nces and prelates, but many Italian bishops,
and nearly all the consuls of the cities of Lombardy, were present. A
papal legate also appeared. At this Diet, Frederic caused certain
doctors of Roman law from Bologna to pronounce what were, and what
were not, his legal rights in Italy. After due investigation, they
awarded to their formidable client such a monopoly of fisheries,
mines, customs, taxes, and other dues, under the name of regalities,
that hardly anything in the entire country remained over, to which the
emperor could not lay claim under that title. The consequence was,
that the various towns, dioceses, convents, and chapters saw
themselves deprived, at a blow, of rights and property which they had
long possessed, and fairly acquired. It was impossible for Adrian not
to look with the liveliest displeasure at such wholesale spoliation on
the part of his imperial son; whose victims formally submitted to
their fate out of sheer terror and impotence of resistance.

But when, in the face of former oaths and pledges to uphold and make
good all the rights and property of the Holy See, Frederic began, with
reckless effrontery, to wrong that see by investing his uncle, Duke
Guelph VI., with Tuscany and Sardinia,--in fact, with the entire
inheritance of the Countess Matilda, who, as is well known, had
bequeathed it to Gregory VII. and his successors for ever,--the pope's
right thereto having been formally acknowledged by the Emperor
Lothair;--when, moreover, Frederic began to levy tribute on other
possessions of the Church, and did so under pretence of his imperial
prerogatives in Rome; when from these temporal, he passed to spiritual
usurpations, and intruded, firstly, his chancellor, Raynald, into the
vacant see of Cologne,--contrary to the provisions of the treaty of
Worms to which he has sworn; and, secondly, his favourite, Guido of
Blandrate, into the see of Ravenna,--in direct opposition to the
pope's wishes, to whose episcopal jurisdiction, Guido, as subdeacon in
the Roman church, was exclusively subject, and by whom he was destined
for other and more suitable preferment; then, at last, Adrian's
indignation could contain itself no longer, and he addressed to the
emperor a brief, in which, under a forced calmness and moderation of
style, his soreness at the outrages committed against him is yet
plainly perceptible.

This brief was carried to the emperor by a messenger of inferior rank;
who, moreover, did not wai