s, he recited his
former indulgence to Henry, his paternal remonstrances, and his repeated
proofs of love and goodness. The whole assembly rose in a body, and
implored him to anathematize a perjured prince, an oppressor, and a
tyrant, declaring that they would never abandon the Pope, and that they
were ready to die in his defence. It was then that Gregory VII rose and
pronounced, amid the unanimous acclamations of the synod, the sentence
of excommunication against the emperor.

Thus went forth this awful thunderbolt for the first time against a
crowned head. A dissolute and ambitious monarch had called upon the
successor of St. Peter to yield up the keys, and lay the tiara at the
feet of the lion of Austria, because that successor had declared an
invincible determination to preserve the purity of the Church and its
liberties, at the sacrifice of life itself. The tyrant struck in anger,
and the Pontiff, incapable of yielding, gave the blow at last; for the
_temple_ of religion was insulted and invaded.

It is easy, when calmly seated at a winter's fireside, to charge Gregory
VII with an undue assumption of temporal power. But he who will study
the critical position of Europe during the eleventh century, must bow
down in reverence before the mighty mind of him who seized the moment to
proclaim amid the storm the independence of the Christian Church. Was
not this resistance to Henry expedient? Yes! And to one who knows that
the Church was the lever by which the world was raised from barbarism to
civilization, and will confess, with Guizot, that without a visible
head, Christianity would have perished in the shock that convulsed
Europe to its centre, the truth is revealed, as it was to the master
mind of Gregory, that had he pursued any other course, peace and unity,
as far as human eye extends, would have perished with the compromised
liberty of the Church of Rome. Let us rejoice, then, that this sainted
Pontiff hurled against the Austrian tyrant the anathema on which was
written--"The independence of the Church of God shall be sustained,
though the thrones of princes crumble around her, or though her
ministers are driven to seal their fidelity with death."

CHAPTER V

Fierce he broke forth: "And darest thou then
To beard the lion in his den?
The Douglas in his hall?
And hopest thou hence unscathed to got
No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no!
Up drawbridge, grooms!--ho! warder, ho!
Let the port