nce, if one may judge from his conduct at a later period, when,
abandoned by fortune, and his pride humbled in the dust, he was driven
to hearken to its voice. For the present, he proclaimed the only
doctrine which his pride could brook, namely,--that he held his crown
from God alone, to whose Servant, the Pope, it simply belonged to
perform the ceremony of coronation. This doctrine of his imperial
dignity he caused to be stated in a circular, which he addressed to
all the provinces of Germany in vindication of his behaviour towards
the papal legates:--a measure rendered imperative by the religious
temper of the age. In this circular, [1] he denounces all, who differ
from its views, as enemies of the doctrine of our Lord and His
Apostles, as, in short, their slanderers; and, among other
extravagancies of his virulence, declares that one cause, among the
rest, why he so unceremoniously dismissed the legates, was the
discovery which he had made of blank papers in their possession, ready
signed and sealed; which they could fill up at pleasure, and which
were meant to empower them to dismantle the altars, plunder the sacred
vessels, and deface the crucifixes in the German churches. He further
informs the bishops of Germany, that _he_, and _he_ alone, it is who
really strives to protect their liberties against the Roman See, whose
yoke they groaned under.

Those, however, to whom this consoling piece of news was sent, knew
but too well what a mockery the word liberty was in the mouth of a man
who like Frederic had long ago trampled on the Concordat of Worms, and
who disposed of the benefices of the Church after the arbitrary manner
of Henry IV., to subserve his political ends.

As companion-piece to his circular, Frederic published an edict
forbidding, in future, all correspondence between his clergy and Rome.

The account which the cardinals Roland and Bernard gave, on their
arrival at Rome, of the way in which they had been treated by
Frederic, created a lively sensation at the papal court. The imperial
party in the conclave sought to exculpate their patron in the face of
the reproaches heaped upon him, by ascribing all the blame to the
ignorance and mismanagement of the legates. In the midst of the
conflicting opinions of his clergy, Pope Adrian deeply felt the
indignity which he had suffered in the persons of his representatives,
but did not allow himself to be betrayed into any violent
manifestation of displeasure; o