lombardy, however, still adhered to the interest of the emperor. Though they were provoked at his mean submission, they were enraged at the insolence of the pope, and rose up in arms to maintain the right of their sovereign, while Gregory was inciting a rebellion against him in Germany. A considerable party, however, of his subjects still favored the cause of Henry, while the rest, considering their sovereign as justly deposed for his contumacy against the holy church, elected Rodolph, duke of Suabia, for their emperor.

Henry, reassuming a proper spirit, resolved to depose the pope, and to make a vigorous effort for the recovery of his crown, by giving battle to his rival Rodolph. He accordingly assembled a council of bishops in the Tirolese, who solemnly excommunicated and deposed the pope, Gregory VII. The sentence bore that he was a favorer of tyrants, a man guilty of simoniacal practices, of sacrilege, and of magic. The last accusation was founded on his having predicted, in the most positive terms, that Henry, in the first engagement against Rodolph, would fall in battle. The event gave the lie to his prophecy, for Rodolph was the victim, and was killed in battle by the celebrated Godfrey of Boulogne, who afterwards conquered Jerusalem. Gregory, however, kept his seat in the chair of St. Peter, and still persevered in his audacity. Henry was determined to punish him in the most exemplary manner, and laid siege to Rome, which he took by storm, while Gregory, blocked up in the castle of St. Angelo, continued still to threaten excommunication and vengeance. This pontiff, whose insolent, tyrannical, and inflexible character involved him in perpetual faction and war,

was allowed at length to die quietly in his bed. Henry was obliged to repair to Germany; the Neapolitans came to the relief of Rome; and Gregory in the meantime died at Salerno. The Catholic church has devoutly placed this venerable pontiff among the number of her saints.

His successors in the popedom continued to act upon the same principles, and it was the fate of Henry IV. to be constantly excommunicated and persecuted by every pope in his time. Urban II. instigated Conrad, the son of Henry, to rebel against his father; and after Conrad's death, his brother, afterwards Henry V., followed the same unnatural example. The miseries of this unfortunate prince were now drawing to a period. He was confined by his rebellious subjects in Mentz, where he was again solemnly deposed by the pope's legates, and stripped of his imperial robes by the deputies of his own son. He made his escape from prison, and after wandering for some time in want, he died at Liege.

The emperor Henry V., who had joined with the pope in all the measures against his father, had taken that part only to accomplish his own purposes of ambition. No sooner had he obtained the sovereignty, than he maintained the same pretensions to humiliate the popes. He obliged Paschal II. to allow the emperors to have the right of conferring benefices-a prerogative for which his father had paid so dear; but after many disputes and a great deal of bloodshed, he was in the end compelled, like his father, to yield to the terms prescribed to him, and to renounce this right for himself and his successors. Things went on much in the same way, during a succession of popes and a succession of emperors; there was a constant struggle, which in general terminated in favor of the holy see.

Frederic I., surnamed Barbarossa, a prince of great talents and of high spirit, was summoned to go to Rome to receive the imperial crown from Adrian IV.* It was customary at this time, from the ambiguous relation in which the popes and emperors stood to each other, for the pope to intrench himself upon the emperor's approach, and for all Italy to be in arms. The emperor promised that he would make no attempt against the life, the person, nor the honor of the pope, the cardinals, and the magistrates. A knight, completely armed, made this oath, in the name of Frederic Barbarossa; but the ceremonial required, that when the pope came out to meet him, the emperor should prostrate himself on the ground, kiss his feet, hold the stirrup of his horse while he mount

This pope was an Englishman, of the name of Nicholas Breakspear; the only Englishman that ever sat in the chair of St. Peter. His learning and abilities raised him from poverty and obscurity, first to the dignity of abbot of St. Rufus in Provence, next to that of cardinal, (in 1146,) and lastly to the papacy, (in 1154.) He said of himself, that "he had been strained through the limbec of affliction; but that all the hardships of his life were nothing in comparison with the burden of the papal crown."

ed, and lead him by the bridle for nine paces. Frederic refused at first these humiliating marks of submission: the cardinals looked upon it as the signal of a civil war, and betook themselves to flight; but Frederic was reasoned into compliance with a ceremony which he was determined to hold for nothing more than a piece of form. His indignation broke out immediately in the plainest terms, when the deputies of the people of Rome informed him that they had chosen him, though a foreigner, to be their sovereign. "It is false," said he, "you have not chosen me to be your sovereign: my predecessors, Charlemagne and Otho, conquered you by the strength of their arms; and I am, by established possession, your lawful sovereign." But the spirit of this prince and his intrepid activity were not equal to the extreme difficulties with which he had to struggle; the popes, who disputed his right to the empire; the Romans, who refused to submit to his authority; and all the cities of Italy, which wanted to vindicate their liberty. Poland, too, and Bohemia, were at war with him, and gave him constant occupation. The troubles of Italy at last compelled him to measures, which his haughty spirit could very ill brook. He acknowledged the supremacy of Alexander III., he condescended to kiss his feet, and to hold the stirrup, and to restore what he possessed which had at any time belonged to the holy see. On these terms he gave peace to Italy, embarked on an expedition to the holy wars, and died in Asia, by bathing himself, while overheated, in the Cydnus-the same river which, in a similar manner, had almost occasioned the death of Alexander the Great.

Under his son, Henry VI., the spirit of the popedom and of the emperors continued still the same. Pope Celestinus, while Henry VI. was kneeling to kiss his feet, took that opportunity of kicking off his crown. * He made amends to him, however, for this insolence, by making him a gift of Naples and Sicily, from which Henry had extirpated the last of the Norman princes. Thus Naples and Sicily were transferred to the Germans, and became an appanage of the empire. Each succeeding pope seemed to rise upon the pretensions of his predecessor; till at length Innocent III., in the beginning of the thirteenth century, established the temporal power (for which his predecessors had been so long struggling) upon a solid basis. Taking advantage of the divisions of Germany, where opposite factions had chosen two emperors, Frederic II. and Otho of Saxony, Innocent, by espousing the party of Otho, obtained for the popedom the absolute possession of Italy, from the one sea to the other. He had

* Voltaire doubts, as most of his readers will do, the literal truth of this story, but allows that the very fabrication of such a story marks the inveterate animosity which subsisted between the emperors and the popes, as much as if it had been true.--Voltaire sur les Mœurs, ch. xlix.

the sovereignty of Rome, where he abolished the name of consul, which had subsisted to this time; and Innocent found himself possessed of a power which was supreme in every sense of the word.

CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY OF ENGLAND during the Eleventh, Twelfth, and part of the Thirteenth Centuries:-Reign and Character of William the Conqueror-Doomsday book-William Rufus-Henry I.-Stephen-Henry II. (Plantagenet)— Richard Cœur de Lion-King John-MAGNA CHARTA.

THE Consequence of the battle of Hastings, which was fought on the 14th of October, 1066, was the submission of all England to William the Conqueror. William advanced by rapid marches to London, and before he had come within sight of the city, he received the submission of the clergy and the chief nobility, among whom was Edgar Atheling, the nephew of Edward the Confessor, and the last male of the Saxon line. This prince had just before been acknowledged as king upon the intelligence of the death of Harold, but he wanted both spirit and abilities to make good his title. William accepted the crown upon the same terms on which it was usually conferred on the Saxon monarchs; which were, that he should govern according to the established customs of the kingdom: for this politic prince, who might have ruled upon any conditions, was pleased that his usurpation should receive the sanction of something like a free consent of his subjects. From the beginning of his reign, however, his partiality to his countrymen, the Normans, was abundantly conspicuous. They were promoted to all offices of honor and emolument, and he gave extreme disgust to the English by the partition which he made among these foreigners of the lands of the most illustrious nobility of the kingdom, as a punishment for having adhered to the defence of their king and country. A visit which William paid to his Norman dominions gave these discontents time to ripen and break out, and a conspiracy is said to have been secretly formed for destroying at once all the Normans by a general massacre, upon Ash Wednesday, 1068. The return, however, of William soon silenced these discontents; the chief persons accused of promoting this conspiracy fled over sea, and the body of the people were intimidated into tranquillity.

From that time forward William lost all confidence in his sub