'Three times,' he declared in his justificatory address, has Frederick found impediments to the fulfilment of his vow, and three times, instead of inflicting the proper chastisement, did Honorius, in Beroli, in Ferentino, and in S. Germano, submit to receive new promises, new oaths. Lest we should appear like dumb dogs, and countenance the opinion that we honour men more than God, the interdict is now uttered against the emperor.'

Frederick's vindication was in a tone of indignant recrimination, not likely to conciliate the severe and haughty pontiff. It lamented in solemn language the failure of Christian charity, not in its streams, but in its fountain; not in the branches, but in its stem and root. It recounted the persecutions of the counts of Toulouse; the conduct of Innocent III. in the affairs of England, when he first invited the barons to rebellion against the king, and then, having sucked the fatness of the land, abandoned those very barons to ruin and to death:

The Romish church, as though it were the true church, calls itself my mother and my nurse, while all its acts are those of a step-mother, and it is the source and the root of all evil :'

He calls on all the temporal powers to unite against this unexampled tyranny, in this common danger. Gregory had renewed at Rome, in the presence of all the cardinals and ecclesiastics, the interdict against the emperor. Frederick took the daring step of prohibiting the execution of the interdict in his dominions, and of commanding the ecclesiastics to perform the services of the church, in defiance of the ban of the pope. A third time Gregory determined to renew the solemn ceremonial of excommunication; but the Roman populace (whom Frederick had conciliated by some seasonable supplies of corn, during a scarcity), with one of the turbulent nobles, a Frangipani, at their head, interrupted the ceremony, and drove the pope out of Rome. The old man stood undaunted in his exile, brandishing his thunders with unwearied arm. Probably to his surprise, as well as that of the whole of Europe, Frederick on a sudden resumed his preparations for a crusade; and, as if to convince the pope of the injustice of his accusation, embarked in the midst of this fierce strife for the Holy Land. But the implacable excommunication followed him to Palestine; the papal curse pursued and smote him at the foot of the altar, before the Holy Sepulchre itself. The terror of his name, and the fame of his power and warlike ability, induced the sultan to propose terms of peace. In the midst of the negociation arrived two Franciscans, with the sentence of interdict; the Orders of knights, and all the eastern Christians, were solemnly forbidden to assist an excommunicated person, though in a holy war. Frederick, nevertheless, concluded

his treaty on terms, on the whole, honourable to Christendom. Jerusalem and other cities were surrendered to the emperor: the mosques were to remain undisturbed, and the Mahometans allowed free access, though unarmed, to the temple. The emperor entered the Holy City, but even in its precincts the interdict still hovered over his head. In the morning of his public entrance into the city, in compliance with the advice of his more prudent and religious counsellors, he abstained from attendance on divine worship; later in the day he entered the church, and no churchman venturing to officiate, he took from the altar the crown of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and placed it on his own head. The next day appeared the archbishop of Cæsarea, and laid the city, reconquered by the terror of Frederick's arms, and the Holy Sepulchre itself, so long inaccessible to Christian devotion, under the ban of excommunication.

The return of the emperor was as rapid as his expedition to Palestine; his presence awed the turbulent barons of Apulia, who had risen in insurrection, supported by a body of the papal troops; peace was restored in the dominions of Naples; and the next year witnessed the reconciliation of the pope and the emperor. The admission of Frederick into the bosom of the church showed that even the pope himself had become sensible of the impolicy of driving so formidable an antagonist to desperation : though superior to all personal fears, the aged pontiff could not but discern the danger of his own situation. An exile from Rome, he had only been recalled to that city by the religious terrors of the populace, who attributed a sudden and destructive overflow of the Tiber to the avenging wrath of heaven, on account of their disobedience to their spiritual sovereign. On the other hand, the humiliating terms to which the emperor condescended, in order to be reconciled to the church, his submission as a lowly suppliant to the pope, as well as the restitution of all ecclesiastics in the rights and possessions from which they had been excluded, and the payment of a considerable sum of money, proved, that even his firm and independent mind was either not proof against the superstition which enthralled the rest of Europe, or that he had the wisdom to discover that he was struggling in vain against a tyranny too deeply rooted in the minds of men to be shaken by the most successful assaults. He might hope, at all events, that to the stern old man who now wielded the keys of St. Peter with all the vigour of Hildebrand or Innocent III., might succeed some feebler or some milder pontiff. Already was Gregory drawing towards ninety years old. He, himself, was yet in the strength and ripeness of manhood, nor could he expect that this same aged pontiff would rally again for a contest, more long, more obstinate

and,

and, though not concluded during his lifetime, more fatal than the last. To that contest we shall proceed-the turning point in the fortunes of Frederick-the crisis in the fate of the imperial Hohenstaufen, in which our great historical drama assumes at length its darker and more tragic colouring, closing in the defeat, the domestic sorrow, the premature death of Frederick, and eventually leading to the extinction of the house of Swabia.

:

During the interval of about eight years, 1230-1238, Frederick had full occupation in the re-establishment of order in Germany, disturbed, partly by the unruly spirit of the vassal princes and the kingly ecclesiastics of the empire, and partly by the rebellion of his own son. In the factions and the feuds created by the former, the hostile influence of the pope might plainly be discerned; not so in the latter though some of his predecessors had been less scrupulous in their ambition, the high moral sentiment of Gregory revolted from that guilty means of enfeebling an adversary, the setting a son in arms against his father. The death of Henry, the elder and the rebellious son of Frederick, allayed this feud. But in the emperor's disputes with the Lombard states, the pope had more legitimate pretensions for interference; and in supporting these flourishing states, he assumed the advantageous position of the sacred defender of liberty, the assertor of Italian independence, when Italy seemed in danger of lying prostrate under one stern and despotic monarchy, which would extend from the German Ocean to the farther shores of Sicily. Frederick had recently endeavoured to obtain the kingdom of Sardinia for his favourite natural son, Enzius; Genoa, Venice, Lombardy, as well as the pope, trembled at his successes, and entered into a league against his growing power.

Eight years after the reconciliation of S. Germano, on Palm Sunday, the pope laid another interdict on Frederick Emperor of Germany and King of Sicily. He gave over his body to Satan for the salvation of his soul, absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, laid every place, in which he might be, under interdict, degraded all ecclesiastics who should perform the services of the church before him, or maintain any connexion with him; and commanded the publication of this sentence to take place with the greatest solemnity and publicity throughout Christendom. The articles of impeachment charged Frederick with exciting the Roman people to rebellion, with many acts of hostility and aggression upon the church, with his favour towards Mahometans, and his throwing impediments in the way of the reconquest of the Holy Land.

At Padua, Peter de Vinea, the chief justice of the kingdom of Naples, delivered a long exculpatory sermon on a text out of OvidLeniter,

'Leniter, ex merito quicquid patiare, ferendum est;
Quæ venit indigno pœna, dolenda venit.'

Another vindication was issued in the name of the archbishops of Messina and Palermo, and other eminent ecclesiastics. These were comparatively calm and argumentative state papers. But the war of manifestoes became speedily more fierce and personal. The emperor and the pope appealed against each other to the kings of the Christian world, and to all Christendom. In these singular documents, not the least curious or characteristic part is the frequency, and, to our ears, profane misapplication of scriptural language. In his address to all Christian kings, Frederick boldly declares Gregory unworthy of his high office, and appeals to a general council:

But ye, O kings and princes of the earth, lament not only for us, but for the church; for her head is sick, her prince like a roaring lion; in the midst of her sits a man of falsehood, a corrupt priest, a frantic prophet.'

To the whole of Christendom he uses these strangely perverted phrases :

The Pharisees and Scribes have gathered themselves together, and held a council concerning their lord, the Roman emperor. "What shall we do," say they," for this man triumphs over all his enemies? If we let him alone, he will subdue all Lombardy; and, after the manner of the emperors, not hesitate, as far as he is able, to drive us from our places and root out our race. He will entrust the vineyard of the Lord to other labourers, and condemn and destroy us without trial. . . . . We must attack this Cæsar, not only with words but with all our no longer to be concealed arrows. We will shoot out these till they strike him, strike him-till they wound, till they wound him-till they overthrow, till they overthrow him." Thus speak

the Pharisees, who in our days sit in the seat of Moses. . . . And this father of all fathers, who calls himself the servant of the servants of God, changes himself into a deaf adder; setting aside judgment and justice, refuses to hear the vindication of the Cæsar; hath cast out, despising all counsel, his malediction into the world, like a stone from a sling; and sternly, and heedless of all consequences, cries aloud,— • What I have written, I have written.'

Frederick appealed, in better keeping, to the words addressed by our Lord to his apostles after his resurrection: he said not,-Take arms and shield, bow and sword;' but Peace be with you.' He taunts the avarice, the luxury of the pope, and even turns his name against him,

Gregorius, gregis disgregator potius.'

The pope, in his reply, was not less prodigal of personal invective and scriptural metaphor :

• Out

'Out of the sea is a beast arisen, covered with the name of Blasphemy, with the feet of a bear, the jaws of a raging lion, and the rest of his shape like a leopard. He opens his mouth against the name of God, and darts his poisoned arrows against the tabernacle of heaven, and the saints that dwell therein.'

After an elaborate detail of the offences of Frederick, he at length advances the well-known charge,

This king of pestilence maintains (we use his own words) that the whole world has been deceived by three impostors-Moses, Mahomet, and Christ; of whom, two died in honour, the third was hanged upon

a cross.'

Popular rumour, propagated by the zealous activity of the hostile priesthood, had scattered abroad many other sayings of Frederick, equally revolting to the feeling of his age. He was said to have jested on the immaculate conception,-and the transubstantiation of the mass; the speech concerning the fertility of the Holy Land we have already alluded to. Frederick hastened to repel that awful charge, and to show tha the was at least as well read in the Book of Revelations as the pope-(our readers perhaps may have some wicked reminiscences of old Mause in the Tales of my Landlord):

He, in name only a pope, has called us the beast that arises out of the sea, and is named Blasphemy: we again maintain that he is the beast, of which is written-"And there went out another horse that was red; and power was given him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, that the living should kill one another." For, from the time of his accession, hath this father, not of amity but of disunion, not of consolation but of desolation, plunged the whole world in bitterness. And, if we understand rightly his words, he is the great dragon who has deceived the whole world-the Anti-Christ of whom he declares us the forerunner-a second Balaam, hired to curse us for money-the prince of the princes of darkness, who arose out of the abyss, with the cup of bitterness, to waste the land and the sea.'

The emperor disclaims, in the most emphatic terms, the speech about the three impostors-rehearses the part of the Apostle's Creed relating to Christ-expresses most orthodox veneration for Moses-and, according to the feeling of the time, no less orthodox hatred of Mahomet :

'As to Mahomet, we have always maintained that his body is floating in the air, surrounded by devils, his soul tormented in hell; because his works were works of darkness, and contrary to the laws of the Most High.'

The first thing which strikes us in reading this papal and imperial controversy (which our author has judiciously given at considerable length, since nothing can be more strongly illustrative of

the