_...Simonis leprosam
Execrate hæresim,
Sacerdotum simul atque
Scelus adulterii,
Laicorum dominatus
Cedat ab ecclesiis._
ST. PETER DAMIAN.
The King of Arles and the missionary rode along without an escort, and
felt none of the fears that the traveller of the times is often made to
entertain for his personal safety. They did not apprehend any violence,
and their only preparation for the expedition had been a recommendation
to God through Our Lady and the Saints. It is as purely imaginative in
historians and novelists--and it is difficult indeed to distinguish the
one from the other--to surround every castle with a wall of banditti, as
to station in Catholic countries of the present day, a robber or an
assassin behind every tree. In the Middle Ages, the stranger could
wander from castle to castle with as little danger as the nature of the
country permitted; even in times of war, the blind, the young, the sick,
and the clergy were privileged from outrage, though found on hostile
territory. And in war, peace, or truce, the pilgrim's shallop was a
passport through Christendom; he was under the special protection of the
Pope, and to thwart his pious designs was to incur excommunication.
Even amid the terrors of invasion, the laborer was free to pursue his
occupation, and his flocks and his herds were secure from molestation;
for it was beneath the dignity of the man-at-arms to trample upon the
person or property of the poor unarmed peasant. Such were the principles
recognized even in the eleventh century; and though we witness frequent
departures from these admirable provisions, we must be careful not to
mistake the exception for the rule, or to impute to the spirit of the
age a violence and contempt of authority common to all times, and found
alike in Norman and Frank, American and Mexican. To balance these
infringements of regular warfare or "blessed peace," we often meet with
instances as beautiful as the march of Duke Louis, the husband of St.
Elizabeth, into Franconia, in 1225, to obtain reparation for injuries
inflicted on a _peddler_.
"I hope the Baron of Stramen has lost none of his vigor," said the duke;
"we were together at Hohenburg, and I may need him at my side again. His
son Henry, too, whom I knighted before the battle, and who won his spurs
so nobly, how is he?"
"They were both well," replied Father Omehr, "when I saw them last, and
were anxiously expecting a visit from their liege."
"And the Lady Margaret, from whom not a knight can boast a token, though
all are striving to obtain one?"
"She has not altered since you saw her," answered the priest; "she was
always rather frail, but I do not see that she grows weaker."
"You cannot imagine," interposed Rodolph, "how much it grieves me to be
unable to reconcile these two families whom I so dearly love, and who,
in the camp or in the chamber, have proved themselves so devotedly
attached to me. I cannot even ask of one in the hearing of the other,
without giving offence or receiving a bitter answer. In all things else,
they are obedient as this horse to his rein; but the moment I speak of
reconciliation, the stubborn neck is arched, and will not relax either
for threats or entreaties."
"Your grief cannot equal mine," returned the missionary, "and I confess,
that without the hope of obtaining assistance from heaven, I should
despair of ever softening the determined animosity of the Baron of
Stramen. The Lord of Hers, perhaps, might be induced to throw enmity
aside, if his adversary relented; but he cannot be persuaded to sue for
peace, especially when his supplication might be unavailing."
"I cannot believe," continued the duke, "that my friend of Hers could
have killed Robert of Stramen, since he most positively denies it. It is
true that their relations were anything but amicable, yet Albert of Hers
would scorn to take a knight at a disadvantage, and would not attempt to
conceal the result of a mortal struggle. If Robert of Stramen fell by
his hand, it must have been in fair combat; and if in a fair tilt, there
is no motive for concealment."
"But the circumstances are strong enough to amount to conviction in an
angry brother's eyes. A woman, who has since lost her mind, named
Bertha, her father, and her husband, all swore to have seen Sir Albert
ride away from the spot a short time before the body was found; and the
scarf of the Lord of Hers was clutched convulsively in the dead man's
hand. The wound upon the head resembled that produced by hurling a mace,
and was of such a character that the head could not have been protected
by any steel piece. I do not consider this conclusive against the Lord
of Hers, or even incapable of explanation; but real and unequivocal
guilt itself could not justify the untiring malignity of the Baron of
Stramen. His brother's soul would be much better honored by his prayers,
than by imprecations and the clash of steel; we cannot avenge the dead,
for their bodies are dust, and their souls absorbed in things eternal;
and Sandrit de Stramen is but making his brother's misfortune the
occasion of his own temporal, and perhaps eternal injury. I wish,
indeed, this criminal work of vengeance could be stopped."
"Yes," replied the duke, "they had better husband their energies, for if
I read the future aright, Suabia will have need of every nerve."
Rodolph paused here; and as his companion did not reply, they rode on in
silence.
"I have a plan," exclaimed the duke, with singular vivacity. "But tell
me first, has that young Gilbert seen the Lady Margaret?"
In reply the missionary briefly narrated the events of which the reader
is already in possession. "Then," pursued the King of Arles, eagerly, "I
have strong hopes of success. Listen to me, holy Father: the maiden is
beautiful and virtuous, the youth fair and knightly, and I can so
represent one to the other, as to create an attachment strong enough to
insure to filial love a victory over parental hate. It is fair, I think,
to employ the bodily graces of these young persons against the mental
deformity of their parents--to array the child against the father, when
we seek the triumph of innocence over sin."
"Your highness is inclined to be romantic," rejoined the priest.
"Only the circumstances are romantic, and they seem to have shaped
themselves; my plan is practical enough. Tell me--what think you of it?"
"Briefly, then, I think your project impracticable."
"Impracticable! You cannot know, Father, all that love and youth will
dare; but I, whose earthly life has given me experience in such matters,
have seen the impossibilities of sober minds yield to the irresistible
energy of two plighted hearts. Oh, no; it is not impracticable."
"I will grant you," replied the missionary, "that these two young
persons might be brought to love each other, that they might marry in
spite of family opposition, but the result would make your romance a
tragedy."
"How so?" inquired the duke. "May we not deem without impiety that God,
in His mercy, has designed them for the extirpation of this miserable
feud, and has drawn out of the stern parents themselves the instruments
by which their hearts may be softened?"
"It is impossible," said Father Omehr, "for us to discover by any human
means what the mercy of God may appoint; all we can do is to ask for
light to guide our steps, and to exercise the reason with which He has
endowed us. I have good ground to believe that any approach to
tenderness, on the part of the children, would widen the breach between
the fathers. And were such the case, the consummation of your plan would
give only a new and horrible feature to the present discord, by severing
the bond between child and parent. For, unless I am much deceived, the
lords of Hers and Stramen would turn away in disgust from children whom
they would consider, not only to have disobeyed them, but to have proved
faithless to their race. In this view, I can not suppose that heaven
indicates the path to final reconciliation through fresh dissension. The
hearts of the parents can not be softened in the way your highness
proposed, and that must be the first step in your plan. Besides, I have
little confidence in the agency of a human and selfish love to reach an
end that ought to be gained by purer motives. I have discovered, from
observation, what the power you spoke of will dare; I know its greatness
and its littleness."
"I must tax my ingenuity for a more auspicious scheme," resumed Rodolph
of Suabia, "for I begin to be distrustful of my first. I was a little
romantic, I confess; but it is thus we give the rein to some solitary
impulse of youth, lingering, like a firebrand, among our more matured
resolves."
They had ridden slowly, and were now on the brink of the ravine, three
miles from the Castle of Stramen. The waning moon and the bright
starlight showed them a white figure standing in the road, a few paces
from the mouth of the gorge.
"Who is that before us?" asked the noble.
"Bertha, the poor crazy woman, who swore to the presence of the Lord of
Hers at the spot where Robert de Stramen was found," whispered the
priest, and he advanced to where she stood.
"I heard your horse's hoofs, Father," she said, "and I came to get your
blessing."
"And you shall have it, Bertha," he answered, extending his hands over
her head. "Good night," he added, seeing that she did not move.
"Who is this you have brought us?" continued the woman, pointing to the
duke.
"That," replied Father Omehr, "is Rodolph, Duke of Suabia, and King of
Arles."
Bertha approached the duke, knelt down, and kissed his hand. She then
walked slowly up the ravine.
"A singular being," exclaimed the duke, as they gave their horses the
spur, for it was growing late. "I have not seen any one thus afflicted
for many years, and it is always a painful sight."
The two horsemen were now at the church, but they passed it and kept on
to the castle; and hearty was the welcome of the noble duke to the halls
of Stramen castle. Sir Sandrit's eyes gleamed with delight as he saluted
his liege; Henry's cheek flushed with pleasure when Rodolph, the flower
of German chivalry, spoke of his youthful prowess at Hohenburg; the Lady
Margaret loved the duke for the praises he heaped upon her brother. Nor
were the domestics gazing idly on; but kept gliding to and fro, and
hurrying here and there until the genial board was spread, and the fish,
fresh from the Danube, smoked, and the goblet gleamed.
As it was near midnight when they sat down, Father Omehr felt at liberty
to leave the room without ceremony. The Lady Margaret stayed no longer
than courtesy demanded, when she rose and retired to her chamber. This
young lady had always been noted for her piety and her charities to the
poor, whose wants she was sure to discover and supply. Under the skilful
and fervent training of Father Omehr, she had learned to repress a
spirit, perhaps naturally quick and imperious, and to practise on every
occasion a humility very difficult to haughty natures. There was even
some austerity in her devotion; for she would subject herself to
rigorous fasts and to weary vigils, and deny herself the luxuries that
her father delighted in procuring for her, little dreaming that they
were secretly dispensed to the sick of the neighborhood. She never
failed to hear Mass, unless prevented by sickness or some other
controlling cause, but every morning laid a bunch of fresh and fragrant
flowers upon the altar of our Blessed Mother. And who shall say that the
sweet lilies of the field, the roses and the violets, colored with the
hues of the dawn, and freshened in the dew of the twilight, when offered
and consecrated by the homage of an innocent heart, are not grateful to
her whose purity they typify! Yet there was a lurking family pride in
Margaret's heart that she could not entirely eradicate, and a sleeping
antipathy to the house of Hers that at times betrayed itself to her
watchful self-examination. The reader must not imagine that, when she
told the missionary at Gilbert's bedside that had the youth fallen in
battle she perhaps would rejoice, she actually desired such an event.
She spoke to one who knew her better. She felt this antipathy, but did
not know its extent; and, with the humility of virtue, she feared that,
although engaged in an act of charity, there might be the fiend of
revenge at the bottom of her soul. Margaret de Stramen was not blind to
her imperfections, and she did not hesitate to impute to herself an
inclination to the un-Christian hate so cherished by her family. But she
endeavored to overcome it by prayer, by the Sacraments, by penance, and
by pondering the splendid example of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Lady Margaret was not one of those fair and fanciful creations,
endowed with such exquisite sensibilities as to perceive and return the
admiration of a young knight-errant with whom she had been associated by
any romantic circumstance. Nor was her disposition of that impulsive
kind which will permit the impression of a moment to overthrow the
prejudices of years. But to her joy and surprise, she found that, far
from rejoicing at Gilbert's misfortune, she had regretted it; and
regretted it, not merely because it might stigmatize the fair name of
Stramen, but also in obedience to an elevated generosity that sickened,
ungratified, at the sight of obtained revenge. She had been almost
constrained to render assistance to the youth; and there are some who
think the sting of a favor worse than the fang of an injury, and are
more disposed to forgive after having benefited. With the facility
peculiar to a gifted woman, she had read in Gilbert's face the
ingenuousness and goodness of his heart, and though she did not ascribe
to him any exalted qualities, she admitted that it was not easy to
believe him guilty of cruelty or meanness. In a word, the sympathies of
the woman were now arrayed against family pride and family prejudice,
and a trial still more dangerous and severe awaited her piety and
resolution.
In the morning, after hearing Mass, she found the duke and her father in
close conversation, while her brother was busily preparing for some
important event. It was soon evident that Rodolph was about to depart,
and that Henry was to accompany him; for the grooms led to the door two
handsome and stalwart steeds, richly caparisoned, and four mounted
men-at-arms rode up and halted upon the terrace, where they waited
motionless as statues of steel.
When their private conference was over, the duke advanced, and took the
Lady Margaret by the hand. "I am selfish enough," he said, "to deprive
you of your brother for a few weeks, to assist me by his counsel, and
protect me by his arm, should it be necessary, in a little adventure we
have resolved to undertake."
"I am too true to you, my lord," replied Margaret, "to desire my
brother's society when you request his assistance. Were I a young
knight, I should esteem it no light favor to march--no matter where--as
an escort to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia."
"And I, fair maiden," returned the duke, "could wander to the end of
the world with such a companion."
"I hope you may not find Henry so agreeable as to carry you so far, for
I expect to welcome you back in a week."
"If I consulted my pleasure," said Rodolph, "I should not be absent a
day, but my duty may detain me a month. I will not offer an apology for
so long a stay, because I fear that before sunset you will have ceased
to think of me, or remember me only in connection with your brother."
"A noble duke," replied the lady, "whose name is heard wherever the
minstrel tunes his harp, whose word was never plighted in vain, whose
sword was never stained in an unrighteous cause, whose arm and purse are
ever at the command of the poor and persecuted, whose courage and
clemency, wisdom and piety, so well entitle him to the love of all his
people, is not so easily forgotten."
"I assure you, on my honor," exclaimed Rodolph, "that I value your words
more than all the songs of all the minstrels I ever heard. I would I
were worthy your praise; but you have inspired me to deserve it.
Farewell! I see that Henry is impatient, and we must not lose the early
morning."
He bade adieu to the baron and his daughter, and turned to mount his
horse, when Bertha touched his arm, and placed in his hand something
enveloped in silk. Bertha said not one word, but she looked earnestly up
in Rodolph's face, and then walked away as swiftly and silently as she
came. The duke could not help remarking the wild beauty of her pale and
wasted face, and remained some moments gazing after her with a painful
interest. He removed the silk and found that it contained a ring
garnished with a stone of rare value. He started as his eye fell upon
the trinket, for he remembered that years ago he had given it to the
Lord of Hers. How could it have come into Bertha's possession, was the
question that naturally occurred to him; but the answer came not so
readily as the question. While the duke was thus pondering, Henry had
embraced his father and sister, and leaped upon his horse. Rodolph
mounted slowly, after examining the girths with his own hand; and the
little troop, waving a parting salute, swept over the drawbridge, and
were soon lost among the trees.
About the same hour, or a little earlier, the Lord of Hers, with a small
retinue, had set out in an opposite direction, but on the same mission.
Rodolph had long seen that King Henry's unprincipled ambition threatened
the liberties of religion and of Austria, and he only paused for the
Papal excommunication to throw off all allegiance to a monarch who could
not be safely trusted. That excommunication was impending, and, as may
be easily conjectured, the duke was making a rapid circuit of his
dominions, to unite his barons more closely to his interests; to warn
them to prepare for the approaching struggle; to confirm the weak and
wavering in their fidelity; inspire the resolves of those who were true
and firm, and make all the pulses of the circle of Suabia throb in
concert to the action of one grand moving power. To gain time, the Lord
of Hers had been despatched to the provinces bordering upon the Rhine
with letters from Rodolph to the principal barons there, while the duke
himself, with Henry of Stramen, followed the Danube.
For many months there had been no active warfare between the hostile
houses, though the feud had lost none of its venom. But age was
stiffening the impetuosity of the old barons; and their sons, no longer
urged on by the battle-cry of their sires, listened with more attention
to the advice and representations of their spiritual instructors.
Gilbert of Hers was not inclined to take an injury to his breast, and
hug it there; but the bold and frequent incursions of Henry of Stramen
had induced him to retaliate rather in a spirit of rivalry than of
revenge. Henry of Stramen inherited all his father's implacability, but
he had often yielded to his sister's solicitation to dedicate to the
chase the day he had devoted to a descent upon the lordship of Hers. The
troubled condition of Germany had also diverted the chiefs from the
disputes of their firesides to the civil wars of the empire; and neither
the Lord of Hers nor the Baron of Stramen gave much attention to aught
else than the league that Rodolph was forming against Henry IV of the
house of Franconia.
Gilbert, left almost without a companion--for the good priest Herman,
whose time was divided between his pastoral duties, his prayers, and his
studies, saw him but at intervals--found time to hang very heavily upon
his hands. He thought the old reaper weary and sluggish, for the scythe
flies fast only when we employ or enjoy the moments. The autumn blast
was beginning to lend a thousand bright colors to the trees, and the
giddy leaves, like giddy mortals, threw off their simple green for the
gaudy livery that was but a prelude to their fall--for the beauty that,
like the dying note of the swan, was but the beauty of death. It was the
season of all others for the chase, that health-giving but dangerous
pastime, which our ancestors pursued with almost incredible eagerness,
hunting the stag or the boar, over hill and dale, bog and jungle,
through every twist and turn, as their Anglo-Saxon descendants now
pursue the flying dollar.
But Gilbert often declined the invitation of the forester to fly the
falcon, rarely indulging in his favorite amusement. He preferred to
wander along the borders of the magnificent Lake of Constance, or to
loiter among the neighboring hills, and watch, from some bare peak, the
broad-winged vulture sailing slowly and steadily through the skies. He
would watch it until it became a mere speck in the blue distance: we may
often catch ourselves gazing after receding objects as though they were
bearing away a thought we had fixed upon them. His wound was nearly
well, and the freshness of health was again in his cheeks; but his
spirit had lost a part of its sprightliness, and he seemed to have grown
older. He did not evince his former relish for the manuscripts of
Herman, but his visits to the chapel were more frequent and lasted
longer. Thus, day after day, he would study the lake, the clouds, and
the cliffs, neither fearing an attack from the men of Stramen, nor
meditating one against them.
We shall leave him in his inactivity, to trace the progress of events
which form one of the most important and exciting periods in history.
Rodolph was not a moment too soon in concentrating his power; for Henry
IV, flushed with his recent victory over the Saxons, had called at
Goslar a diet of the princes of the empire, under the pretext of
deciding, in their presence, the fate of their Saxon prisoners. Only a
small minority of the princes obeyed the summons; but the real object of
the king became evident when he made them swear to exalt, upon his own
death, Conrad his son, a minor, to the throne. In the meantime, the news
of the nomination of Hidolph, as successor to the sainted Anno, had
spread to Rome. The Pope beheld with profound sorrow the obstinacy and
ambition of the king. Henry was not to be driven from his purpose by the
universal contempt this nomination excited, and he replied to the
repeated remonstrances of the citizens of Cologne, that they must
content themselves with Hidolph or with a vacant see. And his firmness
triumphed over the popular indignation; for Hidolph was invested by the
king with the crozier and the ring, and finally consecrated Archbishop
of Cologne.
But his victory was not complete. He had yet to cope with an adversary
more formidable than popular opposition; one who would not yield to
temporal tyranny the watch-towers and guardian rights of spiritual
liberty. That adversary was Gregory VII. Already the tremendous threat
had issued: "Appear at Rome on a given day to answer the charges against
you, or you shall be excommunicated and cast from the body of the
Church." But the infatuated monarch, too proud to recede, hurried on by
his impetuous arrogance, and by the unprincipled favorites and corrupt
prelates who shared his bounty, loaded the Papal legates with scorn and
contumely, and drove them from his presence.
He did not even wait for the sentence of excommunication to fall, that
now hung by a hair above his head, but began the attack, as if resolved
to have the advantage of the first blow. Couriers were despatched to
every part of the empire, with commands to all the prelates and nobles
upon whom he could rely, to assemble at Worms, where he promised to meet
them without fail. Twenty-four bishops and a great number of laymen
hastened to obey the summons. The conventicle sat three days, and the
following charges were formally preferred against the Pope: "That he had
by force extracted a solemn oath from the clergy not to adhere to the
king, nor to favor or obey any other Pope than himself; that he had
falsely interpreted the Scriptures; that he had excommunicated the king
without legal or canonical examination, and without the consent of the
cardinals; that he had conspired against the life of the king; that, in
spite of the remonstrances of his cardinals, he had cast the Body and
Blood of our Lord into the flames; that he had arrogated to himself the
gift of prophecy; that he had connived at an attempted assassination of
the king; that he had condemned and executed three men without a
judgment or an admission of their guilt; that he kept constantly about
his person a book of magic."
So palpably absurd and false were these charges that three of the
assembled prelates refused to sign an instrument for the deposition of a
pontiff, so little conforming to the ancient discipline, and unsupported
by witnesses worthy of belief. Nor were Henry's machinations confined
to Germany, but he ransacked Lombardy and the marches of Ancona for
bishops to sign these articles of condemnation, and even aspired to
infect Rome itself by presents and specious promises. But the golden ass
could not then leap the walls of Christian Rome.
Gregory's principal accuser was the Cardinal Hugues le Blanc, whom he
had previously excommunicated. This ambitious man rose in the council
and taunted the Pope with his low extraction, at the same time charging
him with crimes that were proved to be the offspring of calumny and
error. He produced a forged letter, purporting to come in the name of
the archbishops, bishops, and cardinals, from the senate and people of
Rome, inveighing against the Pope, and clamoring for the election of
another head of the Church. Encouraged by imperial patronage, and
stimulated by a desire to rid himself of disgrace by sullying the hands
that had branded him, the excommunicated cardinal did not hesitate to
call the Pope a heretic, an adulterer, a sanguinary beast of prey. The
emperor himself knew Gregory too well to believe such a tissue of
absurdity; but he hoped to find others more credulous than himself.
Upon the accusations already specified, and the invectives of Hugues le
Blanc, the assemblage of prelates at Worms resolve upon the deposition
of Gregory VII. It is then that Henry steps forth, as the life and soul
of the conventicle, armed with its decree, and addresses an insulting
letter to the Pope, inscribed "Henry, king by the grace of God, to
Hildebrand." In this letter, the decree of the conventicle is lost in
the insolence of the king. "I," is the language of the missive, "I have
followed their advice, because it seemed to me just. I refuse to
acknowledge you Pope, and in the capacity of patron of Rome command you
to vacate the Holy See." Can the most jaundiced eye, can the man who
learned, even in his boyhood, to loathe the name of Hildebrand, read
these expressions without confessing that the king was the aggressor,
and that if the Christian Church had a right to expect protection from
its appointed head, Gregory VII was called upon to vindicate the majesty
and liberty of religion so grossly outraged in his person? Surely it
will not be asserted at this day that the head of the State, by virtue
of his temporal power, should be the head of the Church; or does that
beautiful logic still exist, which denied an absolute spiritual
supremacy in the successor of St. Peter, yet admitted it as an
incidental prerogative to the crown of England? But we have yet to see
the last act of this attempted deposition.
A clerk of Parma, named Roland, was charged with the delivery of this
letter, and the decrees of the conventicle of Worms. A synod had been
convoked in the Church of Lateran, and the Pope, surrounded by his
bishops, occupied a chair elevated above the rest. Roland's mission had
been kept a profound secret, and, when he appeared before the conclave,
not a prelate there could guess his purpose. They had not heard the
voice that had gone forth from Worms. But they did not long remain in
suspense. Turning to the Pope, the envoy thus began "The king, my
master, and all the ultramontane and Italian bishops, command you to
resign, at once, the throne of St. Peter and the government of the Roman
Church, which you have usurped; for you cannot justly claim so exalted a
dignity without the approbation of the bishops and the confirmation of
the emperor!" Then addressing the clergy, he thus continued: "My
brothers, it is my duty to inform you, that you must appear before the
king at the approaching festival of Pentecost, to receive a Pope from
his hand; for the tiara is now worn, not by a Pope, but by a devouring
wolf!"
Receive a Pope from the king! receive from Cæsar what he must usurp to
bestow! Had Gregory flinched, the independence of the Church would have
been sacrificed, and her acknowledged inability to cope with royal vices
would have permitted every European monarch to change his queen with his
courtiers. Henry IV would have had his successor to Bertha; Philip
Augustus his Agnes de Méranie; and Henry VIII his Cranmer and his
scaffold without one moment's opposition.
But no sooner had Roland pronounced those last words, than the Bishop of
Porto leaped from his chair, and cried out: "Seize him!" The prefect and
nobles of Rome and the soldiers drew their swords, and, in their sudden
fury, would have killed the audacious envoy, had not Gregory, repeating
his magnanimity to Cencius, covered the clerk with his own body, and by
his calmness and eloquence controlled the indignation and disgust of his
too zealous friends.
"My friends!" he said, with all the dignity of human greatness, elevated
and purified by the most exalted piety, "disturb not the peace of the
Church. Behold the dangerous times, of which the Scripture speaks, are
come, when men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, and
disobedient to parents. We cannot escape these scandals; and God has
said that He has sent us like sheep in the midst of wolves. It is
necessary for us then to combine the innocence of the dove with the
prudence of the serpent. Now, when the precursor of Antichrist erects
himself against the Church, he must find us innocent and prudent; these
dispositions constitute wisdom. We must hate no one, but bear with the
madmen who would violate the law of God. Remember that God, descending a
second time among men, proclaims aloud: 'He who would follow me must
forsake himself!' We have lived in peace long enough, and God wishes
that the harvest should again be moistened with the blood of His Saints.
Let us prepare for martyrdom, if it shall be needed, for the law of God,
and resolve that nothing shall sever us from the charity of Jesus
Christ."
The synod, in breathless interest, listened to the holy Pontiff, who
then proceeded with wonderful composure to read the charges that had
been preferred against him. Among Roland's letters was another signed,
"Henry, king not by usurpation, but by the grace of God, to Hildebrand,
false monk and anti-pope." This was couched, if possible, in language
more insulting than the former. One sentence will show the temper of the
document, and prove that the king was struggling to build up a monarchy
of divine rights and appointment. "A true Pope, Saint Leo, says, _Fear
God! honor the king_! But as you do not fear God, neither do you honor
me whom He has appointed king." Can any expression more clearly indicate
that Henry of Austria had resolved to crush a Pontiff who stood between
him and unquestioned despotism, and that he aimed at a heaven-
commissioned temporal power, often conceded, it is true, but never by
Catholicity. The letter concludes with these words: "I, Henry, king by
the grace of God, warn you, with all our bishops: descend! descend!"
When the Pope had finished reading the invectives of Henry and those who
were weak enough to second his ambition, so great was the exasperation
of the synod, that he adjourned it to meet the next day. When the morrow
came, in the presence of one hundred and ten bishops, he recited his
former indulgence to Henry, his paternal remonstrances, and his repeated
proofs of love and goodness. The whole assembly rose in a body, and
implored him to anathematize a perjured prince, an oppressor, and a
tyrant, declaring that they would never abandon the Pope, and that they
were ready to die in his defence. It was then that Gregory VII rose and
pronounced, amid the unanimous acclamations of the synod, the sentence
of excommunication against the emperor.
Thus went forth this awful thunderbolt for the first time against a
crowned head. A dissolute and ambitious monarch had called upon the
successor of St. Peter to yield up the keys, and lay the tiara at the
feet of the lion of Austria, because that successor had declared an
invincible determination to preserve the purity of the Church and its
liberties, at the sacrifice of life itself. The tyrant struck in anger,
and the Pontiff, incapable of yielding, gave the blow at last; for the
_temple_ of religion was insulted and invaded.
It is easy, when calmly seated at a winter's fireside, to charge Gregory
VII with an undue assumption of temporal power. But he who will study
the critical position of Europe during the eleventh century, must bow
down in reverence before the mighty mind of him who seized the moment to
proclaim amid the storm the independence of the Christian Church. Was
not this resistance to Henry expedient? Yes! And to one who knows that
the Church was the lever by which the world was raised from barbarism to
civilization, and will confess, with Guizot, that without a visible
head, Christianity would have perished in the shock that convulsed
Europe to its centre, the truth is revealed, as it was to the master
mind of Gregory, that had he pursued any other course, peace and unity,
as far as human eye extends, would have perished with the compromised
liberty of the Church of Rome. Let us rejoice, then, that this sainted
Pontiff hurled against the Austrian tyrant the anathema on which was
written--"The independence of the Church of God shall be sustained,
though the thrones of princes crumble around her, or though her
ministers are driven to seal their fidelity with death."