palpably absurd and false were these charges that three of the
assembled prelates refused to sign an instrument for the deposition of a
pontiff, so little conforming to the ancient discipline, and unsupported
by witnesses worthy of belief. Nor were Henry's machinations confined
to Germany, but he ransacked Lombardy and the marches of Ancona for
bishops to sign these articles of condemnation, and even aspired to
infect Rome itself by presents and specious promises. But the golden ass
could not then leap the walls of Christian Rome.

Gregory's principal accuser was the Cardinal Hugues le Blanc, whom he
had previously excommunicated. This ambitious man rose in the council
and taunted the Pope with his low extraction, at the same time charging
him with crimes that were proved to be the offspring of calumny and
error. He produced a forged letter, purporting to come in the name of
the archbishops, bishops, and cardinals, from the senate and people of
Rome, inveighing against the Pope, and clamoring for the election of
another head of the Church. Encouraged by imperial patronage, and
stimulated by a desire to rid himself of disgrace by sullying the hands
that had branded him, the excommunicated cardinal did not hesitate to
call the Pope a heretic, an adulterer, a sanguinary beast of prey. The
emperor himself knew Gregory too well to believe such a tissue of
absurdity; but he hoped to find others more credulous than himself.

Upon the accusations already specified, and the invectives of Hugues le
Blanc, the assemblage of prelates at Worms resolve upon the deposition
of Gregory VII. It is then that Henry steps forth, as the life and soul
of the conventicle, armed with its decree, and addresses an insulting
letter to the Pope, inscribed "Henry, king by the grace of God, to
Hildebrand." In this letter, the decree of the conventicle is lost in
the insolence of the king. "I," is the language of the missive, "I have
followed their advice, because it seemed to me just. I refuse to
acknowledge you Pope, and in the capacity of patron of Rome command you
to vacate the Holy See." Can the most jaundiced eye, can the man who
learned, even in his boyhood, to loathe the name of Hildebrand, read
these expressions without confessing that the king was the aggressor,
and that if the Christian Church had a right to expect protection from
its appointed head, Gregory VII was called upon to vindicate the majesty
and liberty of religion so grossly ou