I need not trace all the steps of that memorable contest, or describe the details, from the time that the Pope sent out his edicts and excommunicated all who dared to disobey him,—­including some of the most eminent German prelates and German princes.  Henry at this time was engaged in a desperate war with the Saxons, and Gregory seized this opportunity to summon the Emperor—­his emperor—­ to appear before him at Rome and answer for alleged crimes against the Saxon Church.  Was there ever such audacity?  How could Henry help giving way to passionate indignation; he—­the successor of the Roman Caesars, sovereign lord of Germany and Italy—­summoned to the bar of a priest, and that priest his own subject, in a temporal sense?  He was filled with wrath and defiance, and at once summoned a council of German bishops at Worms, “who denounced the Pope as a usurper, a simonist, a murderer, a worshipper of the Devil, and pronounced upon him the empty sentence of a deposition.”

“The aged Hildebrand,” in the words of Stephen, “was holding a council in the second week of Lent, 1076, beneath the sculptured roof of the Vatican, arrayed in the rich and mystic vestments of pontifical dominion, and the papal choir were chanting those immortal anthems which had come down from blessed saints and martyrs, when the messenger of the Emperor presented himself before the assembled hierarchy of Rome, and with insolent demeanor and abrupt speech delivered the sentence of the German council.”  He was left unharmed by the indignant pontiff, but the next day ascending his throne, and in presence of the dignitaries of his Church, thus invoked the assistance of the pretended founder of his empire:—­

“Saint Peter! lend us your ears, and listen to your servant whom you have cherished from his infancy; and all the saints also bear witness how the Roman Church raised me by force and against my will to this high dignity, although I should have preferred to spend my days in a continual pilgrimage than to ascend thy pulpit for any human motive.  And inasmuch as I think it will be grateful to you that those intrusted to my care should obey me; therefore, supported by these hopes, and for the honor and defence of the Church, in the name of the Omnipotent God,—­Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,—­by my authority and power, I prohibit King Henry, who with unheard-of pride has raised himself against your Church, from governing the kingdoms of Germany and Italy; I absolve all Christians from the oath they have taken to him, and I forbid all men to yield to him that service which is due unto a king.  Finally, I bind him with the bonds of anathema, that all people may know that thou art Peter, and that upon thee the Son of God hath built His Church, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.”