BOOK IX.

CHAPTER IX. FREDERIC II. [1237—1239.

 

Affairs of Italy—War in Lombardy—Capture of Padua— Battle of Cortenuova—Affairs of the Eastern Empire—Siege of Brescia—Affairs of Sardinia—Enzio King—Quarrel with the Pope—Frederick’s Second Excommunication — Imputed Blasphemy. 

 

Whilst these transactions occupied the time and thoughts of the Emperor in Germany, the Italian Guelphs prepared to take advantage of his absence. Padua, apparently as Head of the eastern division of the Lombard League, made her Podestà, Marchese Azzo, Commander­in-Chief of the collective forces of the Trevisan march, placing the Paduan carroccio, as the ensign of his dignity, in his guard; even whilst, with genuine democratic mistrust of a military leader, even of one popularly chosen, a Council, composed of sixteen individuals, was appointed to assist him—in other words, to control his authority. Azzo eagerly prepared to subjugate all neighbouring Ghibelines, and, notwithstanding the trammels in which he moved, his success was, in the first instance, correspondent to the hopes of his party. Before Christmas Marcaria was taken, and the greater part of the garrison of Cremona cut to pieces.

But now, the Councillors, joined in command with the Marquess, began to thwart his measures, ultimately proving Ghibelines:—a whimsical illustration of the confusion as well as division of opinion prevailing in towns, and even in families. How the attachment of these individuals to the opposite party chanced to be unknown, does not appear; but unknown it must have been, or they could not have been selected for command against their own faction; no, nor had they even been supposed so lukewarm, as to be open to bribery. When their Ghibelinism was discovered, they were banished to Venice, where the authorities were requested to keep them in confinement; but they, forestalling the sentence, escaped, some to their own castles, others to the Ghibeline army. That army, led by the Romano brothers and Gebhard, Graf von Arnstein—whom Frederic, at his departure, had placed at the head of the German troops left in Italy—was now advancing. Azzo, disencumbered of his Council, boldly encountered the Imperialists, but was defeated with great loss. One strong town was now captured by the victors, another voluntarily opened its gates; the troops of the League dispersed, and the Marquess, finding himself with only his own vassals, cut off from Padua, and hard pressed by Ezzelino, again changed sides. Merely stipulating that his dominions should be respected, he professed himself henceforward a loyal vassal of the Emperor and a friend of the Romano brothers.

This success speedily brought reinforcements to the Ghibeline army, which Ezzelino harangued. He told his hearers that hitherto ignorance, wickedness, disorder, and arbitrary despotism, had, under Guelph domination, superseded law and justice; but that now, together with the sovereignty of their Emperor, these last should be reseated in due supremacy, and he added that, as even in Padua the better disposed citizens desired this change, he was confident of easily gaining possession of that city. The fugitive members of the Council of Sixteen present, corroborated this statement; the Guelph Castellano of Monselice, who had just opened his gates to the Ghibelines, declared that all men longed for emancipation from the tyranny of the Lombard League; and to besiege .Padua was loudly and unanimously decreed.

The Romanos and Arnstein accordingly marched upon the Guelph town, and at once assaulted the walls, trusting to co-operation from within for enabling them to carry it by storm. But in Padua the Guelph faction, as by far the strongest, was in possession of the government. They called citizen and soldiers to arms, and the expected co­operation became impossible; the walls were stoutly defended, and the assailants repulsed. Popular favour is, however, proverbially mutable; and, if the Paduan Ghibelines had, upon the first appearance of their friends, been unable to fulfil the hopes they had awakened, their efforts were not long thus neutralized. So effective was the use made by them of remonstrance, persuasion, promises, threats, and bribes, that the same day saw the Guelph victory gained, the victorious Guelphs deposed, and the authority transferred to their adversaries. The morning after the repulse of the besiegers, a convention was signed, by which, upon condition that neither should the laws be altered, the rights or privileges of the citizens be impaired, nor the taxes be increased, Padua surrendered to the Imperialists.

The Romanos and Arnstein at once made their tri­umphant entry. Ezzelino, as he rode through the gate, took off his helmet, and bending sideways kissed the gate­post, equally to the joy of the townsmen who hailed the act as an expression of good-will, and to the perplexity of those who, whilst recording it, have sought, not very successfully, to find in this kiss a revelation of filial resentment against Padua, for injuries to Ezzelino the Monk, and threats of vengeance. No one dreamt that delight at becoming master of a city, so important through wealth, strength, and locality, might be thus expressed, until Pfister suggested this solution.

Graf Gebhard now took possession of Padua in the name of the Emperor, but wisely left the whole business of addressing the people, arranging the government, &c., to his Italian colleague. Ezzelino’s first measure was to require the Paduans to elect a new Podesta instead of Azzo di Este, to whom, notwithstanding his conversion, he did not choose to intrust an influential town, little to be relied upon. The choice of the citizens naturally fell upon himself; but he, fearing, perhaps, by such an increase of his own power to awaken distrust in the mind of Arnstein, and through him in the Emperor’s, declined the honour. The Paduans persisted, when he proposed an Apulian nobleman as his substitute; whom, as his nominee, they accepted. He thus ably avoided to incur suspicion, whilst virtually retaining the power in his own hands; Padua celebrated the change in her politics and her government with rejoicings, genuine or hypocritical.

Treviso forthwith surrendered to the Imperialists; everything promised further immediate and complete success; and Graf Arnstein hastened to bear the glad tidings to the Emperor.

And now is said to have occurred an extraordinary moral metamorphosis, unaccountable in itself, and unexplained by accompanying circumstances; which the contemporary chroniclers, who avouch it, have so fantastically connected with the kiss to the gate-post, that a strong inclination arises to think the whole story the offspring of their prejudices and fancy. They aver that Ezzelino, who as yet was uncensured for cruelty, now, upon the departure of his German colleague, suddenly broke through the control in which he had previously held his savage propensities, becoming the most ruthlessly sanguinary of tyrants. That Ezzelino was ambitious, despotic, and far from tender­hearted, is certain; that he now treated his father’s enemies, the Paduan Guelphs, harshly, is undeniable; but had the historian had nothing more sanguinary to relate, it would have been a relief to writer and reader; and that the vituperation heaped upon Ezzelino’s memory rests entirely upon hostile Guelph authority, must always be remembered—his own race was extinguished, even before that which he faithfully served.

In the steps he took to clear Padua of Guelphs, Ezzelino not only professed to act solely as the deputed officer of the Emperor, but he assiduously established and strengthened the imperial authority; and, upon the whole, might better be taxed with dissimulation and craft—again qualities then as often admired as blamed—than with unusual cruelty. He began by informing the Paduans that they were accused of disaffection to their new Podesta, Conte Simone, and of caballing with the Guelphs for the recall of the Marquess of Este. He professed disbelief of the charge against a city which the Emperor designed highly to favour and exalt; but requested the individuals most particularly thus calumniated, to refute the imputation by temporarily quitting the city. They complied with his request, when he caused them to be separately seized by his troops, who appear to have remained encamped with­out the walls—why is not explained, but perhaps to display confidence—and, sending the bulk of the captives, as hostages, to Germany and Apulia, he threw the remainder into his own prisons. Their fate terrified all who felt themselves open to the like suspicion, and numbers sought safety in flight. The property of these fugitives was at once confiscated, as that of self-convicted traitors. The Abbot of San Benedetto—a very active Guelph—who, similarly accused, trusting to his ecclesiastical immunities, did not similarly fly, was invited to an amicable conference upon affairs of consequence. Still confident in his position, he obeyed the call; when the Signor di Romano accused him of treasonable correspondence with the Guelphs, arrested, and threw him into prison. The Bishop of Padua, attempting to interpose in behalf of a prelate who belonged to his diocese, was haughtily told, that presumptuous churchmen should no longer defy the Emperor’s Majesty, as heretofore; and he himself, as a fine for his unseemly interference in temporal concerns, and a pledge for his future silent submission, must pay 2000 marks.

These, if tyrannical, not sanguinary transactions, occurred in the month of August; when the Emperor, having vanquished the contumacious Duke of Austria, pacified Germany, and achieved the election of his second son, was returning to Italy at the head of an army. Again trusting to Italian reinforcements, it was small; but amongst the distinguished German warriors it comprised, was his young kinsman and godson, Rudolph of Habsburg; who, since the Mainz Diet, which he had attended, seems to have attached himself to Frederic’s service. Azzo di Este, Giacomo di Carrara, the Conte di San Bonifazio, and other new converts to loyalty, hastened to meet their liege Lord, striving to propitiate his favour, by vehement demonstrations of Ghibeline zeal. Yet amidst all these professions, and endeavours to obliterate the past, still was party spirit, or rather perhaps, hereditary hatred, so virulent, that Frederic could with difficulty prevent Giacomo di Carrara from murdering Ezzelino in his very court.

The subjugation of Lombardy now appeared to be in rapid progress. The Emperor took many castles by force or capitulation, and Mantua surrendered to San Bonifazio upon conditions, the liberality of which astonished the Guelphs. Invited and encouraged by such leniency, Ferrara surrendered to Salinguerra; and now the triumphant monarch, further reinforced by 10,000 Saracens from Luceria, finding himself superior in numbers as in influence to those he considered as revolted vassals, looked hopefully forward to complete success. The Milanese, proportionately alarmed, applied to the Pope for help.

When Frederic, in the winter of the year 1235, refused to prolong the time he had fixed for the assent or dissent of the Lombards to papal arbitration, he was actuated solely by a determination not to suffer rebels to exult in keeping their sovereign, patiently or impatiently, awaiting their pleasure. Even the dissensions that had arisen between him and Gregory relative to divers ecclesiastical appointments in Sicily and Apulia, in which both parties had, it is likely, reasonable grounds for complaint, awakened in his mind no distrust of the aged pontiff’s fairness; and far from wishing to decline, he had lately more than once prayed the Pope to interfere. Whilst carrying on the war in Lombardy during the autumn of the preceding year, 1236, he had entreated the Pope to judge between him and his perverse subjects. Gregory, upon this request, had sent two Cardinals to prevail upon the Lombards to refer the question of their rights to him; but the endeavours of the Cardinals had been altogether fruitless. Again, whilst engaged in Germany, during the spring of this year, 1237, the universally respected Marian Grand­Master had, by the Emperor’s desire, accompanied Pietro delle Vigne to Rome, to urge the Holy Father to decide the controversy; or, should the Milanese still prove refractory, to afford effective Church aid. Again Gregory so far complied with the request, that he earnestly adjured the Lombards to send, by the 6th of June, plenipotentiaries to Mantua, selected by him as the theatre of negotiation. There the Cardinals of Ostia and Sabina were to represent himself as mediator; thither repaired Hermann von Salza, again accompanied by Pietro delle Vigne, to act for the Emperor; and thither the Lombards sent deputies. But little progress towards an accommodation was made during the summer, and the Imperial diplomatists conceived a growing distrust of the intentions of the Papal Court, as appears by a letter from Pietro to the Archbishop of Capua, in which he says, that he and his colleague have to navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, between the artifices of the Cardinals and those of the Lombards. But, however unpromising, the negotiation appears to have still proceeded, until interrupted by the rapid success of the Imperial arms, and the consequent appeal of the Milanese to the Pope for assistance.

Pietro delle Vigne had of course imparted his suspicions to the Emperor, as well as to the Archbishop; and the appeal of the Milanese to Gregory showed a conviction, on their part, of his desire to prevent their subjugation, not likely to remove those suspicions. Frederic was persuaded that the appeal had been answered, by pecuniary aid sent to Milan. Whether this opinion were well or ill founded, certainly at this moment, when the Emperor appeared to be upon the point of reducing Lombardy to vassalage, as of yore, the restoration of peace, by some compromise averting absolute subjection, was the object nearest Gregory’s heart; and the two Cardinals speedily presented themselves as mediators in the Imperial camp. But the pertinacious rejection or evasion of his offers by the Milanese, had by this time exasperated Frederic; and he was resolute not to suffer those who had eluded mediation till their cause was desperate, to baffle, by then accepting it, his almost certain triumph; but, wasting no more time in fruitless concessions, profit by his actual superiority. He refused to admit the Cardinals to his presence, declaring that he recognised no mediator save his Holiness in person. He refused longer to abide by his repeatedly and insolently slighted moderate offers; concluding a letter to the Pope by the declaration, that he no longer acknowledged, as absolute and immutably established law, the Peace of Constance: which having, under altered circumstances, growing out of lapse of years, become prejudicial to the rights of the Empire and the liberties of the Church, required modification.

Gregory, convinced that the absolute subjection of the Lombards would be fatal to the independence of the Papal See, and that the opportunity for a compromise had been slighted, but still shrinking from a rupture with the Emperor, now perceived no chance of averting the evil, unless he could prevail upon the monarch whom he dreaded to undertake a Crusade. To this he therefore vehemently urged him; under the circumstances of course in vain; Frederic pronounced such an expedition impossible until Lombardy should be pacified. The Pope dropped the attempt, and the disappointed Milanese felt that their only hope lay in victory, or, if that were too visionary, in foiling the Emperor’s efforts, until weariness or winter should disband his powerful army. He might find difficulty, they trusted, in bringing such another together; whilst their forces assembled, dispersed, and re-assembled, from day to day. Accordingly, the collected troops of their allies and dependents, to the number of from 16,000 to 20,000 men, under the guidance of their Podesta, Giacomo Tiepolo, son to the Doge of Venice, and of their Archbishop, crossed the Oglio, and encamped amongst brooks and morasses, upon the road by which the Emperor was advancing. The Imperial army was not so superior to theirs as to justify either attacking them, in a position strong as that they had taken up, or leaving them behind whilst besieging Milan. Yet the autumn was passing away; to engage them, to make use of his actual numbers, was to Frederic indispensable; whilst to them every day wasted was a positive gain. Recourse must be had to stratagem, luring them to a more assailable position.

November being far advanced, reports were circulated that the Emperor was about to dismiss his army for the inclement season. Some troops apparently began their homeward march; he himself, with the main body, crossed the river at a somewhat distant point, upon the road to Cremona, as though to take up winter quarters in that city. The Lombards, persuaded that their policy had succeeded, and eager to leave a position which heavy rains had rendered disagreeable and unhealthy, joyfully broke up their camp. Only there, would they endure the strictness of military discipline, and they now hastened in irregular masses, to their several homes. But the Imperialists were not gone. At Cortenuova, Frederick himself, with his troops in battle array, confronted the disorderly Lombards; whilst from every wood, lane, and narrow pass on their way, Imperialists gathered in their rear. The Lombards were taken at disadvantage, but their hearts were stout. They formed themselves as well as circumstances would allow, and fought valiantly, as long as a hope remained that resistance could avail. When convinced that victory was absolutely impossible, they endeavoured to retreat in tolerable order, carrying their highly prized Carroccio safely home. But the rains that had rendered the position amongst the morasses intolerable, had likewise destroyed the roads, and the Carroccio was soon inextricably imbedded in a slough, whilst the victorious Imperialists closely pursued the retreating army. The Milanese now strove at least to spoil their standard for a trophy, by stripping off its decorations, especially the gilt cross surmounting the mast. But the pursuers pressed irresistibly upon them, so harassing them on all sides, that, longer to pause for this purpose, became as impossible as success. Dismay prevailed; dispersion and flight were the only resource. Frederic’s victory was complete. Thousands of the Lombards fell in the battle or in the flight; thousands were made prisoners; baggage, engines of war, and the Carroccio, with its gilt cross, were the victor’s booty. Amongst the captured was the Podesta, triumphantly carried off upon the carefully repaired and redecorated Carroccio; which the victors had ample leisure to extricate from the fatal slough. The battle of Cortenuova was fought upon the 27th of November, 1237.

In this defeat of the Lombards originated the power of the house of Torre, which gave Milan her first Signore perpetuo. Whether Pagano della Torre, had, or had not been a leader in the army, seems doubtful; but, during the flight, as many of the fugitives, as he could collect, he sheltered in his strong castle of Valsassino, which the pursuers had, at the moment, no means of hopefully attacking. Thence, when the heat of pursuit was over, he led them in orderly array to Milan, the only band that could boast such an appearance. He was hailed as the Saviour of his country; and, if he was not immediately placed in authority, his influence was thenceforward unbounded.

The hand of Fredericks fair child, Selvaggia, was, according to the best authorities, the guerdon of Ezzelino’s prowess in this battle; knighthood from the imperial hand, that of Rudolph of Habsburg’s. The Milanese Carroccio was presented to the Romans as a trophy, with an inscription, which flatteringly reminded them, that he whose triumph commemorated, was their Emperor, and as such, Sovereign of the world. The Romans, who had recently again driven Gregory away, and won even Viterbo, usually so devoted to the Popes, to join in their revolt, were, at the moment, in a fit of imperialist republicanism, and celebrated the defeat of the Lombard republicans, with cordial rejoicings; whilst the expelled pontiff, in his helplessness, professed their sentiments. The Venetian Tiepolo was sent, as an important prisoner, into Apulia for safe custody; and, that nothing might be wanting to the satisfaction of Frederic, his young Empress shortly afterwards made him the father of another son. The infant was named Henry, as though to mark the immutable removal of the elder Henry, from the scene of active existence.

The dejection of the Lombard League was commensurate with the exultation of the Ghibelines. The greater number of the confederated cities, hastening to make their submission, were graciously received and pardoned. Milan herself, thus deserted, desponded; and offered far more, than the papal verdict, against admitting which she had so doggedly struggled, had required. She offered, as the price of a full pardon for citizens and city, to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Emperor, lay all her banners at his feet, deliver up, as a fine, all her gold and silver, and equip and support 10,000 men for the Crusade.

How much less would have satisfied Frederic, when he was insisting upon her obedience to that first papal verdict, so favourable to the Lombards, which he himself so reluctantly received, Milan had missed her opportunity, and the Emperor was now to miss his. Exasperated and victorious, he required unconditional surrender. Prayers and remonstrances proved alike unavailing. To all he replied that such absolute submission was indispensable to the Imperial honour; that mercy, the fairest and freest prerogative of sovereignty, was neither to be extorted by insolent defiance, nor bargained for; and he persisted in his demand. From the character of Frederic II, and from what will hereafter be seen of his conduct upon an occasion nearly similar, it may be inferred that he would have received such unconditional submission as a satisfactory expiation, requiting it with the clemency their submitting confederates had already experienced. But the Milanese remembered the severity of the sterner grand­father, Frederic Barbarossa, and unanimously declared that they would die sword in hand, rather than give up their city to be destroyed, themselves to be sacrificed by hunger, misery, the dungeon, and the hangman. To neither of which last, they, however, knew, had Frederic Barbarossa ever subjected their grandfathers.

That the pacification of the country w as again delayed, disappointed the Emperor; but that Milan single-handed, or with Brescia, Piacenza, and Bologna—if excited, as they seemed, by her spirit, they, retracting their recent submission, again united with her—should resist the forces he now hoped to bring against her, he deemed impossible. To Gregory the issue of such a contest appeared equally certain, but with different anticipations. Under any circumstances, the meekest of popes could not but have deprecated such an addition, as the possession of Lombardy, to the power of an Emperor, already master of Germany, Apulia, and Sicily; whilst, between the haughty Gregory and Frederic, new causes of dissension daily arose. One of these, relative to the Latin empire of Constantinople, will require the retrospect of a few years, to be intelligible.

The hostility, or ambition, of the Bulgarian monarch, which the Latin conquerors of the Byzantine empire had not condescended to buy off, pressed heavily upon that feeble state. A common interest had produced an alliance between this semi-barbarian, Roman-Catholic King, and a natural enemy of the Latin Emperor, one of the Greek claimants of the Constantinopolitan crown, Greek in religion, as by birth. This was John Ducas Vatazes, who, having married the eldest daughter and heiress of Theodore Lascaris, had, upon the death of his father-in­law, succeeded to him, both as Emperor of Nicaea, and as pretender to the East-Roman Empire. Vatazes appears to have been a prince well fitted for the high dignity he claimed. During his thirty-three years’ reign he was constantly enlarging his dominions. His fleets commanded the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, assisting to reduce province after province of the old Eastern empire; he occupied, peopled, and cultivated districts that had been laid waste and deserted; he raised agriculture to honour by his example, encouraged every description of industry, and discountenanced luxury. Conjointly with Azan, he, in 1235, had laid siege to the capital of the diminished Latin Empire. Jean de Brienne had hitherto disappointed those who had purchased his services with an Imperial throne; having apparently considered that throne as the recompense of past toils, and also a place of rest after them. But the imminence of the danger aroused him. The energies of his active years reviving, by his daring courage and indefatigable exertions, he successfully defended the city; and then, audaciously sallying, defeated the repulsed besiegers. Constantinople was rescued; but more than this, with his deficient means, he was unable to do; and despatched his imperial ward, son­in-law, and successor, Baldwin II, to solicit aid from Western Europe.

The Imperial petitioner’s first visit was to the Pope. The maintenance of a Latin prince upon the Constantinopolitan throne, was, to Gregory, identical with the maintenance of some degree of orthodoxy in the Eastern Empire. He received Baldwin kindly, and furnished him with earnest recommendations to all European sovereigns. At the Court of the pious Lewis IX, such papal protection was most efficient. The King of France did not, indeed, judge it necessary to undertake in person the relief of the Byzantine Emperor; but he warmly encouraged his chivalry to engage in the adventure. Baldwin, during this journey, recovered the county of Namur and the French fiefs of the Courtenays, from a sister who had inherited them. With this support to his promises, whilst his invitations were royally countenanced, he raised something like an army, at the head of which he set hopefully forward for Constantinople. Upon the road he met information of Emperor John’s death; which might be expected, by making Baldwin himself the Emperor in whose service they were engaged, to enhance his influence over these volunteers. But, no! To the French knights, the reputation of Brienne, a French Emperor, had been the incentive to the enterprise; without him, it was uninteresting; and they dispersed. Baldwin renewed his exertions; and his promises, now made in his own name, ere long collected another band of adventurous warriors, the guidance of whom he committed to Jean de Bethune; remaining himself at the French Court, to obtain, if possible, more effective assistance. Bethune led his troop into Italy, there to find conveyance to their destination; but met with obstacles that might have been anticipated.

Vatazes of Nicaea, having lost the wife to whom he owed his empire, had, as far back as 1233, prior to attempting; in alliance with Azan of Bulgaria, to inforce his claim to the Byzantine empire, married an illegitimate, infant daughter of Frederic II’s—then growing up at her consort’s court—and had offered to hold his empire in vassalage of the Holy Roman Empire, if assisted by his Imperial father-in-law to recover it from the Latin conquerors. Even independently of such an offer, Frederic naturally wished success and augmentation of dominion to his daughter’s husband; and, though he had not assisted him in his attack upon Constantinople, probably in deference to the Pope, he could not be expected to facilitate the passage of troops, designed to support the actual occupant of the throne, against his son-in-law, the alleged rightful heir. He seems, nevertheless, still influenced by anxiety to avoid a rupture with the Pope, to have again shrunk from openly assisting the schismatic Greek against his orthodox Latin rival; whence, probably, the strange plea, upon which he interdicted the embarkation of Baldwin’s auxiliaries, at” any port of the Holy Roman Empire or the Sicilies. This was, that to the deceased Emperor John, should succeed, not his son-in-law, Baldwin, who had been set aside when John was elected, but John’s natural heirs, his sons; who, as half-brothers of the late Empress Yolanthe, were King Conrad’s uncles. Until the conflicting pretensions of Baldwin and the Briennes should, upon investigation, be decided, no succours must, the Emperor alleged, be given to either party. He inforced his prohibition by causing Bethune to be arrested on his way to Venice, and kept in confinement.

Gregory, of course, wholly disallowed this plea, and thundered his indignation against the assistance, which the interruption of Bethune’s expedition gave a schismatic Greek against a Roman Catholic sovereign; insisting, more vehemently than before, upon Frederic’s instantly undertaking a Crusade. Frederic retorted, that the Pope himself prevented the organization of a Crusade, both by withholding the support of the Church from him in his struggle against rebels, fautors of heresy; and by persistence in acting as the Head of a Church, to wit, the Constantinopolitan, that disowned him. The person most interested upon the present occasion, Baldwin, by the advice of Lewis IX, hastened from the French to the Papal Court, to implore, his fiery nonagenarian protector, more forbearance towards Frederic; since the dissensions between Pope and Emperor produced most of the difficulties impeding a Crusade, as well as the support of his menaced throne. Frederic meanwhile, conscious of having discovered too much partiality, released Bethune, who immediately rejoined his troop. But at Venice, whilst preparing to embark, he was attacked by severe illness and died; whereupon the whole band, which had waited patiently during his captivity, at once dispersed.

The affairs of the Eastern Empire, if dividing the attention of both Frederic and Gregory, did not interrupt the struggle going on in Lombardy. There it was now to be tried, whether the inflexibility of Frederic towards the Milanese was—not, after the provocation he had received from them, surprising or unjust, but—judicious or rash. That the Lombards—whom the most Guelph of all con­temporary writers, Salimbeni, thus describes, “They say one thing and do another; are crooked and slippery in their ways, and, like eels, the tighter you grasp them, the quicker they glide away”—could not be reduced to their former subjection, until Milan was thoroughly disabled for resistance, was indisputable. To incapacitate Milan, was therefore the object; and could the Emperor have raised an army sufficient to besiege her and her three allies simultaneously, keeping it together long enough to carry them, if the attempt to storm failed, by blockade, his presumed plan of conquest and clemency would, indisputably, have been more effectual than negotiation. But even to assemble such an army he knew difficult, and found impossible—mercenaries not being as yet numerous enough, apparently, to serve as more than auxiliaries to the main force. The princes with the Emperor, then earnestly exhorted Brescia, Piacenza, and Bologna, to submit to their liege Lord, in confident reliance upon the clemency which they had already experienced. But these admonitions were scornfully rejected; the three cities avowing their resolution to stand or fall with Milan. All four must be reduced, and the question was with which to begin. Bold strategy might have concentrated all force upon the main object of conquering Milan, whose fall would have included that of her dependent allies. More timid counsels recommended insulating the most formidable of the four, by first subjugating the feebler confederates. This scheme is said to have been Ezzelino’s, and by his advice, Brescia was selected to be first attacked.

As soon as the expected reinforcements from Germany arrived, accompanied, it must be supposed, rather than led, as some authors state, by the eleven-years-old Conrad, these measures were put in execution, and upon the 3rd of August, 1238, the Imperial army sat down before Brescia. Both attack and defence were vigorous, but early did the Emperor begin to meet with disappointment. He relied much upon the skill of a Spanish engineer, whom he had engaged to plan, construct, and manage his battering machinery; and the Spaniard, being taken by the besieged in a sally, and owing no allegiance to his Imperial employer, was easily bribed or frightened into dedicating his abilities to the service of his captors. The siege was protracted; on both sides exasperation daily increased, and gave rise to deeds of savage ferocity, which, as usual, each party accused the other of beginning. It should seem, however, that the Brescians led the way, by fastening their prisoners outside the walls, in places which were either peculiarly threatened, or which they conceived to be the weakest; so that the besiegers could not even endeavour to batter them down, without mangling or killing their own friends. The indignant Frederic retaliated, affixing his Brescian prisoners upon the most exposed parts of his movable towers; and, although on both sides pains were taken to avoid injuring their imperilled, captive comrades, numbers on both sides were hurt and many crushed. The besieged, nevertheless, profited by their brutal device; inasmuch as the caution, thus rendered indispensable in conducting the attack, so delayed the progress of the besiegers, that the town still defied them, when the heavy rains of October both impeded their operations, and made their camp unhealthy. Frederic found himself under the mortifying necessity of concluding an armistice with Brescia, preparatory to raising the siege and putting his army into winter quarters.

During the siege and the preceding deliberations, Guelphs and Ghibelines had, in divers parts of northern and central Italy, been engaged in hostilities detrimental to both; but without influential result. The most important of these affairs was an attempt by the Marquess of Este, who had again renounced his momentary loyalty, and Giacomo di Carrara, upon Padua. It was foiled. Ezzelino, chancing to be in the city at the time, drove out the Guelphs, who had got in by surprise, and took Azzo’s ally, Giacomo, prisoner. Him he compelled to ransom himself by the surrender of Carrara, but could not gain any further advantage over the Marquess.

The effort, which the Emperor about this time made, to gain the wealthy and powerful republican Genoa to his side, was baffled, in a mode, whimsically characteristic of the social and political state of these Italian cities. He despatched envoys thither, who were well received by the Council. They declaimed upon the great happiness and prosperity enjoyed by all the Emperor’s subjects, under his wise and paternal government; pointed out the great benefits which the commerce of Genoa must needs derive from a more intimate connexion with his dominions, and finally delivered the letters intrusted to them. These were read, found to contain an invitation to the Genoese to take, as of yore, the long-omitted oaths of allegiance and homage to the Emperor. The majority of the Council—neutrals upon this occasion joining the Ghibelines—inclined to comply with the proposal; one most repugnant to the Guelph minority. But in resources for preventing measures which they disliked, that minority was not deficient. The business being communicated to their faction out of doors, a party of Guelph citizens entered the Council chamber, clamourously asserting the incompetence of this body to decide upon a measure so momentous, which must, they said, be submitted to the General Assembly. To this encroachment upon the Council’s authority, no opposition was offered. The General Assembly was convened, and the Emperor’s letters were delivered to the appointed officer, to be by him read aloud. But even here there was danger of their being favourably received, which a blunder of the official reader—whether preconcerted or not—eluded. The official reader read a requisition to take the oath of fealty and subjection, instead of that of fealty and homage, the lightest form of vassalage, viz., that of one sovereign prince to another, his suzerain for some part of his dominions. The very idea of subjection exasperating the haughty republican citizens, to no explanation would they listen, but tumultuously rejected the proposal.

Still, although Frederic suspected Gregory of encouraging the resistance of the remnant of the Lombard League, and Gregory him of having instigated the last revolt of the Romans, no breach had taken place. The Pope professed displeasure at the obstinacy of the Lombards; he laid no positive or serious offence against the Church to the Emperor’s charge; and negotiations were still pending, conducted for the Emperor by his able Grand-Judge, Taddeo da Suessa and the Bishop of Reggio, and on the other side, by the Holy Father in person. But new incidents occurred, further to entangle the subjects under discussion, and supply Gregory with an excuse, to himself, as well as to the world, for indulging his anti-imperialist inclinations, and openly countenancing the Lombards.

The first of these related to the Holy Land. The ten years’ truce that Frederic had concluded with the Sultans, was upon the point of expiring, and he saw no prospect of being early at liberty to revisit his Oriental kingdom, or able, with a fair prospect of advantage, to resume hostilities there. He therefore sent orders to renew the armistice for another ten years. This was in Gregory’s eyes a grievous sin; the evil consequences of which he endeavoured to counteract, by the immediate preaching of a crusade. But he could find no sovereign prince, no warrior of note, willing to undertake the command; he had no means of providing a fleet for the conveyance of even the small band that he did excite to attempt the expedition; his Crusaders proceeded by land, and nearly all perished by the way.

Then the old dispute concerning the suzerainty of Sar­dinia revived. The kingdom of Barasone had long since broken up into the original judgeships, the number of which was, however, speedily reduced by intermarriages of heirs and heiresses. In 1221, Benedetta, by marriage Princess of Massa, inherited the judgeship of Cagliari, and, in fervour of Guelphism disclaiming her vassalage to Pisa, declared that she held immediately of the Pope, in whom she acknowledged an authority much superior to what vassal princes usually owned in a liege lord; further decreeing that, in failure of lineal heirs, the judgeship of a reigning prince or princess must revert, as a lapsed fief, to the Holy See. To Benedetta succeeded her son; but at his death, the case, for which she had provided, occurred; when Ubaldo Visconti, Judge of Arborea, instead of suffering the judgeship to lapse, according to Benedetta’s law, to Rome, possessed himself of Cagliari. The Pope had not interfered; and Ubaldo soon afterwards sought and obtained the hand of Adelasia, Judge (alias Countess) of both Gallura and Torre. Being thus really Lord of the island, Ubaldo sought to reconcile Gregory to his usurpation of Cagliari, by proposing to renounce all homage to Pisa or Genoa, and hold the other three judgeships like Cagliari, in immediate vassalage of the Roman See. Adelasia assisted this endeavour to propitiate the pontiff, by adopting, in her own principalities, Benedetta’s law, providing for the default of lineal heirs. These measures answered their politic purpose; Gregory assenting to Ubaldo’s proposal. But Pisa did not tamely submit to be thus deposed; and civil war distracted, not only the island, where many preferred the powerful commercial city, as Lord Paramount, to the Pope, but Pisa itself, where the Visconti supported the interests of their kinsman.

With none of these transactions had the Emperor in any way interfered, and this was the state of Sardinian affairs, A.D. 1237. But in the course of the following year Ubaldo Visconti died; his son, evidently by a previous marriage, succeeded to Arborea and Cagliari, and Adelasia, a childless widow, again, as a sovereign princess, became “ he cynosure of neighbouring,” and eke of distant, “eyes.” The Pope recommended to her favour a kinsman of his own, whom she seemed disposed to accept, when the Emperor suddenly appeared in the lists, on behalf of his illegitimate son, Enzio. The proper name of this candidate for Adelasia’s hand and principalities was Henry; Enzio being the Italian version of Heinz, itself the German affectionate diminutive of Heinrich; but so generally has Enzio been adopted as the name of this son of Frederic’s, being even Latinized into Enzius, that by no other is he recognised. Enzio had scarcely seen twenty summers, but he was already esteemed one of the most gallant warriors in his father’s armies, and was reputed to surpass all his contemporaries in beauty of person. These qualifications, added to his imperial blood, however deteriorated by the bar sinister, outweighed in the eyes of Adelasia both the papal recommendation, and her own Guelph prepossessions. In October of this same year 1238, she married Enzio, and they assumed the title of King and Queen of Sardinia. The Emperor’s troops enabled the bridegroom speedily to reduce the remainder of the island under their sceptre; though upon what ground Adelasia claimed her stepson’s heritage does not appear. Enzio then did homage to Pisa for his kingdom, and Pisa, delighted thus to recover her mesne suzerainty, gladly sanctioned the whole transaction, to which only the Visconti and Gherardeschi objected.

Gregory’s wrath was now uncontrollable, and sternly he called upon the Emperor to redeem the promise, pledged in the hands of Innocent III, A.D. 1213, to assist the Holy See in gaining possession of Matilda’s gift. Sardinia and Corsica, he observed, not only formed part of that gift, but were, in every way, Church property; being likewise included in the donations of Constantine and of Pepin, besides falling naturally under the sovereignty of the Holy See upon their recovery from the Mohammedans. He ended with the remark, that he was nowise minded to suffer encroachments upon the rights and pos­sessions of the Holy See. Frederic replied, that the Holy Roman Empire had been robbed of those islands during an unfortunate period of weakness, and that his coronation oath bound him, as the whole world knew, to recover for the Empire all that had been unjustly rent away; which oath, he was nowise minded to break. He further requested the Pope to recollect that Sardinia had heretofore been disposed of, by Frederic I.

This was not an answer calculated to appease Gregory; and eagerly he availed himself of the plea afforded him by Enzio’s assumption of the regal title, and seizure of the judgeships not his wife’s own, openly to succour the Lombards against the Emperor. He was the better able to do so effectively, because, at this epoch, again master of Rome and the Roman territories. He forbade the vassals of the Church to yield the Emperor any assistance; and he sent Cardinal Gregorio di Montelonga to Milan, there publicly, in the Pope’s name, to sanction Lombard insurgency. To a new embassy, by w hich Frederic, regretting perhaps the unconciliatory retort provoked by the Pope’s attack, again endeavoured to allay his anger, he roughly declared that the Emperor must either submit his differences with the Lombards absolutely and unconditionally to his decision, or else conclude a truce with them for four years, and during this period lead a Crusade for the relief of the Holy Land. And now, as upon the occasion of the former quarrel, he addressed charges against the Emperor to all European princes, lay or ecclesiastical, sovereign or vassal. Still Frederic sought to avoid a rupture with the intractable old pontiff; and, although he did not quite submit to his requisitions, wrote, in reply to this rebuff, that, in reliance upon the speedy restoration of peace, through the paternal intervention of his Holiness, he was making arrangements for the proposed Crusade. With the same object of propitiating Gregory, he, notwithstanding his individual interest in Vatazes, now granted to Baldwin, with the small army of mercenaries, which, by selling the most valued of the relics that Constantinople, despite Frank spoliation, still possessed, he had managed to raise, a free passage through his dominions. Frederic perhaps thought that Baldwin’s means of keeping these mercenaries in his service, might be exhausted before Vatazes, then occupied in feuds with other Greek princes, would be at leisure to prosecute his claim to the Eastern Empire.

The year 1238 seems to have elapsed, without the Emperor’s taking any new steps towards the projected reduction of the four, still unsubdued, Lombard cities. Such breaks or pauses in apparently well-matured plans of military movements, often surprise the mediaeval historian, and can be explained only by the very imperfect command which the mightiest feudal sovereigns possessed over the troops—save a few mercenaries—upon whom the execution of those plans depended. Subjecting the whole of Sardinia to Enzio seems to have been the single warlike operation of the year.

In January, 1239, Frederic, accompanied by Isabella, joined Ezzelino at Padua: where he was received with honours, partly personal to himself, the admired and revered monarch, the beloved father-in-law of his host, partly marking the relation borne by Lombard cities to the Holy Roman Empire. Ezzelino, with his whole chivalry, rode forth to meet him; all the citizens ranged in lines, within and without the gates, awaited him; and the fairest Paduan dames, in costly attire, and mounted on their well trained palfreys, joined the imperial train, pressing as near as might be to the Emperor’s person. The splendidly decorated Carroccio, of course, formed part of the burgher display; and, as Frederic approached, one of the citizens, named Enrico Testa, stationed upon it for the purpose, lowering the flag staff towards the sovereign, said: “Most mighty Lord, Padua offers you her standard, that you, through the power of the crown upon your head, may maintain law and justice within her walls.” Frederic was highly gratified, and expressed his satisfaction by eulogizing the valiancy of the sons, the beauty, grace, and modesty of the daughters, of Padua. He spent two months in the city, and gained the hearts of a large part of the population, but failed in all his endeavours to win back Marchese Azzo to his allegiance. A cordial reconciliation between the houses of Este and Romano appears to have been so thoroughly impossible, that, to win the first, he must have rejected the husband of his daughter.

If herein the Emperor was disappointed, when, amongst the martial bands surrounding him, he beheld Germans, Burgundians, Lombards, Apulians, Sicilians and Saracens, all from his own wide-spreading dominions, he looked confidently forward to the early subjugation of the still refrac­tory cities. His victory over Gregory in their former war naturally leading him to undervalue papal enmity. But by bitter experience he was now to learn—too late—the power of the papal weapons, excommunication and interdict, over the minds of his contemporaries.

Padua proclaimed her pride and joy in her Emperor’s visit by a grand festival; a sort of tournament, apparently, including, with tilting and other chivalrous sports for the nobles, gymnastic games for those of humbler condition; appointed to be held upon the 20th of March, being Palm Sunday. When the holy rites of the morning had been performed, Frederic, from the raised throne, upon which, with his young and beautiful Empress by his side, he sat, animated by congenial feelings, and looking cheerfully on, adjudged prizes, distributed, probably, by Isabella; whilst Pietro delle Vigne harangued the citizens upon the Emperor’s impartial justice, and especial good will to Padua. All was joyous exultation; save that a few strangers, from neighbouring Guelph cities, were heard to murmur, in tones of suppressed but angry exultation; “To the prosperity-intoxicated tyrant, this day of rejoicing shall prove a day of mourning, for in Rome at this very moment, does the Holy Father consign him to Satan.” The words were reported, and, though judged a mere burst of impotent malice, cast a shade of gloom over the pleasures of the festival.

The heralds of evil were well informed. Gregory had strengthened himself. He had learned that Venice, irritated by the detention of the son of her Doge in captivity, was, for the first time, not indisposed to join the confederation against the Emperor. To secure her alliance, as well as that of Genoa, the Pope actively mediated peace between those, ever rival, commercial republics; and, as both chanced just then to be weary of unprofitable hostilities, succeeded in arranging equitable terms. Feeling himself thus supported, he avowed his intimate connexion with the Lombard League, and gave vent to his long accumulating wrath.

He now again publicly accused the Emperor, laying ten several crimes to his charge: viz., 1st, Having, contrary to his oath, excited rebellion in Rome against the Pope and Cardinals, and violated the rights and liberties of the Roman Church; 2ndly, having obstructed the Cardinal­Bishop of Palestrina’s journey, upon Church business, to the Albigenses; 3rdly, having kept benefices vacant, usurped church lands in the Sicilies, imposed taxes upon ecclesiastics, and dragged them before lay tribunals that sentenced them to exile, imprisonment, and even death; 4thly, having withheld property belonging to the Templars and Hospitalers; 5thly, having ill-used, banished, and plundered adherents of the Church; 6thly, having prevented the rebuilding of a church at Sora, favoured Saracens, and established them amongst Christians, to the inthralment of the said Christians and the defiling of their faith; 7thly, having taken, and still detaining as prisoners, a son of the King of Tunis, who was journeying to Rome, there to receive baptism, and also one Pietro, a Roman citizen, envoy from the King of England; 8thly, having subjected Sardinia and other possessions of the Roman See to his own crown; 9thly, having prevented, and still preventing, the deliverance of the Holy Land and the security of the Latin Empire of the East: the tenth and worst offence was—contempt of the papal decision between himself and the Lombards.

For these manifold sins, Gregory, upon Palm Sunday, the very day of the Paduan festival, fulminated a sentence of excommunication against the Emperor, Frederic II, delivering over his body to Satan, thus, he averred, to afford his soul a chance of salvation. He laid any and every place where he might sojourn, under interdict, and deprived of their benefices, even degrading from Holy Orders, every ecclesiastic who should say mass before him, or hold any intercourse with him. This sentence he reiterated upon the following Maunday Thursday; and commanded its publication throughout Christendom. He further proclaimed a Crusade against the Emperor, with all the indulgences earned by taking the Cross for the deliverance or the defence of the Holy Land, permitting priests to bear arms, as in a war for the protection of the Church. This Crusade the Mendicant Orders were commissioned to preach; and in the course of a single day a large Guelph army was thus raised against the enemy of the Pope.

Intelligence of these violent measures reached Padua early in April. Thereupon a general assembly of the citizens was convened, at which Pietro delle Vigne again harangued them. Taking two lines of Ovid as a sort of text, without which, in those days, oratory seemed impossible, he first demonstrated to his audience, that Frederic II was the most magnanimous, just, and clement Emperor, who had reigned, since Charlemagne; and then enlarged upon the wrongs he had endured from the Pope. When he had concluded, Frederic, in imperial array, rose from his throne, and thus addressed the assembly: “Had the sentence of excommunication been justly denounced against me, I should be ready to make any and every atonement. But precipitately, and without adequate grounds, has the Pope inflicted this immoderate chastisement upon me; and doubly therefore does it wound and offend me.” To the Pope the Emperor made no direct reply or appeal; but, when the Bishops of Wurzburg, Worms, Vercelli, and Parma, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff announced to him his excommunication, together with the grounds upon which it was launched, he summoned the Archbishops of Palermo and Messina, the Bishops of Mantua, Cremona, Novara, and Lodi, with several Abbots, some even of those especial champions of the Papacy, the Dominicans and Franciscans, to hear his vindication point by point. His answer was:

To the first charge: that, instead of instigating rebellion in Rome, he had repeatedly assisted the Pope to quell it. To the second; that he had not taken the Cardinal prisoner, though he might justly have done so, since his Eminence had, in the Pope’s name, encouraged the Lombards in their contumacious resistance to his lawful authority. To the third; that he knew of no benefices kept vacant, or church property seized; that ecclesiastics had never been taxed as such, but merely required to pay imposts due upon lands which they held; that no ecclesiastic had been imprisoned, banished, or slain; unless the Pope should mean such as, taken in the commission of crime, had been delivered over to ecclesiastical tribunals for punishment, or, upon conviction of high treason, expelled the country; or, the case of ecclesiastics murdered by ecclesiastics, as was the Abbot of Venusio by a monk—an instance of deficient discipline in the Church, the recollection of which was very painful to the Emperor. To the fourth; that no property had been taken from the Templars or Hospitalers, except what they had occupied in contravention to the law of the land. To the fifth; that no adherents of the Pope had been deprived of office or property; but some, guilty of heinous crimes, had emigrated. To the sixth; that, if the Pope meant an old church at Luceria, which had recently fallen through decay, the only one he knew of, he would rebuild it; and that his object, in collecting and settling the Saracens at Luceria, had been to prevent injury, either to Christians or to the purity of the Christian faith. To the seventh; that Abdelasis, who had fled from the persecution of his uncle, the King of Tunis, was living at perfect liberty in Apulia, expressing, much to the Emperor’s regret, no wish for baptism; and that the Roman Pietro was simply a criminal, who had brought a letter of recommendation, surreptitiously obtained, from King Henry. To the eighth; that the papal claim to the territories in question had never been established. To the ninth; that all genuine Crusaders were kindly received and supported by him, the Pope alone preventing him from undertaking a Crusade in person; that Baldwin and his troops had been allowed a free passage, and only such persons as, under pretence of preaching a crusade, disturbed the public tranquillity, had been interfered with. To the tenth; that he had thrice submitted his differences with the Lombards to the Pope’s arbitration; that the Lombards had disregarded two verdicts of his Holiness, who had failed to pronounce a third, rejecting the reasonable conditions annexed by him to the reference; wherefore, further sub­mission to a future, unknown award, would be alike hazardous and degrading.

Although these answers, like the accusations, rest upon a mere ipse dixit,—besides the duty of bringing proof lying, in the first place, upon the accuser—the Emperor’s denials are more specific than the Pope’s allegations, except in regard to the treatment of ecclesiastics; and here, the complaint being of what he had made the law of the land, Frederic’s only alternative was, either to avow and justify his laws, thus really defying the acknowledged Spiritual Head of Christendom, or to shelter himself under vague assertions.

This vindication of his conduct the Emperor gave to the prelates, to lay before the Pope. He transmitted it to the young King of the Romans, when announcing his excommunication; bidding him make both known to the Diet, over which he was then presiding at Eger. He wrote letters to the Cardinals, praying them to influence the Pope to a more equitable line of conduct; to the Romans, rebuking them for suffering such an insult to themselves, as the excommunication of their Emperor in their presence. He addressed epistles to all the Kings and Princes of Christendom, breathing impassioned complaints of the Pope’s injustice towards himself, and unaccountable partiality to the heretical Milanese; whilst announcing his own intention to follow the example of his predecessors, by convoking an Ecumenic Council, whose duty it would be to reform the abuses that disfigured the Church, more especially the papal government; and that might, if so pleased, even give the Christian world a worthier Head.

Shortly afterwards, Frederic put forth a sort of appeal to Christendom, at large, in which he accused Gregory of ambition, tyranny, rapacity, avarice, and intemperance; and (reviving the pseudo-Heresy of Arnold of Brescia) the clergy, in general, of abandoning the example of lowliness, set by the Saviour and his Apostles, to revel in wealth, power, and voluptuous pleasures.

Gregory took this appeal as a challenge, and an epistolary war ensued, the letters being addressed, not to each other, but to Christendom. On both sides, the bitterness, as might be expected, daily increased. The Pope of course denied the imputations, taxing his accuser, whom he designated as the harbinger of Anti-Christ, with calumny and heresy. And now he brought forward the well-known charge against Frederic, that, amongst other horrible blasphemies, he was in the habit of saying: the world had been duped by three impostors, Moses, Christ, and Mohammed, of whom, the first and the last, died in honour, the other, the second, the death of a malefactor. Frederic, in his rejoinder, distinctly denied ever having uttered the blasphemies imputed to him, and, in refutation of the charge of heresy, adds his profession of faith, which includes all the fundamental doctrines common to the different Christian Churches, but, by silent implication, denies the infallibility of the Pope, and takes no notice of transubstantiation, and some other dogmas peculiar to the Church of Rome. This paper might tempt a Protestant to consider Frederic, as the harbinger rather of Wicliffe and Luther, than of Anti-Christ—functions, in the eyes of bigoted Romanists, perhaps, identical.

And here a few words must be said concerning the blasphemous jest with which this Emperor is thus charged, and which was presently improved by rumour into his writing a book, entitled De tribus Impostoribus. Later writers have so identified the imputed spoken jest with this book, that the general accusation has been held substantiated by its existence. But critical investigation has proved that the book was not written till long after Frederic’s death, and ascribes it, upon seemingly sufficient grounds, to the notorious Aretino. This supposed proof being thus completely annihilated, our inquiry relates to the blasphemous words alone. With regard to these, Frederic’s denial and Gregory’s assertion must be weighed against each other; adding to either scale the known character of accuser and accused: the bigotry and impetuosity that long blinded the Pope to Magister Conrad’s acceptance of accusation as irrefragable proof of guilt on the one side; the lively, imaginative disposition, and social, though remarkably temperate, habits of the Emperor, inducing a fear that his conversation might not be exempt from the unseemly levity upon serious subjects, so general amongst troubadours on the other. Can these latter qualities be esteemed sufficient to convict Frederic of the odious hypocrisy, without which such blasphemy, and such a profession of faith, could not possibly both emanate from the same mind? It may be added, that Dante, who was born so near his time as to render him all but contemporary authority, i.e., A.D. 1265, and who places Frederic amongst the sufferers for heresy, makes no allusion to the blasphemy in question;—and with respect to heresy, his very profession of faith, sufficient to most Protestants, would, by the Pope, probably by most Romanists, be held to establish the charge. Moreover, these same words have been imputed to a different speaker, viz., to a French Professor of Theology, named Etienne de Tournay, who is averred (somewhat incredibly) to have pronounced them not jocosely after dinner, but dogmatically, and in fact ex cathedra as part of a lecture; and to have been duly punished upon the spot, by a fit of apoplexy; from which he, indeed, recovered, but with loss of memory so complete, that he had to learn the Lord’s prayer over again.