 8. She was conducted in state by her brother Tadover, and there bade farewell to her kin. In May she landed at Antwerpen was surrounded by a large army which her future lord had sent to guard her. The cities of the Upper Rhine gave her a most royal welcome. The Burgers of Cologne turned out some ten thousand strong to meet her on the road and conducted her into their town, which immediately gave itself over to festival and merriment. Here she abode for six weeks until the Emperor was sufficiently free from the anxieties of the late rebellion to turn his thoughts to more pleasant matters. From there she proceeded to Worms, where Frederick received her with joy and respect. He was beyond measure delighted with her beauty continues went over, and the marriage was solemnized at that place on Sunday the twentieth of July. And although her beauty pleased the Emperor at first sight, he was much more pleased after marriage. There were many, however, in the Roman Empire, who thought it was degrading for the Emperor, who was so powerful and rich, and who was, as it were, the lord and governor of the whole world, to marry the sister of an English king, which slight upon his country the chronicler resents and proceeds to point out that Isabella can trace her descent back through a long line of kings to Alfred the Great, and thence in all probability to Adam and Eve. According to the same authority there were no less than four kings at the Imperial wedding, besides eleven dukes, thirty counts and margraves and many prelates. The Emperor, who had a weakness for astrology, awaited the propitious conjunction of the heavenly bodies before he would proceed to the nuptial couch. The fact that seventeen months he lapsed before a child was born to him, and that child, a girl, must have considerably shaken his faith in the science of his astrologers. A month after his marriage, Frederick held the Great Diet of Miles, where all Germany flocked to do homage to its Kaiser. Only one prince was absent from the mighty throng which attended him. Even the head of the house of Gvelf, which for a hundred years had refused to bow the knee to its Hohenstaufen rivals, was among them. Otto, the son of that Emperor whom Frederick had overthrown, placed his hands between those of his father's enemy, and swore to become his man, and for his submission was created Duke of Brunswick. Six archbishops and twenty-one bishops swore fealty for their temporal possessions. Twelve thousand knights and deputies from every city joined in the acclamations which greeted their Hohenstaufen lord, who had once more favored Imperial Germany with his presence. Frederick might gaze on the fast concourse and reflect with some pride that he held his high place not merely by virtue of his dissent, but as the prize of his own daring, the fruit of that adventure of his youth, when twenty-three years ago he had crossed the Alps almost alone to regain the heritage of his father's. No future Emperor was to hold the rule of so wide a realm as Frederick at the Diet of Miles. It was the last exhibition of the Holy Roman Empire in all its pomp and unity. It was the last time that any Caesar saw both Germany and Italy at his feet, and was able to scorn the bare idea of foreign interference with his realms, whether to the north or south of the Alps. The Diet was signalized by the promulgation of a revised Code of Laws called the Constitution of Fifteen Chapters. It consisted, for the most part, of the old German custom, with a few additions by Frederick himself. Although in his southern kingdom the nobles and clergy were stripped of many of their powers, here in the north, where the Emperor himself could not always be present to rule with a firm hand, the authority of the princes and hieraclesiastics was maintained. Among many ordinances of a general character the new Constitution contained a clause which must have been prompted by Frederick's own recent and bitter experience. In gratitude is always hateful, it ran, especially when a son turns against his father. Whoever strives to eject his father from his possessions, or make a league with his father's enemies, is to lose all right to his personal inheritance, and if a son plots his father's death he can never be restored to his rights. In accordance with this law Henry was formally deposed from the kingship of Germany or the kingship of the Romans as it was more commonly called. It is probable that the boy Conrad was chosen in his stead, though the election was not made public for two years. A more warlike scene was also enacted before the Diet dissolved. The assembled princes and knights swore to follow their Kaiser against the insolent Lombards who had added to their long list of injuries by instigating and abetting Henry's rebellion. They had invited him to cross the Alps and promised to invest him with the iron crown of Lombardy. They had also harassed the gibbalin or pro-imperial cities in their neighborhood, and these implored the emperor to avenge them. Frederick declared that if the Pope, who had undertaken to mediate between the two antagonists, did not bring the league to an adequate submission before Christmas, he would lead his armies into Lombardy in the following year. Gregory was suspected of underhand dealings with the emperor's rebellious subjects. It is true that he had recently supported Frederick in the suppression of his son's insurrection, but as the head of the church he could hardly avoid the duty of chastising unfilial conduct, unless he wished to fling aside all pretense of holiness and decency. With the independence of northern Italy, on the other hand, his interests were intimately concerned. If once the sturdy cities became meekly submissive to the emperor, he would be hedged in north and south by the imperial power and would have no militant ally to assist him. The Lombards, moreover, had always belonged to the Gvelvik or Papal Party, and it was very natural that Frederick should be skeptical of the sincerity of Gregory's declared efforts to bring them to reason. Such a skepticism was amply justified by later events. The old state of tension in the relations of Pope and emperor was rapidly reviving, and in the October of 1235 the peace nearly came to a sudden end. Gregory had written to the prelates who had been seduced by Henry from their loyalty to the emperor and upbraided them for their conduct. They were ordered to appear at Rome to answer for their offense. He considered that the punishment of these high ecclesiastics was his own function and not that of their temporal lord. Frederick, however, intervened in the matter, and as the guilty prelates showed no sign of obeying the Pope's summons he forthwith drove them to Rome by threats and commands. At the same time he appointed one of the royal judges to administer the civil duties of the bishop of Ums, who was one of the unwilling pilgrims. This seems a reasonable enough measure, but in the eyes of Gregory it was an interference in the church's affairs which was not to be borne. He flew into a violent passion, and Hermann van Salza, who was acting as Frederick's ambassador, had much ado to prevent the fiery old man from launching another excommunication against the emperor, who had dared to lay sacrilegious hands upon the ark. Finally van Salza sued the pontifical fury, by promising on behalf of his master to replace the royal judge by a papal legate. Frederick spent the winter of twelve thirty-five and six at his castle of Haganau, where a brilliant court was assembled. Many foreigners came to witness his splendor and many nobles from his Burgundian realm of Arle came to pay him homage. He was busily occupied, meanwhile, with war-like preparations, with a view not only to chastising the Lombards, but also to inflicting a salutary lesson upon his namesake, the Duke of Austria. This prince, the most powerful and formidable noble of the empire, had succeeded to the title six years before, and had maintained a sullen and childish antagonism to the emperor without any justification. He had always refused to attend the imperial diets, and was the only prince who was absent from that of Mayans. He had embroiled himself in war with the King of Hungary, a tributary monarch of the empire, and had vexed the neighboring princes with his quarrelsome conduct. His other misdeeds were numerous. His subjects were groaning under his oppression. His mother had been despoiled of all her lands, threatened with barbarous mutilation, and had been compelled to seek refuge in Bohemia, from where she cried aloud to the emperor for vengeance. He had outraged his sister and her husband, the Marquis of Meissen, by surprising the newly wedded pair in bed, and taking advantage of their helpless position to rest from them a renunciation of the dowry which he had agreed to pay to the bride. He was also accused of having formed an alliance with the Lombard rebels. Frederick summoned him for the last time to repair to Haganau an answer for his many offenses, but he refused to appear. He was accordingly judged in his absence by a council of princes and deprived of all his honors. Fortunately for the Duke of Austria, Frederick was at this time occupied with the approaching Lombard campaign, and could neither lead a punitive expedition against the rebel himself, nor dispatch a great army against him. Such forces, as he was able to spare, however, advanced into Austria, and with the help of the Duke's oppressed subjects, subdued the whole Duchy with the exception of a few strong castles. The Duke himself held out in his fortress of Neustadt until the April of 1237, and then emboldened by the emperor's absence in Italy and by the death of the bishop of Bambag, who was conducting the campaign against him, he emerged from his retirement and won a great victory over the imperial troops. He was able later to make his peace with the emperor when Frederick was in the throes of conflict with his other enemies. Meanwhile Gregory was becoming alarmed by the emperor's evident determination to inflict a summary punishment upon the Lombard League. The Christmas of 1235, which Frederick had named as the latest date upon which he would accept the submission of the League, had passed without any success attending Gregory's half-hearted efforts for peace. He then endeavored to distract Frederick's attention by new efforts to arouse a crusade. Although the truce which the emperor had made in Palestine did not expire until 1239, the Pope declared that preparations should now be commenced for another attempt to expel the Muslims from the Holy Land. Frederick replied to his declaration by the most diplomatic manifesto. "'Italy is my heritage,' he said, and all the world knows it. To covet other men's property and to give up my own would be sinful, especially as the disrespectful insolence of the Italians has provoked me. Moreover, I am a Christian and am ready to overcome the foes of the cross. Heresies have sprung up and are growing thick in Italy, which abounds in arms, horses, and wealth, as all the world knows. This insistence on the prevalence of heresy in northern Italy, which was notorious throughout Europe, placed the Pope in a difficult position. For unless he helped the emperor in his campaign against the heretics, he exposed the insincerity of his zeal for orthodoxy. If he actually lent assistance to the Lombards, he proclaimed to all Christendom that he placed the temporal interests of his office above the spiritual welfare of Christianity. On the other hand, if he gave countenance to the cause of the emperor, he helped to destroy his last round part against imperial power. There was, however, no doubt which alternative a medieval pope would choose. For the time being, Gregory was content to work secretly against Frederick, but later he was to cast in his lot openly with the Lombards and ignore the taint of heresy with which they were besmurched in the eyes of Christendom. We have an English churchman's opinion of Gregory's duplicity in the Chronicles of Matthew, Paris, footnote. At this time the contemporary history of Matthew, Paris, the chronicler of St. Albans, first becomes available. It abounds with references to Frederick, and is especially valuable because it gives us a foreign opinion of the struggle between the emperor and the pope. Paris is perhaps the most impartial contemporary authority we have on a question which, even in our own day, has excited the most violent prejudices of historical writers. As an ecclesiastic, he is shocked by the emperor's attitude toward religion and by his lack of respect for the ancient privileges of the church. As a patriot, he resents the papal extortions in England. His views are thus tempered by two opposing influences, and footnote. The Pope he writes, referring to Frederick's manifesto, on hearing such profound reasonings in order that he might not seem opposed to such incontrovertible arguments, pretended to give his consent, and that the emperor might cross the mountains and enter Italy according to his purpose, his holiness promised, without fail as far as he was able, to afford his paternal assistance in every necessity. The Milanese, not without reason, fearing the emperor's terrible anger, sent to the pope asking advice and effectual assistance from him, and he, after receiving a large sum of money with a promise of more, sent them much relief and assistance to the injury of the emperor. And this seemed incredible, in contrary to everyone's opinion, that in such case of necessity the father should be converted into a stepfather. Much correspondence passed between Frederick and Gregory before the Italian campaign commenced, and on Gregory's side it frequently reached an acrimonious tone. The emperor, on one occasion, inferred that the pope's own conscience must reproach him for a certain act. You have no business, replied Gregory, to pry into the secrets of our conscience. Our judge is in heaven. The priests of Christ, he declared, were the fathers and masters of all faithful kings. Christian emperors must submit themselves not merely to the supreme pontiff, but to all other bishops. Constantine had realized that the pope ought to be endowed with temporal sovereignty, and had bestowed the western empire on the popes, transferring his own throne to Greece. The popes had delegated the empire to Charlemagne and his successors. The apostolic sea was the judge of the whole world and could be judged by none save God. The emperor must beware of the doom of Uzziah and the tribe of Kohath, who were smitten for laying hands upon the ark. Frederick replied to this amazing piece of arrogance and to the other papal missives in a tone of moderation and reason. He had no wish to precipitate the inevitable rupture by allowing a just reign to his indignation. CHAPTER IX The Conqueror In July 1236 the emperor's war-like preparations for the chastisement of the Lombards were completed. The response of Germany to his call to arms was disappointing in the extreme. Either she had declined greatly in martial enthusiasm since the days of Barbarossa, or the continued absence of Frederick had cooled the ardor of loyalty which had been given to his grand sire. In spite of their recent promises at the Diet of Mayance, none of the princes appeared in person to follow their Kaiser into Italy. Many of them, no doubt, had heard their father's tell of how the Lombard League had overthrown the might of Germany on the field of legnano and were unwilling to invite a similar disaster. It was therefore with only a force of seventeen hundred knights in their attendance, numbering in all about five thousand men, that Frederick crossed the Alps and joined his lieutenant Etchelino at Verona. The Lombards had assembled in force to give battle to the invading Germans, and were encamped not far distant from Verona at Monte Chiari, an unexpected and unusual spirit of caution, however, prevailed in their ranks when they heard that the Emperor had decided to march out against them. A venerable and influential citizen of Milan cooled their ardor by the following oration. Hear me, noble citizens, the Emperor is at hand in great power and with a large army, and he is as known to the whole world as our lord. If this lamentable struggle should take place, irreparable harm will arise from it, for if we are victorious we shall obtain our reproachful and bloody victory over our lord, but if we are conquered he will destroy our name and that of our people and city forever, and we shall be a disgrace to every nation. Since therefore in every event it is dishonorable and dangerous to proceed further in a hostile manner, I consider it a wise plan to return to our city, where if he chooses to attack us it will be lawful for us to repel force with force, and whether he allows us to make peace with him or compels us to drive him from our territory by force, our city will be preserved and our good name will be unimpaired. These councils of prudence were accepted by the men of Milan and the other citizens of the League, and the whole force dispersed and returned to their homes. Frederick's force was now strengthened by detachments from the gibelene cities of Parma, Red Joe, and Madina, and he marched westwards, laying waste the lands of Mantua, and capturing rebel castles on the way. At Cremona, however, he received news which caused him quickly to retrace his steps. Atzo, the Marquis of Este, and Lorda Vicenza was a bitter enemy at Ecellino de Romano, and the head of the Gvelfs in the Trevisan March. As soon as the emperor had withdrawn from the neighborhood of Verona, Atzo gathered the men of Este, Vicenza, and Padua together, and besieged Ecellino and Verona. Ecellino sent messengers to the emperor at Cremona, besieging him to come to his assistance and save the city from destruction. Frederick was not slow to answer his call. In wrath he flew through the air, wrote the wandering chroniclers. In one day and night he covered the distance between Cremona and Verona sixty miles as the crow flies. Reaching his men over rough roads in a forced march which was unparalleled in his age. The Gvelfs, hearing of his miraculous approach, fled incontinently to seek refuge in their cities, but Frederick maintained his extraordinary speed and actually reached Vicenza before the fugitives of that city under Atzo had returned. The emperor offered to spare the lives and property of the townsmen if they would surrender peaceably, but they refused. The walls were then taken by storm, and the wretched populace subjected to all the horrors that accompanied the taking of a city in Medieval Italy. Atzo and his warriors arrived back to find their town in flames. From Vicenza the emperor was called back into Germany in November, but he left behind him able lieutenants, Ecellino de Romano, and a German captain named Gebhardt to continue the war. The success of his arms induced several rebels to forsake their cause and make their peace with him. Salinghera, the tyrant of Ferrara, brought that city over to the imperial allegiance. Atzo of Estee turned his coat on condition that his lands should be free from taxation. Padua was persuaded to make peace by the capture of two hundred of her knights and came under the heavy yoke of Ecellino. The triumph of the imperial cause urged Gregory to more sincere efforts to bring the Lombards to submission. Hermann van Salza, who was doing his utmost to influence his Kaiser on the side of peace, sent a warning letter to the papal legate in Lombardy. You will see that if peace is to be made, he wrote, an assembly of the Lombards must be instantly convoked. Caesar will not delay at Verona as he did last year, nor will the words of the Lombards detain him if the swords and lances of the Germans are free. He will let loose the wrath of his men the instant of his arrival if peace be not made. The treaty would be glorious in the sight of God and man. There are many tokens that the Lord Emperor will not quit Lombardy either for summer or winter until he brings this business to an honorable end. The legates, however earnest their intentions, fail to arrange the treaty. The Lombards were a stiff-necked generation and refused to agree to the Emperor's demands for an unconditional surrender which would deprive them of the freedom they had wrung from Barbarossa at the peace of Constance. In September 1237 the imperial eagles again crossed the Alps and Frederick left Germany never to return. His emperors accompanied him into northern Italy, for he meant to stay there until he had crushed his enemies into the dust. From his kingdom he had summoned ten thousand of the Saracen soldiers whom he had settled at Lucera, and this formidable force together with men from Apulia and Tuscany joined him at Verona. From there he advanced to Mantua and circled the city with his army. The citizens, more wise than the men of Vicenza, submitted to him after a siege of a few days. They swore homage to the Emperor, renounced all connection with the Lombard League, and undertook to supply him with provisions while he prosecuted the siege of Brescia. In return they were taken under the imperial protection and allowed to retain many of their ancient privileges. Frederick now marched into the territory of Brescia at the head of an army composed of seven thousand Saracens, two thousand Germans, five hundred knights under Echolino's leadership, and several bodies of soldiery from the neighboring Gibrilin towns. Brescia called to her allies for succor and a force of six thousand armored knights with their complement of light-armed troops recruited from Milan, Piacenza, Alessandria, Vercelli, Novara, and Lodi crossed the Oio, and arrived at the threatened town. From there they marched southwards and took up a position in the marshlands of Manerbio on the bank of a muddy and impassable stream. The Emperor was encamped some miles to the south at Ponte Vico, and vainly endeavored to induce the Lombards to vacate their unassailable position by challenging them to fight on what so ever ground they should choose. The two armies remained idle for a fortnight until Frederick resolved to resort to stratagem to tempt the enemy from their position. He accordingly disseminated the report that he was about to retire to Cremona and take up his winter quarters there. A large portion of his force was disbanded to lend color to the rumor, and with the remainder, a picked body of ten thousand men, he crossed the Oio and took the southern road to Cremona. After advancing a few miles in this direction however he turned sharply to the northwest and encamped twenty-five miles further up the river at Soncino. The Lombards, meanwhile, as soon as Frederick left Ponte Vico, apparently for Cremona, had also marched northwards on their homeward way, and on the night of November 26th they encamped at Palazzalo, which was some eighteen miles to the north of Soncino and on the opposite bank of the river. Little dreaming that the Emperor was so near and that all the fords of the Oio were closely watched, they resumed their homeward march toward Milan on the morning of the twenty-seventh, and fell into the Emperor's trap. As soon as his scouts signaled to him that the enemy was crossing the river, Frederick executed one of his rapid marches and burst upon them from the shelter of a wood near Corte Nuova, at which place their vanguard had entrenched a position for the night's encampment. The false security of the Lombard army was first dispelled by the sudden appearance of a knight mounted on a white horse who shouted out, Be ready, for the Emperor is going to give you battle. Then the Imperial trumpet sounded and the light-armed Saracen Bowman poured their arrows into the Lombard ranks. A desperate struggle ensued until Frederick appeared at the head of the main body of his troops when the Lombards retreated and formed up again under the walls of Corte Nuova, around the cherished Caroccio, the standard of Milan. Frederick pushed on over a field strewn with corpses endotted with riderless horses and launched his heavy troops against the clustered cavalry and infantry of the now-rallied foe. For many hours the conflict raged furiously, but the Imperial troops fighting under the eye of their lord gradually hewed their way toward the Caroccio. The fall of darkness brought the combat to an end and Frederick's troops lay down to rest, thinking to complete the defeat of the enemy at dawn. But in the dead of the night the Lombards stole furtively away, leaving ten thousand of their number either dead or prisoners in the Emperor's hands. Peter T. Apoli, the Podesta of Milan, was among the captives. The Archbishop of Milan disappeared altogether. The cross which surmounted the Caroccio was found amidst a crowd of wagons left by the fugitives. Who can describe the heaps of corpses or the number of captives? writes Peter Divinia. God, a just judge, had at last regard to the rites of the Emperor and overthrew the pride of the Lombards. They lost their Caroccio and their Podesta. Each of our men slew as many as he would and took as many as he would. Caesar himself smote all foes with his own hands. The Germans died their swords in blood. The happy knights of the kingdom fought wonderfully by the side of their Prince. The warriors of Pavia avenged themselves thoroughly on the Milanese. The Loyal Cremoneses satiated their axes with blood. The Saracens emptied their quivers. Never in any war were so many corpses piled up. Had not night come on suddenly, none of the enemy would have fled from Caesar's hands. The battle was a triumph for Frederick's generalship. The Milanese chronicler, forgetting that at Ponte Vico Frederick had challenged the Lombards to an open combat on ground of their own choosing, grumbles at the Emperor's stratagem. You lay hid like a robber in a cave, he complains. You never gave us warning. You set upon us when we were unarmed. Think not that you could overcome one band. Though you did take our Caroccio, left stuck in the mud, you have no cause to boast. Ah, wait the events of future years. It was indeed a disastrous defeat for the rebels. Over half their army, and all their horses and oxen and wagons and tents, had fallen into the enemy's hands. Then Yano was at last avenged. Frederick made a triumphal entry into Cremona. His great elephant was harnessed to the Caroccio, in which the captive Podesta was bound. Behind him marched a vast crowd of prisoners of all ranks. The Podesta was executed soon after, which, since he was a rebel, was no violation of the rules of war. Nevertheless it was a great mistake, for he was the son of the Doge of Venice, and from henceforth that powerful state was numbered among Frederick's enemies. The Milanese meanwhile gave themselves over to blaspheming the god who had deserted them. The crucifix was suspended by its heels in the cathedral, and the churches and altars were polluted and defiled. They sent their deputies to sue for peace. They would pay a large indemnity, give hostages, and admit an imperial captain within their walls, if the emperor would promise to work no harm to the city. But Frederick would have nothing but an unconditional surrender, and the deputies returned to Milan. The victorious emperor spent Christmas at Lodi. So far his operations against the Lombards had been marked by brilliant success, and the league was rapidly dissolving. With the exception of Bologna, Brescia, Piacenza, Milan, and Alessandria, every state in northern Italy came to lay their tribute at his feet. Foreign nobles and warriors came to fight under the standard of one who had shown himself to be a great captain in war. Gregory for the moment was overawed into silence, and the citizens of Rome rejoiced to receive the Caroccio of Milan, which the emperor had sent them as a trophy of his victories. The year 1238 opened with the brightest prospects, and the birth of a son to the Empress Isabella in February seemed a further sign of divine favor. The child was called Henry, although the elder son of that name was still alive in his Apulian prison. Frederick now began to gather a still more formidable armament for the final overthrow of the five cities which still held out against him. The tributary king of Hungary was asked to lead his soldiers to assist in the good work. Kings ought to help one another, wrote Frederick. We have chastised the Milanese with a rod of iron, and we not appeared the bad example of rebellion would have spread into far countries. We have proclaimed a diet which is to be held at Verona on the first of May, to which we have summoned our son Conrad with a great body of men from Germany and all our princes to crush the rebellion forever. To the end that the might of kings may come to the help of the imperial host, we earnestly beg you to send to us in Italy a number of knights armed with crossbows. You yourself should lead them as becomes your royal honor. We have crossed the Alps with a great number of prelates, princes, and knights. If the Germans had answered tartly to the emperor's summons at the commencement of the war, they were ready enough to join him now, when his star was in the ascendant, and there seemed every prospective victory and rich plunder for his followers. Every portion of his vast dominions was represented in this army. The prelates of Arles and Marseilles, the Count of Provence, the nobles of Germany and Sicily mingled with troops from Rome, Tuscany, and almost every part of northern Italy. Nor was this host composed merely of his own subjects. The salt and camels sent troops to swell the ranks of Frederick Saracen's soldiery. Vatases, the eastern emperor, sent him a body of men. Knights from France and Spain came to serve under his triumphant eagles. Henry of England dispatched a hundred knights and a store of gold to his brother-in-law, and these Englishmen, under the captaincy of Henry de Terberville, earned the emperor's special praise during the campaign. Milan terrified at these vast preparations made a still more humble plea for peace. She would swear allegiance to Frederick as her true and natural lord. She would give all her gold and silver into his hands and burn all her banners at his feet. She would furnish an army of ten thousand soldiers to follow him to another crusade into Palestine. She would do all these things and more if he would promise to forego his revenge and spare the city and its inhabitants. But Frederick would grant no terms. She must surrender absolutely to his pleasure. Either his pride demanded such an unconditional submission, or he intended to wreak a signal and final punishment on the rebellious city when she bowed her head to his power. The Milanese chose to regard the latter as the explanation of his refusal and resolve to die in defense of their city rather than submit to his tender mercies. We fear your cruelty, they declared, for we know it by experience. We had rather die under our shields by sword or spear than by treachery, starvation, and fire. Frederick would have been well advised to refrain from driving the rebels to desperation, but he remembered all the sins of Milan against his house and hardened his heart. In the first week of July, 1238, when all the varied companies that constituted his army had collected at Cremona, he held a council award to consider at which of the five cities to strike first. Amongst all the captains who gathered to the debate, the voice of Etchelino de Romano prevailed. God's providence, he said, orders all men to obey the Roman Empire, strike the snake on the head, and the rebels will come to your footstool. I advise you to begin with Brescia first, and thus you will have peace. I will fight my best for you, I who have placed the hope of my life under the shield of your protection. Accordingly, in the beginning of August the emperor marched northwards to Brescia and drew his army around the city walls. End of Section 18 Section 19 of Stupor Mundi, the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn This Librivox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 10 The Second Excommunication, Part 1 Until the year 1238 Frederick's career had been marked by a long succession of triumphs and marred by no signal disasters. He had secured the imperial crown, had erected a despotic monarchy in his kingdom, had led a crusade more fruitful in its results than any which had preceded it, had subdued for a while the aggressive violence of the pope, had overthrown with ease the rebellion of his son, and had commenced a war against the Lombards which seemed destined to make his lordship supreme in northern Italy. The siege of Brescia, however, stands out among the events of his life as the turning point in his fortunes. From henceforth he was to know the bitterness of defeat and disaster, of reverses which though never irremediable were to arrest the expansion of his power, and to render its subject to those fluctuations from which it had hitherto been remarkably free. The star of his fortunes was henceforth to hover uncertainly between wax and wane, until finally the inevitable eclipse of death extinguished its light forever. The walled city of Brescia, against which in the beginning of August 1238 he led his vast and cosmopolitan army, might well fear that a terrible vengeance was about to overtake it. But a Lombard city at bay was no easy prey. Its citizens, hoping for no mercy if they surrendered to their implacable lord, resolved to die gloriously in the defense of their homes, rather than submit meekly to ignominious and fearful punishment. They had within their walls the most skillful military engineer of the day, Juan Calamandrino, who had been arrested on his way to the imperial camp, and offered the alternative of death or service in the Brescia cause. He chose to live, and his wooden towers and bulwarks, his manganelles and trebuchets, defeated all attempts to take the city by sudden storm, or by the steady battering down of its walls. The siege was prosecuted in no gentle manner. Some captured Brescians were bound to the emperor's moving towers, to avert the storm of arrows, stones, and fireballs with which they were assailed. The Brescians in turn bound their prisoners to crosses, and suspended them along the walls, where the showers of missiles were thickest. Brescian sallies were made by the besieged, which owing to the lack of vigilance in the imperial ranks, were frequently attended with success, and Frederick himself narrowly escaped capture on one occasion. Two months passed, and the city still maintained its defense with undiminished vigor. Frederick grew impatient of the delay, and it became increasingly difficult to find food and forage for his great army. Eventually he raised the siege and disgust, disbanded the greater part of his troops, and contented himself with a visit to a few of the loyal towns who would soothe his ruffled pride by their ovations. He would have been wise, after this reverse, to have abstained from any action which might provoke the pope to take advantage of his temporary eclipse. Instead, he proceeded to add more fuel to the fire which was smoldering in Gregory's breast. He arranged a marriage between his favorite natural son Enzo and Adalasia, the queen of Sardinia, and dispatched Enzo with a body of knights to the island where the wedding was consummated. This Adalasia was a widow and her former husband had paid homage to the pope for his realm. Frederick however asserted that Sardinia was an old territory of the empire, and his son naturally supported the imperial claim. Gregory protested in vain. I have sworn, declared Frederick, as the world well knows, to recover the scattered parts of the empire, and this I will not be slow to fulfill. Gregory immediately began to prepare for the offensive and entered into a league with Venice and Genoa. The Gvelfs throughout northern Italy were stirred into renewed activity by the papal legates. The truce between pope and emperor had come to its inevitable end. On Palm Sunday, 1239, Gregory assembled his cardinals in the Church of St. Peter and once again pronounced the awful sentence of excommunication against his enemy. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, we excommunicate and anathematize the Emperor Frederick. Nine charges were repeated against Frederick which had been published some months before. He was accused of stirring up sedition in Rome against the pope. The old offence of oppressing the Sicilian Church was again recounted. He had thrown obstacles in the way of the recovery of the Holy Land and had rejected the arbitration of the pope in the affairs of Lombardy. These and many other accusations the Emperor had already refuted in calm and dignified terms, but the pope chose to ignore his denials. Frederick was at Padua when the news of his excommunication came to him. For a time he restrained his anger. He declared his amazement at so enormous a punishment for crimes he had never committed. Peter Divini had delivered an eloquent discourse on the word of Ovid. Punishment when merited is to be born with patience, but when it is undeserved with sorrow. No Emperor, he declared since the days of Charlemagne has been more just, gentle, and magnanimous, or has given so little cause for the hostility of the Church. To the Roman citizens Frederick wrote in words of reproach, Was there no one amongst you, he asked, to rise in our behalf and speak a word for us after all our endeavors to raise the Roman name to its old renown? Without your connivance our blasphemer would never have dared to carry his insolence so far. If you are slack in defending our honor we shall withdraw our favor from the city of Rome. The letter in which the Emperor vindicated himself before the princes of Christendom was couched in less restrained terms. Cast your eyes around, lift up your ears, O sons of men, that ye may hear in behold the universal scandal of the world, the dissensions of nations, and lament the utter extinction of justice. Wickedness has gone out from the elders of Babylon, who hitherto appeared to rule the people, whilst judgment is turned into bitterness, the fruits of justice into wormwood. Sit in judgment, ye princes, ye people, take cognizance of our cause. The Pope's duplicity and unreasoning hostility, his endeavors to seduce Frederick subjects from their allegiance, and his encouragement of the Lombard rebels are then set forth at considerable length. Notwithstanding the Emperor's refutation of the charges made against him, the Pope had proceeded to excommunicate him, though many of the Cardinals, if report spoke truly, had remonstrated. Be it that we had offended the Pope by some public and singular insult, how violent and inordinate these proceedings, as though, if he had not vomited forth the wrath that boiled within him, he must have burst. We grieve from our reverence for our mother the Church. Could we accept the Pope, thus our vowed enemy, as an equitable judge to arbitrate in our dispute with Milan? Milan favored by the Pope, though by the testimony of all religious men, swarming with heretics. We hold Pope Gregory as an unworthy vicar of Christ, an unworthy successor of St. Peter. Not in disrespect to his office but of his person, who sits in his court like a merchant weighing out dispensations for gold, himself signing, writing the bulls, doubtless, counting the money. He is unworthy of his place, we therefore appeal, to a council. He has but one real cause of enmity against me, that I refuse to marry to his niece my son Enzo, now King of Sardinia. But ye, O kings and princes of the earth, lament not only for us but for the whole Church, for her head is sick, her prince is like a roaring lion, in the midst of her sits a frantic prophet, a man of falsehood, a polluted priest. He wishes to overthrow Caesar first, he will then tread down the rest of the princes of the earth. For the benefit of the lower clergy and common people who would be most readily moved by scriptural allusions, a strangely worded circular was sent around the nations. The chief priests and the Pharisees it ran, have met in council against their lord, against the Roman emperor. What shall we do, say they, for this man is triumphing over all his enemies? If we let this man go, he will subdue Lombardi, and will come and take away our place in nation. He will give the vineyard of the lord of Sabaoth to other husbandmen, and will miserably destroy us. Let us smite him quickly with our tongues, let our arrows be no more concealed but go forth, so go forth as to strike, so strike as to wound, so be he wounded as to fall before us, so fall as never to rise again, and then will he see what prophet he has in his dreams. The Pharisees sitting in Moses's seat have openly perverted judgment, and have bound an innocent and just prince. This father of fathers who is called the servant of servants, shutting out all justice, is become a deaf adder. Refuses to hear the vindication of the king of the Romans, hurls malediction into the world as a stone is hurled from a sling, and sternly and heedless of all consequences exclaims, What I have written I have written. The master of masters said not, Take arms and shield the arrow and the sword, but peace be with you. Thou the pope, art ever seeking something to devour, nor can the whole world appease thy craving maw. Peter said unto the lame man, Silver and gold have I none, but thou, if the heap of money which thou adorest begins to dwindle, immediately begins to limp with the lame man seeking anxiously what is of this world. Let our mother church then bewail that the shepherd of the flock has become a ravening wolf, eating the fatlings of the flock, neither binding up the broken nor bringing the wanderer home to the fold, but a lover of schism, the head and author of offense, the father of deceit. O grief, rarely dost thou expend the vast treasures of the church on the poor, but as Anyani bears witness thou hast commanded a wonderful mansion, as it were, the palace of the sun, to be built, forgetful of Peter, who long had nothing but his net. All power is from God, writes the apostle, who so resists the power resists the authority of God. Either receive then into the bosom of the church her elder son, who without guile incessantly demands pardon, otherwise the strong lion who feigns sleep with his terrible roar will bring fat bulls from the ends of the earth, will plant justice, take over the rule of the church, plucking up and destroying the horns of the proud. More lurid and violent still was Gregory's reply. Out of the sea is a beast arisen whose name is all overwritten blasphemy. He has the feet of a bear, the jaws of a ravining lion, the mottled limbs of a panther. He opens his mouth to blaspheme the name of God, and shoots his poisoned arrows against the tabernacle of the Lord, and the saints that dwell therein. This beast is striving to grind everything to pieces with its iron claws and teeth. Look carefully into the head, the middle, and the lower parts of this beast, Frederick, called the emperor and considered the truth. We count it an honor to be abused by such a wicked man. We had rather not be praised by him. Now weigh in the scales the benefits which the church has heaped upon this dragon. She covered him with a cloak in his tender years, snatched him from the toils of the hunters and raised him to the empire. She gave him moreover the kingdom of Jerusalem and appell'd him against the rebellion of his son Henry. Yet this staff of the impious, this hammer of the earth, has robbed, banished, and imprisoned the Sicilian clergy, and has given the churches over to adulterous embraces. He has built mosques on the ruins of churches, and has forbidden the preaching of the crusade. He has taken from the nobles their castles, and has forced those brought up in crimson to lie in the mire. He has reduced the barons and knights of Sicily to the state of slaves. Most part of the people there have no beds, wear sackcloth, and eat coarse bread made of millet. This man, out of thirst for gold, has reduced the kingdom of Sicily to ashes and sole justice. He has built schools for the perdition of souls. This man, who delights in being called the forerunner of Antichrist, has now openly thrown aside the mask. He says we have no power to excommunicate him, thus like a heretic denying the right to bind and loose which our Lord gave unto Peter. This pestilent king maintains to use his own words, that the world has been deceived by three imposters, Jesus Christ, Moses, and Mohammed, that two of these died in honor and the third was hanged upon a tree. Even more he has asserted distinctly and loudly that those are fools who aver that God the omnipotent creator of the world was born of a virgin. Seize to wonder that he has drawn against us the dagger of Columnie, for he has risen up to extirpate from the earth the name of the Lord. Rather to repel his lies by simple truth, to refute his softisms by the arguments of holiness, we exorcise the head, the body, and the extremities of this beast, who was none other than the Emperor FREDRIK. This furious and unvaracious tirade was spread abroad throughout Europe by the Franciscan and Dominican friars who were the invaluable spies, agents, and preachers of the papacy. They could influence the common mass of people which the Emperor could not reach, and exercised a powerful sway over the superstitions of the ignorant. Of how the Pope's accusations were regarded in England we can read in Matthew Paris. This letter, he writes, struck fear and dread as well as astonishment to the hearts of those of the true faith, and rendered the Emperor's letter suspected, though the latter contained probable facts and also re-established the minds of many who had formerly been in a wavering state. And had it not been that the Roman avarice had alienated the devotion of people from the Pope more than was expedient and proper, the whole world would have been exasperated by this letter and would have risen unanimously against the Emperor as the open enemy of Christ and the Church. But alas, many sons have been estranged from their father and adhering to the cause of the Emperor they asserted that inextinguishable hatred, now become hardened between them, excited the aforesaid strife and invectives. The Pope said unjustly that he loved the said Frederick and advanced his interests at the beginning of his promotion. For all this was done out of hatred to Otto whom the Church, against Frederick's assistance, prosecuted to death because according to his oath he endeavored by force to assemble together the scattered portions of the Empire as the present Emperor Frederick is also endeavouring to do. Wherefore by doing this Frederick fought for the Church and fought so again in Palestine, and the Roman Church was more bound by obligations to him than the Emperor was to the Roman Church. The Church in the West especially the orders of religious men and the Church of England which was of all things most devoted to God felt the daily oppressions of the Roman Church, but it had never as yet felt any from the Emperor. The people too added, what is the meaning of this? In times past the Pope accused the Emperor of believing in Muhammad and the Saracenic Law more than in Christ and the Christian faith. But now in his abusive letter he accuses him, horrible to late, of calling Muhammad as well as Jesus and Moses an imposter. In his letters the Emperor writes humbly and in the Catholic manner of God accepted in this last one he derogates from the person of the Pope not from the office, nor does he utter or support anything profane or heretical as we know of as yet, and he has not sent usurers or plunderers of our revenue amongst us. In this way a schism much to be dreaded rose amongst the people. The Emperor in his reply to Gregory's Infective also resorted to the Apocalypse for picturesque turns of abuse. He in name only the Pope has called us the beast that arose out of the sea whose name was blasphemy spotted as the panther. We in turn aver that he is the beast of whom it is written and there went out another horse that was red and power was given to him that sat thereon to take away peace from the earth, that the living should slay each other. For from the time of his accession this Father, not of mercies but of discords, not of consolation but of desolation, has plunged the whole world in bitterness. If we rightly interpret the words, he is the great Antichrist who has deceived the world, the Antichrist of whom he declares us the forerunner. He is the second Balaam hired by money to curse us, the prince of the princes of darkness who have abused the prophecies. He is the angel who issued from the abyss having the vials of wormwood to waste earth and heaven. This false vicar of Christ accuses us of saying that the world has been deceived by three imposters. Far be such blasphemies from our lips, for we believe that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, co-eternal and co-equal with the Father and the Holy Ghost. But we believe that Mohammed's body is hanging in the air tormented by devils and that his soul has been given to hell, since his works were dark and against the law of the Most High. We say that Moses was the friend of God and that he is now in heaven. In these and other matters our accuser has put forth lying and poison his statements against us. The pope is jealous of our success in Lombardy. Over this he groans. Let him confine himself to offering up the host and to burning incense. We reverence the church, but we disapprove of her ministers. Unless you can restrain our enemy, Augustus will be driven to revenge. We have it from Matthew Paris that the following prophetic writing was actually found in the pope's bedchamber. Who it was that it had the temerity to invade that sacred apartment on such a mission was never discovered, but doubtless it was the work of a secret partisan of the emperors among the papal household. The prophecy, expressed in Latin verse, ran thus, By stars, by flights of birds, by fate we see, Of all the world one man shall hammer be. Some totters, through a maze of errors led, And of the world shall cease to be the head. Gregory at any rate attributed the authorship of the verses to Frederick and replied in the following couplet, The fates, the scripture, and your sins foretell your doom, short life, and everlasting hell. So the war of words continued, waged on both sides with equal acrimony, but by Gregory with a far more want and disregard of the truth than his opponent. Men throughout Christendom were amazed and bewildered by the furious controversy, but the massive opinion was on the side of Frederick. Gregory sought in vain for foreign support. England which under its feeble king Henry, and under John before him, had allowed its wealth to be drained into the papal coffers, became restive when required to furnish the pope with money to prosecute his schemes against the emperor. The prelates flatly refused to exceed to the demands of the legate Otto. The greedy aphorists of Rome, they said, has exhausted the English church. It will not even give it breeding time. We can't submit to no further exactions. The monasteries more docile yielded to Otto's extortions, but the sum thus collected fell far below Gregory's expectations. In France he met with a still more severe rebuff. He endeavored to secure the military alliance of San Louis by offering to depose Frederick in favour of Louis' brother Robert. But the pious king received the tempting suggestion in the most inhospitable manner. "'Wence this pride and audacity of the pope,' he answered, who thus presumes to disinherit and depose a king, who has no superior, nor even an equal among Christians? A king neither convicted by others nor by his own confession of the crimes laid to his charge. Even if those crimes were proved, no power could depose him but a general counsel. On his transgressions the judgment of his enemies is of no weight, and his deadliest enemy is the pope. To us he has not only thus far appeared guiltless, he has been a good neighbour. We see no cause for suspicion either of his worldly loyalty or his Catholic faith. This we know, that he has fought valiantly for our Lord Jesus Christ both by sea and land. So much religion we have not found in the pope, who endeavored to confound and wickedly supplant him in his absence while he was engaged in the cause of God. We do not wish to throw ourselves into such great dangers as to attack such a powerful prince as this said Frederick, whom so many kingdoms would assist against us, and who would give their support in a just cause. If the pope should conquer him by our means or the help of others, he would trample on all the princes of the world, assuming the horns of boasting in pride, since he had conquered the great emperor Frederick. The nobles of France also demonstrated in which direction their sympathies lay. They sent ambassadors to Frederick, informed him of the pope's intentions to raise up a rival emperor, and asked him formally to deny the charges of heresy brought against him. May Jesus Christ grant that I never depart from the faith of my ancestors, was Frederick's reply. The Lord judge between me and the man who has thus defamed me before the world. The God of vengeance recompense him as he deserves. If you are prepared to make war against me, I will defend myself to the utmost of my power. Not forbid, answered the ambassadors, that we should wage war on any Christian without just cause. To be the brother of the King of France is sufficient honor for the noble Robert. In Germany the papal machinations were received with a still more outspoken disdain. The intrusion of the papal legate Albert von Beham, a ferocious and venal cleric, aroused furious opposition against his master. Let this Roman priest feed his own Italians, cried one prelate. We who are set by God as dogs to watch our own foals will keep off all wolves in sheep's clothing. Still more audacious was the angry protest of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Hilderrand, one hundred and seventy years ago, under the semblance of religion, laid the foundations of Antichrist. He who was the servant of servants would be the Lord of lords. This accursed man, whom men are won't to call Antichrist, on whose contamellia's forehead is written, I am God, I cannot err, sits in the temple of God and pretends to universal dominion. The lay princes were no less hostile than their spiritual brethren. It was no light matter, they bade the Pope remember, to harass the emperor of the Romans. As for his attempt to raise up another emperor, it was beyond his right. His function was only to crown the man whom they the princes might choose. Even Frederick of Austria laughed the excommunication to scorn. The king of Bohemia, sided with Gregory for a short time, and Otto of Bavaria was lured away from his allegiance by the perilous but tempting bait of the imperial crown. They offered, however, no serious menace to Frederick, and the rest of Germany stood loyal. The emperor issued one more proclamation to the princes, with the object of assuring them that his antagonism was directed not against the church, but its unworthy head. Since my ancestors the Caesar's lavished wealth and dignity on the Popes, they have become the emperor's most implacable enemies. As I will not recognize his soul unlimited power and honor him more than God, he, himself the antichrist, brands me, the truest friend of the church, as a heretic. Who can wish more than I that the Christian community should resume its majesty, simplicity, and peace? But this cannot be, until a fundamental evil, the ambition, the pride, and prodigality of the bishop of Rome be rooted up. I am no enemy of the priesthood. I honor the priest, the humblest priest, as a father, if he will keep aloof from secular affairs. The pope cries out that I would root out Christianity, with force and by the sword, folly, as if the kingdom of God could be rooted out by force and by the sword. It is by evil lusts, by avarice and rapacity, that it is weakened, excluded, corrupted. Against these evils it is my mission of God to contend with the sword. I will give back to the sheep their shepherd, to the people their bishop, to the world its spiritual father. I will tear the mask from the face of this wolfish tyrant, and force him to lay aside worldly affairs and earthly pomp and tread in the holy footsteps of Christ. Five words these, and a high purpose, but that which one man thought to accomplish in his latter years, the centuries, have scarcely been able to fulfill. CHAPTER XI The rebels of northern Italy now bound the Red Cross of the Crusader upon their arms, for Gregory had declared a holy war against the emperor, and they were fighting in the cause of the Church. The open alliance of the Pope gave them renewed courage, and many of those who had joined Frederick during his successful campaign now renounced their allegiance. Atzo of Esti, an Albaric of Romano, the brother of Ecellino, raised the standard of rebellion in the Trevis in March, and were supported by the gold of Venice. Bologna became the center of disaffection in Romania, and induced Paul Traversaro to bring the city of Ravenna over to the side of the Gvelves. Even in his kingdom of Arles, sedition raised its head against the emperor. Raymond Berangère, the Count of Provence, drove the imperial vicar from his dominions, and made a covenant with the Pope, whereby he promised military aid in the war against the excommunicate sovereign. But the Count of Toulouse and the great city stood loyal, and Raymond's death a few months later deprived the Pope of a valuable ally. In June 1239, Frederick advanced into the territories of Bologna, ravaged her lands, burnt two of her strong castles, and captured a thousand of her soldiers. He then appointed his favorite son Enzo as his vicar in central Italy, and himself returned to Cromona to carry on the war in Lombardy. In his absence the loyalists of Pavia had been defeated by the soldiers of Piacenza, but this reverse had been more than counterbalanced by the accession of Como, the gateway into Germany, which had revolted from the Milanese yoke, and joined the Ghibliens. Milan was alive with martial activity and was preparing for a desperate defense in view of the emperor's coming. Gregory of Montelengo the papalegate had taken up his abode there, and had commanded even the clergy and friars to doff their vestments and buckle on the sword. The campaign against Milan commenced in September, but it proved a failure. Frederick burned twenty Milanese towns and laid waste the countryside, but when he reached the walls of the great city itself he was forced to recognize that his armament was not strong enough to attack it with any hope of success. He then turned southwards to Piacenza, but here a torrential rain and a flooded river frustrated him, and in November he returned to Cremona. He now decided to abandon a wild of fruitless operations against Milan and her Lombard allies, and to turn his arms against the territories of the church. Tuscany which he traversed on his way southwards gratified him by every evidence of loyalty. Pisa the chief imperial city of the province invited him to spend Christmas within her walls and to put an end to the party warfare of Conte and Visconte which was distracting her peace. He held his court there in great state, and on Christmas day, in contempt of the papal excommunication, he heard mass in the cathedral. The citizens were then exhorted to abandon their quarrels and factions. There are many examples in history, he declared, which proved that states are ruined only by their own divisions. You must live like good citizens and think only of the good of the commonwealth. If you disobey, I shall be the first to overthrow your state, not from hatred, but because I do not wish to see it fall into the hands of others. The elders consented gladly to rigorous laws which he enacted against future disturbers of the peace. From Pisa he proceeded to Arezzo and Cortona, and from thence entered the lands of the church. The march of Ancona and the Duchy of Spoleto had been given to the papacy by Frederick at his coronation. On his departure for the crusade, however, the hostility of Gregory had induced him to revoke the grant. But at the peace of San Germano he had again relinquished the provinces to the papacy. The outbreak of renewed hostilities with Gregory had led to a second withdrawal of the gift, and while Frederick was engaged in Romagna and Lombardy, his son Enzo had made great headway against the papal party in the march. Frederick now entered the Duchy of Spoleto and avoiding the impregnable Guelph fortress of Perugia came to Foligno, where he met Enzo, and was attended by the envoys of many cities which welcomed his coming. Here an invitation reached them which emboldened them to strike yet more closely at the papal dominions, and to threaten Gregory in his own patrimony. Viterbo, the ancient enemy of Rome, besought the emperor to bestow the favour of his presence upon her. His entry into Viterbo was the signal of a general revulsion of feeling in his favour, and city after city cast off its allegiance to the pope until the imperial sway spread to the very gates of Rome. Even the eternal city itself prepared to welcome Gregory's enemy. Let him come, the mob shouted when Frederick's envoys appeared, let the emperor come, and receive the homage of his city. Gregory was in dire peril in many of his cardinals fled, but he was a man of high courage, and he well knew how fickle were the enthusiasm of the Roman populace. While the shouts of the mob were ringing in his ears, he gathered his priests and acolytes around him, withdrew from their shrines the sacred relics, the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the wood of the true cross, and bore them in solemn procession from the latter end to St. Peter's. The weather cock-temper of the people instantly veered round in his favour. They knelt before him in his progress through the streets. Every church in the city was packed, and men, women, and children hastened to take the cross and range themselves against the emperor, whom they had just prepared to welcome. Frederick's hope of bearding Gregory in his lair was defeated by the unanimous hostility of the citizens. Even if he might have contemplated a siege of the city, the exhausted condition of his war chest rendered so great and undertaking impossible. He decided to return to his kingdom and replenish his resources, and after a few minor operations during which all captives who wore the cross were either slain or branded, he withdrew from Viterbo, and at the end of March re-entered his kingdom after an absence of five years. An effort was now made to put an end to this disastrous warfare. Hermann von Salza, who had striven so hard in the cause of peace, had died recently, and Frederick had thus lost a loyal and valued friend. But the new Grand Master of the Teutonic Order journeyed to Rome on behalf of the princes of Germany, and urged Gregory to relax his uncompromising enmity to the emperor. Gregory at first seemed inclined to welcome a suspension of hostilities which might pave the way for a more permanent settlement. Cardinal John Colonna was employed as the papal ambassador to the emperor, and arranged a truce on the pope's authority which did not include the lombards in the amnesty which was to ensue. When Colonna arrived back at Rome, however, Gregory had been emboldened by the receipt of substantial and much-needed sums of money which had been extracted from the long-suffering clergy of England and France. He therefore refused to ratify a treaty which left the emperor free to wreck his vengeance upon the lombards, and thus to destroy the chief bulwark of the papacy. Colonna was commanded to return to the emperor and insist on an amendment of the agreement which should protect the lombards. If the emperor refused, the truce was to be annulled. But the cardinal had no taste for such a mission. Far be it, he said, that there should be such fickleness of speech in the mouth of so great a man, and that these words should be sent to such a great prince, especially by the mouth of cardinals who are not common persons, and to this fickle and faithless plan I will unknow account consent, but firmly oppose it. The pope's ready anger was aroused by this plain speaking, I no longer consider you as my cardinal, he said, and I, replied Colonna, will no longer esteem you as my pope. The negotiations for peace failed since Frederick refused to include the lombards in the truce, and the haughty cardinal who was the pope's ablest general joined Frederick's cause and carried over the greater portion of his troops. The Book of Kings, wrote Frederick to Colonna, must now be your study. You must have not to do with Leviticus and the Song of Songs. We have found in you a man after our own heart, and we shall honor and love you accordingly. Frederick stayed some four months in his kingdom, regulating its affairs and preparing for another campaign. Many ecclesiastics who had shown their sympathy with a pope too plainly were banished, and the mischievous Franciscan and Dominican friars were everywhere subjected to persecution or driven from the realm. In May the news arrived that Alessandria, one of the five lombard towns which had persisted in their defiance of the emperor after the battle of Cortenuova, had changed its politics and espoused the imperial cause. A month later unwelcome tidings came of the capture of Ferrara by the Cvelts. The city had been brought over to Frederick's side by its tyrant Salingera in 1236. It was now besieged by the Venetians, the Bolognese, and the detachments from various lombard towns under the papal legate Montelengo. Salingera defended it for four months but in June was forced to yield and did homage to the legate. Montelengo promised to spare the life and property of the old warrior and his men, but the promise was deliberately broken and Salingera ended his days in a Venetian prison. In July the emperor commenced another campaign and led his Apulian army through the Anconitan march to Ravenna where he was joined by Enzo. This city which had cast off its allegiance to him after his ex-communication in the previous year was ill-prepared for defense for its great captain Paul Traversaro had died four days before the emperor's arrival. Its citizens surrendered after a recede of a few days. They besought Frederick's mercy and bade him remember their long allegiance and loyalty before their revolt. Frederick listened to their entreaties and punished only the ring-leaders of the unfaithful party. The populace was spared and the city garrisoned with the imperial troops. End of section 21. Section 22 of Stupor-Mundi the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 11. Fire and Sword Part 2. Frederick now cast his eyes on Bologna which was his most formidable enemy in central Italy. Once this city was crushed he would be practically the undisputed master of the Romagna. But if he marched directly against Bologna he would leave Fienza in his rear and Fienza was a sturdy and ancient enemy. He accordingly decided to demolish this town before proceeding to the greater task of reducing Bologna. In his letters he declared that this would merely be a matter of a few days, but he sadly underestimated the city's power of resistance, for Fienza, though small, was the most strongly fortified of any town of the Romagna. His army was now increased by the arrival of men from Germany, Tuscany, and some Ghiblien towns of Lombardy. Rudolph of Habsburg brought a band of sturdy Swiss mountaineers to serve under the imperial banner, himself all unconscious of the destiny that had marked him out as Frederick's successor to an empire from which the present glories were to have departed. Frederick's illusion about the easy capture of Fienza was quickly dispelled and gave place to a firm resolution to subdue the city by a steady blockade when more active methods had failed. Fienza, he wrote to the judiciaries of his kingdom, is the one hindrance to check the wheel of our conquest. We must have it when the spring comes and Bologna as well. Our presence will not be needed afterwards. The war is coming to an end. So we know you will not object to give us aid. Money was urgently required and the long-suffering kingdom had to supply the want. We have stinted ourselves rather than lay unwonted burdens upon you. The subsidy we now expect is less than usual. It is to be raised from the churches, the clergy, the barons, and our domains. When October came, the men of Fienza fondly hoped to see the Imperial Army strike its camp and abandon the siege until the winter was passed, for such was the almost inevitable custom in Italian warfare. But Frederick resolved to endure the rigors of the season. We shall not stir, he wrote to the King of France, either for winter or for hail or for rain, until we have utterly confounded our rebels. The besieged were alarmed by the sight of a regular city of huts which the Emperor was building to shelter his army. Food was running short, and many attempted to leave the town, while the women and children were driven out since they were useless in the work of defence. Frederick, however, would allow no one to pass through his lines. Let them go back to their husbands and masters, whom I denounce as guilty of treason before God and man. They shall have no mercy, since they have showed none to me. He recalled the injuries they had done to him in past years. They murdered one of my knights who was clad in Imperial armor, thinking they had killed me their lord. They also mutilated the palfrey upon which my mother was riding through their city, venting their rage on a brute beast. They paid no respect to her royal rank, or even to her sex. The women returned to their homes and an embassy of aged men came to the Emperor, and asked for leave to quit the city. Since they would not in prosperity return to their allegiance, he said, I will give no heed to their cry in the time of trouble. Even his allies were disturbed by the continuation of the siege during the winter months. Comos sent envoys to him and requested that her soldiers, who were serving under him, might be allowed to return. They will return to you in our company, he replied, when we have gained over Faienza the victory that we shall, without doubt, speedily win. Let not our alleges live at home in ease, he wrote to the Florentines, when our person is toiling in a cuirass with frost and ice around. Frederick might be a siborite by choice, but his sense is never gained in ascendancy over his will, and when the need arose he could cast off his luxurious habits and lead the rigorous and simple life of an old campaigner. She can believe that his pretty deers were not with him during this long winter siege. The months sped by and Faienza looked in vain for an army of relief. The Lombards and the Bolognese were occupied with their own affairs and unwilling to leave the shelter of their walls until the winter had passed. Day by day her provisions dwindled. Her walls were crumbling to pieces, undermined in every direction by the Emperor's engineers. Finally, on April 14, 1241, the gallant little city surrendered. Her starving citizens knelt before their lord and begged for some measure of mercy. They had little hope of escaping torture and death, for Frederick was no gentle enemy to rebels, and the town had defied him for nearly eight months and had worked him much injury in the past. The Emperor, however, astonished his friends and his defeated enemies by forgiving the citizens for all their offences. Probably he remembered that the men of Faienza, alone among the Gvelfs of northern Italy, had refused to join in the conspiracy which had ended in the rebellion of his son. The victor with generous clemency spared them, writes Matthew Paris, by doing which he gained the affections of many for when he saw that he had at length triumphed over his rebellious subjects, then his generous blood inclined to mercy, according to the words of the poet, the foe destroyed, the noble lion rest content, the battle-or, his fiery rage is fully spent, wolves, bears and minor beasts by baser feeling led, with vengeance still unsated, prey on their victims dead. The Emperor was evidently in a merciful mood at this time, for in the same month Benevento, a papal stronghold in his kingdom surrendered to his captains after a protracted siege, and the same clemency was extended to its citizens by his orders. There seemed some probability that Frederick would soon be called upon to wage a more glorious struggle than this desultory warfare against rebellious towns, a struggle whose successful issue would earn him the gratitude of Europe for all time and make him truly the Saviour of Christendom, for this was the period of the Tartar invasion which had inundated Russia, Poland, and Silesia, and was now pouring over Hungary, leaving terrible devastation in its train. The number of the barbarians was estimated at half a million, and their cruelty and ferocity was beyond description. The King of Hungary assembled his Madyatos to arrest their progress, but his army was massacred, and he himself narrowly escaped capture. His ambassadors came to Frederick and besought him to come to their King's deliverance and avert the disaster that was threatening the Empire. But Frederick was chained to Italy. He knew from experience that the fact that he was fighting the cause of Christendom would not debar the Pope from taking immediate advantage of his absence. We remember, he said to the ambassadors, that when we sail to Palestine, that dearest father of ours invaded our kingdom with a host of Milanese rebels. The future may be like the past. The papal party would have been only too pleased to see him withdraw his hated presence from Italy, and as he refused to accommodate them in the matter they retaliated, by accusing him of having himself invited the Tartar Horde into Europe for some ends of his own. Frederick disdained to reply to such a charge. He could not lead the Imperial armies against the Tartars himself, but he had every confidence in the power of the Germans to stem the tide of paganism. He commanded them to rally round his son Conrad and march to defend the borders of the Empire. Later he sent Enzo with four thousand knights to assist the German forces. At the same time he sent a circular letter to the Monarchs of Christendom and urged them to unite to repel the common foe. He himself, he said, was prevented by the Pope's animosity from leading his armies against them. Oh God, how much and how often have we been willing to humiliate ourselves, giving vent to every kind of good feeling in order to prevail upon the Roman Pontiff, to desist from giving cause of scandal throughout the world by his enmity against us, and place the bounds of moderation upon his ill-advised violence in order that we might pacify our lawful subjects and govern them in a state of peace. But he has ordered a crusade to be published against me, who am an arm and advocate of the Church, which it was his duty and would have become him better to put in practice against the Tartars. He exalts in the rebellion of our subjects, who are conspiring against our honor and fame, and as it is our most urgent business to free ourselves from enemies at home, how shall we repel these barbarians as well? Nevertheless, we have turned our attention to both matters, and with the help of God's providence will apply our strength and industry to avert the scandal to the Church caused on one side by our enemies, and on the other by these savages. We have therefore expressly sent our beloved son Conrad and other chiefs of our empire with a strong force to meet and check the attacks and violence of these barbarians. We most sincerely adjure your majesty, to prepare us as soon as possible a complete force of brave knights and soldiers and a good supply of arms. We trust in Christ that these Tartars are to be driven back to their own Tartarus. Satan himself has lured them hither to die before the victorious eagles of imperial Europe, when Germany, rising with rage and zeal to battle, and France, that mother and nurse of chivalry, the warlike and bold Spain, with fertile England, valorous in its men and protected by its fleet, Almain, full of impetuous warriors, maritime Denmark, untameable Italy, Burgundy, that never knows peace, restless Apulia, with the peratical and unconquered islands of the Grecian, Adriatic, and Tyransees, Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily, when bloodthirsty Ireland with nimble whales, Scotland abounding in lakes, icy Norway, and every noble and renowned country lying under the royal star of the West, shall send forth their chosen soldiery, preceded by the symbol of the life-giving cross which strikes awe into rebels, eye and into opposing devils. The letter called forth little response, and it was left to Germany to save Europe. From Vienza, Frederick sent detailed directions to Conrad and the Princes. The Tartars, however, seemed to realize that in the empire they would meet a stout foe, and though they actually besieged a fortress in Austria, they retreated upon the advance of Conrad and the Duke of that province. They then hovered on the borders for about two years, and eventually retired into the darkness of the Asiatic wilderness, and Frederick was not called upon to lead Western Europe against the Heathen. In the meantime, while Frederick was slowly starving the men of Vienza in the submission, while he was providing for the defense of his empire against the Tartars, a new measure of enmity had been designed by Gregory, and had been countered by Frederick with no gentle hand. And instead of leaving his Italian dominions to the tender mercies of the Pope, while he marched into Germany to repel the barbarians, he led his army from Vienza to Rome. End of Section 22 Section 23 of Stupor Mundi, the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 12 The Captured Council, Part 1 When every nation in Christendom had refused to help Gregory with their armies, when three princes had rejected the offer of the imperial crown, and France and Germany had betrayed a lively resentment at his efforts to raise up a rival to Frederick, when the Emperor had made himself almost supreme in central Italy, had threatened Gregory at the very gates of Rome, and was now slowly bringing the stubborn resistance of Vienza to an end, then Gregory Bethought himself of another means to work the downfall of his enemy. The King of France, when rebuking him for offering the crown of the empire to his brother Robert, had said, no power can depose the Emperor but a general counsel. Frederick himself had appealed to a similar tribunal against the sentence of excommunication. A general counsel had confirmed the deposition of the Emperor Otto by Innocent III in 1215, and the elevation of Frederick in Otto's stead. Now in response to Frederick's appeal and conformity with the precedent of 25 years ago, another general counsel should be summoned and Gregory would appear at the head of the Christian hierarchy to judge the monarch who had defied the sentence of the Church. Gregory therefore sent a circular letter around Christendom bidding the kings to send their envoys and the prelates to repair in person to Rome in the Easter of 1241, to settle the arduous business of the Church. Frederick, however, had no mind for such a counsel as this. He had appealed to an assembly which he be convoked by some independent arbiter, such as the pious Louis of France, before which Pope and Emperor should appear as rival but equal litigants, each to lay his case before the representatives of Christendom and to submit to their decision. From such a counsel he could hope for justice, and it was justice that he asked. But before this counsel of Gregory's summoning he would appear as a criminal. His guilt already decided upon even if the measure of his punishment was not yet ordained. His chief judge would be the Pope, who from his august position as head of the Church would sway the opinions of the ecclesiastics either by reverence or fear, they by virtue of their vows being bound to obey his commands. Nor was this the only reason, which gave Frederick good cause for refusing to submit to such a tribunal. Gregory had summoned the Emperor's temporal enemies to the counsel. Such men as the Doge of Venice, the Count of Provence, the Marquis of Estée, Albaric de Romano, Paul Traversaro, and the Milanese, men who were actually in rebellion against him, and of whom many were in the pay of Gregory. There were others, too, whose impartiality Frederick had good cause to doubt. Cardinal Otto, the legate in England, he said, and the King of England, aspiring to debase me, have drained that country of almost all its money, and have also caused an anathema to be pronounced against us in that kingdom, to the great shame of the Empire and the disparagement of our honour, wherefore we ought with good reason to consider them and all the prelates of England as our enemies, inasmuch as they have poured forth their money to our injury, and have stifled our honour to the utmost of their power, and they are not influenced by the circumstance of my being allied by the ties of kindred to the English King, and that I have never injured them. It would be absurd and entirely discordant with reason for me to undergo a trial by them. He was perfectly ready, he declared to the King of France, to make peace if Gregory would abandon the heretical Milanese. We hate heresy, but the Pope is cherishing Milan a nest of heresy and a sink of all vices. No wonder that we forbid the assembly of such a council, since it is convoked to work our ruin. The Pope rejected the mediation of your serenity and forbade our calling a council to prove our innocence. We shall assuredly not allow it to be summoned in order that our name and race may be destroyed by him. We shall never stoop to lay our worldly affairs before a ghostly assembly convoked by our worst enemy. We beg your royal highness to make known to your prelates our firm resolve to refuse them a safe conduct. The Emperor resolved to prevent the assembly of the council by force if warnings were not sufficient, and he acquainted all the prelates of Christendom with his decision. From Fienza he wrote to all his faithful subjects and made them prevent the northern prelates from reaching Rome. They might seize the goods of all whom they intercepted and hold their persons captive until they heard his pleasure. He ignored the danger of arousing the active resentment of those nations whose prelates he injured, for the time being he would assert to the full his imperial supremacy. He was the Emperor of Rome, the Temporal Lord of Christendom, as the Pope of Rome was at spiritual head, and if the prelates of Christendom should disregard his warnings and attempt to gather for his destruction, then no mere claim of nationality should save them from his wrath. Oh, what anxiety, what manifold trouble afflicted the heart's blood of the Emperor in defending his empire, exclaims Matthew Paris at this point, for he had six numerous and formidable armies, one which he commanded in person at Fienza, another a double army in the Genoese territory, namely a naval force to oppose by sea the passage of the legates and prelates who despised his council, and another force by land near the sea coast which continually ravaged the crops and vineyards of the Genoese, a third army under his son Conrad, heir to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, who had collected under him an innumerable force from the whole of Germany and the adjacent provinces under the imperial dominion. He had sent against the Tartars, a fourth army he had employed in the Trevisan march, a fifth was engaged in Ancona and the Valley of Spoleto, and the sixth in the Holy Land under Rafe his marshal. Such extensive operations naturally entailed a heavy expenditure, and Frederick was constantly harassed by the need for money. At the siege of Fienza, he was even driven to issue a leather coinage, each piece of which bore the value of a golden aga stool. The coins, strange to say, became very popular in central Italy, and in the following year their face value was honorably paid by the imperial treasury to whoever presented them. Genoa had been appointed by the Pope as the meeting place of the prelates of England, France, Spain, and Northern Italy, and from there they were to be conveyed to Rome by the Genoese fleet. Accordingly, upon Pisa fell the task of preventing the safe arrival of the ecclesiastics at Rome. The two great maritime cities had both changed their politics since the boy of Sicily had journeyed northwards in 1212 to gain the imperial crown. Then Genoa had sent her fleet to protect him, while Pisa had endeavored to bar his passage and wrest him from the Genoese. Now Genoa was protecting his enemies and Pisa was seeking to deliver them into his hands. Pisa, it must be confessed, had no liking for the duty that had been laid upon her by her lord, which would involve her in a war with Genoa, but she could not disobey the imperial commands. She endeavored to avoid the task by sending envoys to her arrival and in treating her not to convey the prelates to Rome. Genoa, however, was equally bound to obey the church and fulfill her engagements with Gregory, and the conflict was inevitable. Pisa, therefore, since she could not evade the duty, resolved to acquit herself manfully in its accomplishment. Her own fleet of forty war vessels were strengthened by the arrival of Enzo with twenty-seven galleys from the kingdom, and this formidable force lay waiting in the harbor of Pisa until news should arrive that the Genoese fleet had started for Rome. By the April of twelve forty-one the August assembly of prelates and the Lombard envoys had gathered at Genoa. The papal legate Gregory of Romagna was more remarkable for zeal than caution, and though Genoa had only provided thirty-two galleys, he prevailed upon the clerics to embark on their perilous journey on the first of May. The Genoese admiral Malocello was as rash as the legate, and instead of making a wide detour in order to avoid Enzo and the Pesans he sailed gaily down the coast, and fell in with the enemy between the islands of Giliu and Monte Cristo on the third of May. The result was a foregone conclusion for the Genoese were outnumbered by two to one, and were hampered by their holy but non-militant freight. At first they had a measure of success for they captured three Pesan galleys before the main fleet arrived. They afterwards made much of this to the Pope, informed him that they had beheaded every man on board the captured vessels, and then with unconscious humor complained of the barbarity of Frederick sailors. But the aspect of affair soon changed, and the victory fell to the greater number. Only five galleys escaped to Genoa, with the Spanish prelates on board. Two thousand soldiers, sailors, and priests, including the Archbishop of Besançon, were killed or drowned. Five thousand were taken prisoners, and a large store of English gold fell into Enzo's hands. An imposing array of churchmen were transferred to the Pesan galleys, among them three cardinals, the papal legates from England, France, and Genoa, the Archbishops of Bordeaux, Rouen, and Oche, eight bishops, six French abbots, and more than a hundred proctors who had come in the stead of the more cautious ecclesiastics. The dignitaries were treated in a manner to which they must have been little accustomed. They arrived at Pisa in a very forlorn condition, and were then put in chains by Enzo's orders and flung into prison. On their subsequent sufferings, when they were conveyed from Pisa to Naples, Matthew Paris, snug in his scriptorium at St. Albans, waxes eloquent and pitiful. They were committed to safe custody in a castle surrounded by water near the town of Naples, but they did not all feel the calamities of imprisonment in an equal degree. The condition of the Bishop of Pryneste was most wretched, although disease or excessive weakness had taken fast hold of them all. For during the voyage they sat fastened and squeezed together in heaps, and with the intolerable heat falling upon them, and flies flitting round them and stinging them like scorpions, they dragged on a long martyrdom, tortured by hunger and thirst, and exposed to insults and annoyances at the will of the wicked crew of hostile pirates, and all this they endured owing to their obedience. A prison therefore seemed to them a place of rest, although it afforded them none. They in consequence pined away, especially the more delicate of them, and languished under various diseases, and some of the religious men and many others breathed forth their wretched lives and departed from the miseries of this life to the Lord after gaining the palm of martyrdom. Shortly after, too, the Bishop of Pryneste, obedient to the Pope till death, passed from this wicked world to a place of rest. They would have done well these religious men to have heeded the Emperor's warning. CHAPTER XII We mourn over you, wrote Gregory to the captives. Joseph is not, Simeon is kept in chains, and little Benjamin is taken away. We do not forget you, but we think of remedies for your woes. The Pope, however, could find no remedies. The three cardinals, the English and Italian prelates, and the Lombard envoys remained in prison until Gregory's death and some while afterwards. The French clergy, more fortunate, were released at the urgent representations of King Louis, who bade Frederick remember the long friendship of the House of Capet and the House of Hohenstaufen, in his own refusal to countenance the Pope's effort to raise up a rival Emperor and Frederick's stead. The Pope's darling project had been ruined by the bold stroke of his enemy. The great calamity had been preceded by the fall of Fienza in April. It was followed by other disasters. Hot on the heels of the news of the capture of his council came tidings of a defeat in Lombardy. The loyalists of Pavia had given battle to the legate Montalango and the Milanese, had utterly defeated the papal partisans, captured three hundred and fifty knights, and a banner of the Keys and a Milan. Gregory had lost a large store of gold in the defeat of the Genoese fleet. Now another treasure, rung as usual from the English clergy, was captured by Frederick's agents on its way through Italy. In June, messengers arrived with the news that the Emperor himself had left Fienza and was marching to Rome at the head of his army. Gregory might view with alarm the increasing triumph of the Emperor. He might talk of peace in his letters to other princes, but before his virulent hatred of Frederick his prudence went down. He could bring himself to make no reasonable advances, could listen to none that were made to him. Frederick marched through Spoleto, received the homage of the capital of that province, ravaged the lands of the cities who still held out for the Pope. He entered the Campania and halted at Tivoli, almost within sight of Rome, while his new ally Colonna captured Palestrina with his help. A last effort was made for peace. Richard of Cornwall, the Emperor's brother-in-law, returning from the Crusades, landed in Sicily and made his way northwards to Frederick's camp, where he received an affectionate welcome. He was then sent to Rome as a messenger of peace. The Emperor entrusted him with the fullest discretionary powers, promised to abide by whatever terms the Earl should make, and gave him a letter with the imperial seal as a formal ratification of the treaty that he might arrange. It was a sincere effort on Frederick's part to put an end to the struggle. The Earl, who had been welcomed in Sicily as one who had striven in the cause of Christendom, found that at Rome the service of the Pope was the only title to respect. The fact that he had toiled in Palestine was of no account. That he was a friend of the Emperor was acclaimed to distrust. He was received by the Roman mob with insult and indignity, by the Pope with scant courtesy. All his proposals were scorned. The complete and abject submission of the Emperor was the only condition of peace that the inexorable old man would consider. Richard returned to the Imperial camp. With any respect he might have had for the saintliness of Gregory entirely dispelled. I am glad, said Frederick, that you have learned by experience the truth of what we have before told you. Frederick moved from Tivoli, ravaged the territory around Rome, and stormed and burnt many castles. Everything, however, could quell the spirit of the Dauntless Pontiff. Permit not yourselves to be cast down ye faithful, he wrote to the Lombards, by the unfavorable appearances of the present moment, being neither depressed by calamity nor elated by prosperity. The bark of St. Peter is for a time tossed by tempests and dashed against breakers, but it soon emerges unexpectedly from the foaming billows and sails in uninjured majesty over the glassy surface. The bark of St. Peter did indeed weather the storm as it had weathered fiercer storms before, but it bore a new pilot at its helm. Gregory's spirit might be unconquerable, but his flesh was vulnerable. He was very old. According to Matthew Parris, he was approaching his hundredth year. He had been wont to seek refuge from the unhealthy Roman summer in his palace of Anani to soothe his aged limbs in the baths of Viterbo. But the Emperor's army surrounded Rome, and he could not leave the city. The chagrin of failure preyed upon his enfeebled frame, and the loss of Monteforte seemed to be the culmination of his sorrows. This castle had been built by him with monies that had been contributed by the faithful for the Crusades. It was fortified with a special care and designed as a place of refuge for Gregory and his kindred in the event of a rising at Rome. In August it fell before Frederick's army and its inmates, among whom were some nephews and relatives of Gregory, were hanged. One tower of its walls was alone left standing as a memorial of the Emperor's Revenge. The blow completed the work of years and a vexation of spirit, and the old man took to his bed. Unable to endure the grief he felt, but which he himself had caused, he went the way of all flesh on August 22nd to receive his reward from the judge on high according to his desserts. Frederick imparted the news to the monarchs of Christendom in words which at any rate were not unjust, and avoided the indecent exaltation with which a later Pope welcomed his own death. The Pope Gregory IX is taken away from the world and has escaped the vengeance of the Emperor of whom he was the implacable enemy. He is dead through whom peace was banished from the earth and discord prospered. For his death, though by him so deeply injured and implacably persecuted, we feel compassion, that compassion had been more profound if he had lived to establish peace between the Empire and the Papacy. God we trust will raise up a pope of more Pacific temper whom we are prepared to defend as a devout son if he follow not the fatal crime and animosity of his predecessor. Christendom might at last hope to see an end of the strife which had disturbed her tranquillity. The passionate personality of Gregory had been removed from the scene. The Emperor had shown himself ready to welcome any terms of peace which were consistent with honour. In the hour of his victory he proved the sincerity of his frequent avowal that his quarrel was not with the Church but with her unworthy head and throughout all Germany and Italy the Imperial proclamation threatened with a terrible death, all who should presume upon the widowed state of the Church. The Cardinals were allowed to assemble at Rome without molestation to transact their solemn function of electing a new pope. Patrick withdrew into his kingdom for a short while to enjoy a restful sojourn at his palace of Foggia. He was visited there by a private grief. His Empress Isabella of England died in childbirth on the 1st of December. Her excelling beauty and manners had won his affection and we may believe that the marriage was a happy one if the Empress had sufficient philosophy to ignore his Oriental proclivities. She left two children, the younger Henry and a daughter. The election of a successor to Gregory was hindered by dissensions among the Cardinals. Of the ten who were gathered at Rome four were for Romano, the Bishop of Porto, and six for Cardinal Geoffrey Castiglione of Milan. The former candidate was in bad order with Frederick for three reasons. He had been conspicuous for his enmity to him during Gregory's life. He had been a cruel oppressor of the University of Paris, and there was the ugly stain on his reputation of a supposed seduction of Queen Blanche of France. A two-thirds majority, however, was necessary for a valid election, and the members of the Conclave who favored Geoffrey turned to the Emperor in their dilemma and besought him to release the two Cardinals, whom he still held in captivity. These were Otto, the English Legate, and James, the Bishop of Palestrina. James was no sooner brought into the Emperor's presence than he hurled forth an excommunication against him. But both were allowed to go to Rome on condition that they should return to their prison after the election. The Cardinals, who now numbered twelve, were placed under strict confinement by the Roman senator in order to hasten their election. The heat was intense, their allowance of food scanty in the extreme, and Robert de Somercote and Romano, one of the candidates, fell ill and died. This simplified matters, and on October 16th, 1241, Geoffrey of Milan was elected Pope. He adopted the name of Celestine IV, and bore it only 17 days. He died before the ceremony of consecration could take place. The Cardinals aghast at the prospect of another election with all its attendant discomfort fled from Rome and dispersed into central Italy. The confusion at Rome seemed to reproduce itself over all the Empire. In northern Italy the war which had slumbered awhile became suddenly more acute. Germany relapsed into disorder. Her nobles were ever a turbulent race and could not be controlled by a boy king and his guardians. Only the Emperor could quell them and he had been absent too long. The increased activity of the Lombard rebels called down upon them a Captain whose prowess they had never yet experienced. Enzo, the King of Sardinia, had proved his metal as a leader in the Ancanitin March in Romania and on the sea. He was now sent into Lombardy at the head of a strong force and confounded the rebels by his extraordinary activity. He dashed from end to end of the province, storming, burning and ravaging and the mere rumour of his approach made the enemy scurry into the shelter of their walled cities. But even he could make little permanent impression on a foe who resolutely refused to risk a battle in the open with so formidable a general. This Enzo was the best beloved of all the children of Frederick whom he resembled in many ways, handsome, brave and courtly, a poet in his moments of leisure who earned the admiration even of his enemies. A valiant man and bold and stout-hearted is the dictum of the friar Salim Bene, dowdy in arms and a man of solace when he would and a maker of songs in and war he was wont to expose himself most boldly to perils. His soldiers worshipped him with a passionate devotion and his gallant bearing awoke the heart and passions of many a noble maiden of Italy. Meanwhile Christendom was for nearly two years without a pope. At the beginning of 1242 most of the Cardinals assembled at Rome, but month after month dragged by in feudal dissensions. The Emperor urged and threatened in vain. Your mother is dying, he said, while you are pulling different ways. He released the Cardinals Otto and James, who had returned to their captivity after the election of Celestine in the hope of hastening a decision. It was believed and asserted by many who were ignorant of the truth of the affair, writes the English chronicler, that the Emperor himself was the chief hindrance to the welfare of the church and was the cause of the apostolic chair remaining empty. The King of France, after bidding the conclave to hasten in their business and to have no fear of the Emperor, threatened to set up a French pope on his own authority by virtue of an old charter which tradition said had been given to Sandinie by St. Clement. The gibbalines were loud in their abuse of the Dillatory Cardinals. Sons of Ephraim, who turned back in the day of battle, sons of Belial, sheep of scattering, animals without heads, hated of the world. It is not Jesus Christ himself, the mediator, who is in the midst of you, but Satan divided against himself the father of lies. Each one of you is eager for the chair, so none is elected and the church is brought to confusion. The thunders of Peter and Paul are silent and you are dumb dogs. Take shame upon yourselves, the lowest creatures are wiser than you. Birds have a leader, bees have a queen. Rachel has no husband, her little ones cry out for bread, and there is no one to give it to them. You see not how nigh you are to shipwreck. Put on your senses and your reason once more that you may recover your head. The year 1243 dawned and still a conclave wrangled and delayed. Frederick resolved to try sterner measures to bring them to reason. He gathered a great army of ten thousand knights, ravaged the lands around Rome and seized the estates of the Cardinals, which he gave over to his soldiers to pillage as they would. The Cardinals had fled from Rome at his approach, but the destruction wrought to their lands and castles brought them to their senses. They entreated the emperor to withdraw unto his kingdom for a while and promised to lose no more time in filling the vacant chair of St. Peter. Frederick retired to Foggia and the conclave assembled at Ananya. On June 24, their choice fell upon the Cardinal Sinabald Fiesko of Genoa, who assumed the title of Innocent the Fourth, end of section 24.