their iniquous fentences and barbarous mandates have often been but too well obeyed *. If the objects of their refent

ment

1034, Olderic, an abbé in that place, propofed it to the council, as a new remedy against those who would not peaceably submit to the church. Gregory VII. frequently used this cenfure. France was laid under interdicts in the reigns of Philip, Robert, Lewis VII. &c.: Germany frequently fubjected to them during the contentions between the Popes and emperors: England in the days of John for more than fix years. Normandy was laid under a general interdict, which was facredly obferved for feven months, because Richard king of England had built a fort on a piece of ground which belonged to the church. The city ef Rome itself was treated in the fame manner by Adrian IV. Denmark by Clement III, and Boniface VIII. Sweden by Leo X. the Venetians and Florentines by Clement V. as were the Venetians again by Sixtus IV. and Paul V. which laft produced very great commotions in the republic, and was like to have ended in a general revolution. Various other inftances may be found in history, too long to enumerate. Every degree of authority from the highest to the loweft in the Romish church have approved and confirmed fuch fentences; of which it may be fufficient here to mention the authority of the fourth general council of Lateran, which appointed all thofe, who had engaged to go to the holy war and drew back, to be excommunicated, and their eftates to be put under an interdict: and it farther ordained, as the council of Lyons fome time after did, that all Christian princes, who were at war, fhould make peace, or at least a truce of four years, and that fuch as refufed fhould be constrained by excommunications and interdicts; and in the 58th canon of the fame council the manner in which an interdict is to be observed was prefcribed. Such fentences, being directly contrary to the peace of civil fociety, afford another proof of the feditious and turbulent principles of that church.

Almost all the Papal bulls of excommunication against crowned heads contain also clauses of the import, and to the effects, above mentioned. Gregory VII, after anathematizing Henry and all his adherents, declared all the princes and members of the empire freed from the oath they had taken to him, forbidding them to have any communication with him; at the fame time exciting them to chufe another emperor: accordingly, having chofen Rodolphus in his place, the Pope approved of the election, and sent him a crown with this motto:

Petra dedit Petro, Petrus, diadema Rodolpho.

This produced the most unhappy divifions, and bloody wars between the rival powers; and afterwards between the father and the fon, whom the Pope at laft firred up and armed against the Emperor, after fulminating a third and a fourth excommunication against him: to the unnatural rebellion, the highest treachery was added; fo that the poor aged prince, haraffed without end, betrayed and deferted on all hands, fell a facrifice to papal wrath, and to Popish perfidy and inhumanity, and became a pitiful spectacle of fallen dignity:

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ment have escaped falling an inftant facrifice to it, and, overcome by a series of infults and dangers, they have at

any

being turned out of his throne, and ftript of his imperial ornaments by the violent hands of his own fervants, at the command of a fon whom he had ever kindly ufed and tenderly loved; who reckoned themselves acquitted from every obligation of duty, and indemnified in all they did by the authority of the impoftor at Rome. After they had robbed him of his crown and treasures, he was even deprived of bread; being reduced to the hard neceffity of begging a canonicate from the Bishop of Spire whofe cathedral had been founded and endowed by his father's liberality, and his own: but this small favour was denied, the Bishop telling him that be durft not grant it without the permission of the Pope. Having escaped from his keepers he fled to Liege, where he ended Eis days in the year 1106. Thus did a great monarch who had reigned more than 40 years, who had, at the head of his armies, fought 62 battles, in which he was almost always victorious, die degraded, in poverty and exile. Nor was he fuffered to reft even in the grave: having been respectfully inteired at Liege, ́the fon, incenfed at the kindness shown by the inhabitants to the deceased, obliged them to difinter the body, and deliver it to him, which he kept for five years at Spire without burial, because of the excommunication. The fame emperor, in confequence of the execration of the Pope, had often been in great hazard of lofing his life by confpiracies and affaffination. One day in the church a man had raised a large stone to the roof above the place where the emperor was at prayers, with a defign to tumble it upon his head; but, at that inftant, the traitor fell down, together with the ftone, before the emperor, and was killed upon the spot. The English hiftory prefents us with incidents and revolutions, no lefs memorable than the foregoing, in the cafe of King John, tớ which that of Frederick II. Lewis IV. Bliflaus, &c. might be added: but one example of this kind may ftand inftead of all, as the fpirit and principles of Popery have operated in a fimilar manner, and produced nearly the fame effects in all ages and nations. If the Papal bulls have not always had the fame mif. chievous effects, nor these bold attempts upon the rights of fovereigns, and the independence and peace of nations been attended with an equal degree of fuccefs, this has been owing to no want of will or intention in their authors; they have not always found minions or defperadoes equally ready to fly at their biðding, and execute their infernal orders; though they have feldom wanted a strong party to fecond their views. Even princes have been found weak or wicked enough to undertake their drudgery, and become the ftaff in their hand, and the rod of their indignation, for correcting and enflaving their neighbours, and themselves at the fame time.

It is faid that fubjects are authorized not only to depofe but to murder their fovereigns: if they have not exprefsly commanded this, they have often, in their bulls injoined what amounts to the fame thing-to refift them, to make war upon them, and root them out. When King John was excommunicated, his kingdoms were given away to the king of France, and his fucceffors, and

accepted

any time applied for favour, the terms of reconciliation have proved more intolerable than all they had before either fuffered or feared: by the moft humiliating ceremonies*, the basest and most abject fubmiffions and conceffions †,

and

accepted too; and all the faithful were exhorted to take the crofs and affift in that holy design against the declared enemy of God and the church. But that murder and affaffination have been plainly taught, practifed, and approved by the church of Rome, may fall in to be noticed afterwards. He f Hift. de l'Emp. liv. ii. ch. 9. Iunet's Hift. of the English Church, vol. ii, ch. 21, et 22. Hift. du Droit Ecclef. Fr. tomei. p. 351, 426, etc.

• Emperors, in their interviews with the Popes, have not been excufed from the ceremony of kissing the foot, and prostrating themselves before them; and fome of them have attended them as their lacqueys and foorboys, leading their horfes, and with great devotion holding the stirrup while they mounted. We are told of one of those haughty defpots who expreffed great displeasure, because the emperor Atepped fhort, and kissed his knee instead of his foot. Frederick, after a war of fixteen years, faw himself constrained to make peace with the Pope, and meeting at Venice, at the door of the church of St. Mark, in the prefence of the fenate and people of Venice, kneeled dówn, adored him in the usual manner, and asked pardon of his perfecutor; at which time the Luciferian prelate is faid to have fet his foot on the neck of the emperor, repeating the fe words: Thou shalt tread upon the serpent and the afp, and trample the lion and dragon under thy feet. Frederick made answer, Non tibi, fed Petro; to which the Pope answered, Et mibi et Petro. Platina. Heiff. Epift, Alex. Council, tome 10. Sigonius. Spanh.

The indignities offered to Henry IV, upon his application to Hildebrand for being relaxed from his first sentence of excommunication, are almost incredible. Finding almost all the princes of the empire revolting and in arms against him, he thought by a fingular act of humility to appease the anger of the pontiff. He took a journey as a penitent into Italy, in the middle of winter, with his wife and fon of two years of age, enduring great fatigues and inconveniences by the way. When he arrived at Canaffa, where the Pope then was, he was fuffered to enter the outer gate, which was immediately fhut, and his company excluded. He was then told that there was no remiffion for him, unless he remain. ed for a time in that place in the condition of a penitent; which he did for the fpace of three days, in the outer court, clad in mean apparel, exposed to the cold and fnow, barefooted, and fasting from morn to night. At length, on the fourth day, the Pope deigned to admit him to an audience, at the interceffion of the Countefs Matilda, who was called St. Peter's daughter, to whom fame faid, the father could deny no favours, nor the to him: he was then abfolved from the fentence upon the following conditions: "that he fhould at"tend a general council appointed by the Pope, to which the princes of Gerfhould alfo be called, there to anfwer to the accufations brought again.ft

many

" him;

and fometimes by the moft mortifying penances +, they have been constrained to facrifice at once the majesty of kings and the dignity of man.

Intoxicated

him; that he fhould fubmit to the fentence that might be paffed upon him; "that if he was found guilty, and came to be deprived of his imperial "dignity by the decrees of the church, he should heartily acquiefce: and "whether he was depofed or reftored, he should never seek to be revenged for "any thing done against him ;-that in the mean time until his cause should

be thus finally decided, he fhould remain in the condition of a private perfon, "laying afide every mark of royalty, and defifting from every act of govern❝ment; confenting that every perfon fhould be acquitted before God and man of "their oaths of fidelity given him; that if he should be restored to his for

mer dignity, he should be ever fubject to the Pope and obedient to his or"ders; and employ all his power in concurrence with him for maintaining "the laws and decrees of the church and for correcting every thing contrary to "them; and in fine, if he failed as to any of these articles, the abfolution he "had fought with fuch importunity, fhould become null: he should be reputed

guilty; and the electors without further examination or delay fhould fet up "another in his room." Gregory Epift. lib. iv. ep. 12. Lambert Schafnab, de Rebus Germ. p. 249. Rocoles Abregé de l'Hift. &c. p. 88, &c. Heiff, Hift. de l'Emp. tom. i. p. 222. Sleidan, Key to Hift. p. 289, &c.

Henry II, of England, in order to avoid the terrors of excommunication and an interdict, threatened, and already prepared for him, on account of the affair of Becket, was obliged by his oath taken upon the reliques of faints and the holy Evangelifts, to purge himself of either commanding, or confenting to his death; expreffing forrow for his paffionate words which occafioned others to commit it; and in the fame manner promifing to perform the penances enjoined him. Whereupon he was abfolved by the legate after confenting to certain articles of accommodation, which were also fworn to, and fealed with the royal feal; among which were the following," that he fhould never forfake "Pope Alexander or his Catholic fucceffors, nor oppofe their authority fo "long as they used him as a Catholic king;-that appeals in all ecclefiaftical "causes should be freely made to Rome ;-that all cuftoms fhould be abolish"ed introduced to the prejudice of the church: that he should go to the Holy "Land in perfon for three years, unless difpenfed with by the Pope or his fuc

ceffors, and in the mean time, that he should maintain 200 men for that "fervice." Nor was this all: fome time after this he does penance at the fhrine of the canonized Thomas of Canterbury, who had been the chief enemy to himself and the peace of the kingdom while living; in confequence as it would appear of his vows made to the legates and the orders fecretly impofed by them. Clothed all in woollen, he went three miles barefooted, fo that the very ground where he walked, as the chronicles of thofe times tell us, was ftained by the blood running from his tender feet cut by the hard ftones and coming to the tomb and there proftrating himself, he received fome monkish difcipline,

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Intoxicated with their fuccefs the Pontiffs, difdaining to acknowledge any limits to their dominion, have attempted

to

difcipline, being whipt by rods on his bare flesh, by the priests and monks there prefent: if we believe Baronius and his author he received at least eighty lashes : an acceptable facrifice no doubt to the manes of the deceased, and still more fo to the ghoftly faints then living. Not long after another royal pilgrim came from abroad to honour the new faint. The King of France inftigated by the priefts, or as others fay, commanded by St. Thomas in a dream, came over feas with a retinue of princes and noblemen, fpent two days in prayer at the tomb, and offered a large cup of mafly gold, fettling also an annual allowance of an hundred measures of wine upon the monks, granting them befides a liberty to purchase whatever they needed in his dominions free of all duty.

William Marquis of Montferrat, in a war which he had with the Bishop of Tortona, wherein that city was taken and the prelate made prifoner, was accufed of being accellary to the Bishop's death. In vain he protested his innocence; he was excommunicated and ordered to appear in perfon before the Pope. He afterwards received this fentence on fuppofition of his being purged of the crime of murder," that he should go barefooted in his shirt, and "with his head uncovered from the place where the Bishop had been taken to

the church of Tortona, and in the fame manner publicly through three "other cities from the port to the cathedral: that he and his pofterity should "be deprived of all right of patronage in that church that his pofterity to "the fourth generation fhould be incapable of enjoying any benefice in it: “ that he should make the voyage over the fea, or the pilgrimage to St. James "of Compostella, whenever he should be appointed." It was further added in the fentence, that it was not meant by that indulgence to take from fecular princes the power of punishing him as a facrilegious perfon.

Raymond Count of Toulouse, having been excommunicated by name as a favourer of the Albigenfes, and for flaying, as his enemies alledged, a perfecuting prieft, had all his fubjects abfolved from their fidelity, and his lands given to the first occupant. In confequence whereof he was attacked by his zealous Catholic neighbours with an army of 500,000 men. Dreading the storm, he wrote letters to the Pope, offering to submit to whatever his legates should require of him; meeting with them at Valence, he was forced to furrender, before his peace could be made, seven of his ftrong towns to the church of Rome for ever, as a proof of his converfion; and in order to abfolution, he must submit to be beaten with rods, at the door of the church, where the dead friar lay-and after was dragged by the legate to his tomb, who put a rope about his neck in prefence of twenty Archbishops, and an innumerable multitude of Spectators. After all he was obliged to take the cross, and join with those who feized and plundered his cities, murdered his fubjects, and carried fire and fword through all his lands: fo that in Baziers alone, more than 60,000 perfons were put to the fword. Refusing to yield up his poffeffions to his invaders, as was agreed upon by the court of Rome, he was once more excommuH nicated

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