Upon the accusations already specified, and the invectives of Hugues le Blanc, the assemblage of prelates at Worms resolve upon the deposition of Gregory VII.  It is then that Henry steps forth, as the life and soul of the conventicle, armed with its decree, and addresses an insulting letter to the Pope, inscribed “Henry, king by the grace of God, to Hildebrand.”  In this letter, the decree of the conventicle is lost in the insolence of the king.  “I,” is the language of the missive, “I have followed their advice, because it seemed to me just.  I refuse to acknowledge you Pope, and in the capacity of patron of Rome command you to vacate the Holy See.”  Can the most jaundiced eye, can the man who learned, even in his boyhood, to loathe the name of Hildebrand, read these expressions without confessing that the king was the aggressor, and that if the Christian Church had a right to expect protection from its appointed head, Gregory VII was called upon to vindicate the majesty and liberty of religion so grossly outraged 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.