traged in his person? Surely it
will not be asserted at this day that the head of the State, by virtue
of his temporal power, should be the head of the Church; or does that
beautiful logic still exist, which denied an absolute spiritual
supremacy in the successor of St. Peter, yet admitted it as an
incidental prerogative to the crown of England? But we have yet to see
the last act of this attempted deposition.

A clerk of Parma, named Roland, was charged with the delivery of this
letter, and the decrees of the conventicle of Worms. A synod had been
convoked in the Church of Lateran, and the Pope, surrounded by his
bishops, occupied a chair elevated above the rest. Roland's mission had
been kept a profound secret, and, when he appeared before the conclave,
not a prelate there could guess his purpose. They had not heard the
voice that had gone forth from Worms. But they did not long remain in
suspense. Turning to the Pope, the envoy thus began "The king, my
master, and all the ultramontane and Italian bishops, command you to
resign, at once, the throne of St. Peter and the government of the Roman
Church, which you have usurped; for you cannot justly claim so exalted a
dignity without the approbation of the bishops and the confirmation of
the emperor!" Then addressing the clergy, he thus continued: "My
brothers, it is my duty to inform you, that you must appear before the
king at the approaching festival of Pentecost, to receive a Pope from
his hand; for the tiara is now worn, not by a Pope, but by a devouring
wolf!"

Receive a Pope from the king! receive from Caesar what he must usurp to
bestow! Had Gregory flinched, the independence of the Church would have
been sacrificed, and her acknowledged inability to cope with royal vices
would have permitted every European monarch to change his queen with his
courtiers. Henry IV would have had his successor to Bertha; Philip
Augustus his Agnes de Meranie; and Henry VIII his Cranmer and his
scaffold without one moment's opposition.

But no sooner had Roland pronounced those last words, than the Bishop of
Porto leaped from his chair, and cried out: "Seize him!" The prefect and
nobles of Rome and the soldiers drew their swords, and, in their sudden
fury, would have killed the audacious envoy, had not Gregory, repeating
his magnanimity to Cencius, covered the clerk with his own body, and by
his calmness and eloquence controlled the indignation and disgust of his
too zealous friend