came out of the castle and joined the Pope elect and the other five cardinals at St. Peter's; and there the whole eleven together in the chapel, "a second time and for the greater surety," elected the Archbishop Pope, “or purely, freely, agreeingly, and unanimously consented that he should be elected."

Here again the narrative of the conclavist is very damaging to the cause of Urban VI. It is clear that if he had not been duly, fully, and finally elected in the Conclave, nothing that could be done afterwards could canonically make him Pope. And yet the cardinals by their conduct show that they must have had doubts upon the subject. The eleven constituted, it is true, twothirds of a Conclave consisting of sixteen (if seventeen entered into Conclave the eleven did not make a two-thirds majority); but a canonical election could not be effected by first getting rid of a portion of the electors by means of an erroneous statement that the election was consummated, and then proceeding with the real effective election in their absence. It would seem, indeed, that from the first, the circumstances attending this Conclave did inspire a certain degree of doubt and misgiving in all those who were actors in it. Nevertheless, the sequel of the story, as narrated by the contemporary writer whom I have followed, and who in all probability was, as I have supposed, a conclavist, seems to show that the pretences on which the terrible schism that followed were founded were in truth insincere and merely colourable. My impression, too, from a very careful reading of the narrative, is strongly in favour of the truthfulness and sincerity of the writer.

He goes on to show at great length that every part of the usual ceremony of enthronement, and of the practices that according to custom follow after it, were duly, fully, and undisputedly done and complied with in the presence and with the assent and assistance of all the sixteen cardinals who had taken part in the Conclave,* those who had fled from the city having returned. He proceeds to show that for three months all these cardinals treated Urban as Pope in every respect and particular, no word of doubt having been breathed on the subject. The writer then mentions various papal acts done by Urban, such as holding a Consistory, appointing a Bishop of Ostia, granting graces and dispensations, and some others. But among the things done he tells us that the cardinals wrote letters to the different princes of Christendom, informing them of the election, and warning them to give faith to none who should assert the contrary, or insinuate a doubt as to the election-again a very damaging admission; for certainly such a warning implies, if not that objections to the election had already been put forward, at least a conscious fear that such might be likely to arise.

We soon come, however, to matter that was much worse than simony, or any possible formal objection that could

*"Cardinalibus omnibus numero xvi. assistentibus, presentibus, et sic fieri volentibus, ipsique Domino Urbano ministrantibus. Omnes enim dicti cardinales numero xvi., qui in electione fuerunt, in hoc Coronationis festo interfuerunt, purèque et liberè consenserunt, et quatuor illi cardinales, qui ab urbe recesserant jam fuerant ad urbem reversi, ubi omnes dicti cardinales per tres menses continuos steterunt, ipsi domino Urbano assistendo et ministrando, Concistoria et alia per cardinales summis Pontificibus consueta faciendo . . . et durante tempore dictorum trium mensium dicti D. Cardinales semper tractarunt, et habuerunt Dominum Urbanum pro vero, unico, et indubitato sumo Pontifice."

be brought against the election. "One day the Pope, Urban, having summoned all the cardinals, addressed to them many admonitions for the good government of the Church, and respecting their setting a good example to the people. For he warned them to abstain and hold their hands from all gifts, declaring that he detested and would severely punish all guilty of simony,* and all seckers after gain; forbidding them to accept presents either great or small on whatsoever account, as it was his intention that all affairs that came before him should be despatched gratis, no man thence hoping anything. Poor Urban! He was by no means the right man in the right place. One sees in truth that they ought to have chosen a Roman for the position. He admonished them further as to exemplary living, speaking strongly against superfluous expense, and numerous retinues, and expenditure in horses, garments, and conviviality; asserting that all such pompous and puffed-up ways of living tended to injure rather than support the Church and the Papacy. He said further that it was his intention that justice should be rendered to all seeking it without distinction of persons; and added that since the Divine Providence had placed the Apostolic See in Rome, his purpose was to reside in the city and there to live and die, and he deemed it an offence to God to do otherwise.

Here, indeed, were grounds enough for disputing the election! Surely it was clear that this man was not the

It is fair to observe, inasmuch as I have spoken of the vitiation of Urban's election as simoniacal, that no shadow of such an accusation rests on him. The simony which vitiated the election consisted in the bargaining among the cardinals which preceded it. In fact but few papal elections, if any, have been other than simoniacal.

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man for a Pope; and that the cardinals must have been acting under some pressure, or at all events some hallucination, in electing him. The writer, indeed, of the impartial and passionless narrative which I have followed evidently is much of this opinion. He tells us that the cardinals who rebelled against the Pope, and were the authors of the schism, were tired of Urban's morality; and that his too great severity, rather than any flaw in his title to the Papacy, caused the cardinals who rebelled against him to do so. And a little further on he tells us that it was generally thought that he was himself the cause of all the persecution he suffered, because he was unduly severe,† and that out of his own head, and had more confidence in himself than in others.

Ugly symptoms, in fact, of rebellion and disaffection exhibited themselves immediately after this solemn monition. The Bishop of Arles, who had been Chamberlain to Gregory XI., and had the custody of all the jewels belonging to the papal treasury, went off with them to Anagni, carrying with him also the tiara, with which Urban and many of the Popes, his predecessors, had been crowned. One Peter, the commandant of the Castle of St. Angelo, at the instigation of another of the French cardinals, refused to render up possession of the fortress. The Cardinal of St. Eustace, after having treacherously persuaded the Pope to give a large sum of money to a company of Breton free-lances, induced

"Attediati moribus Urbani."

"Propterea quod homo ultra quam decebat severus erat, et sui capitis, et sibi magis quam cæteris credens."

"Per suas virtutes, et subtiles tractatus, ac deceptoria verba, et falsas ac dolosas inductiones."

them as soon as ever they had received the money to turn their arms against the Pope. They too, of course, were desirous of having a French Pope, and were easily made to believe that Urban had not been duly elected. In a word, things were beginning to look very ugly. And at the end of June the Pope seems to have been guilty of a mistake and an imprudence. The cardinals who were hostile to him, making a pretext of the heat in Rome, asked permission to retire to Anagni, which Urban, "wishing to please them," conceded, and at the same time forgetting what he had so recently said about living and dying in Rome, or, perhaps, coerced by fear, he himself went to Tivoli.

Thus two hostile camps were formed; and very shortly afterwards the disaffected cardinals, breaking into open and avowed schism, declared the election of Urban to have been ab initio void, on the ground that the Conclave had not been held in a safe place, and that the electors had acted under the influence of fear. And possibly the reader of the foregoing pages may be under the impression that such a statement was not altogether unwarranted by the facts of the case. The northern cardinals, who were not to the manner born, may not have understood the playful ways of the Roman populace, or comprehended that when the crowd in the piazza were bawling Papa Romano volemo, they were only waiting to offer their congratulations to the new Pope by losing no time in wrecking his house. But in reply to all this it must be remembered that the election

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tuto."

Quia per impressionem, et quod electio non fuit celebrata in loco