In like Manner Sigebertus, sub Anno 752.—­The Authors of the Miscellany History, lib. 22.—­Otto Frising. lib. 5.  Cap. 21, 22, 23.  And the Author of the Book intituled Fasciculus temporum, do all clearly agree in the Account given of this Transaction.  From which we may easily gather, that altho’ the Franks did consult the Pope before they created Pipin King, yet it cannot therefore be any Ways inferr’d from thence, that he was made King by the Pope’s Authority; for ’tis one Thing to make a King, and another to give Advice touching the making him:  ’Tis one Thing to have a Right of Creation, and another that of only giving Advice; nay; no Man has a Right of so much as giving Advice in Matters of this Nature, but he whose Advice is first ask’d.

Lastly, no Man has more clearly explain’d this whole Matter than Marsilius Patavinus; who during the Reign of Lewis of Bavaria, writ a Book—­de translatione imperii, in which, Cap. 6. he has these Words.—­“Pipin, a very valiant Man, and Son of Charles Martel, was (as we read) raised to the Dignity of being King of the Franks, by pope Zacharias.  But Aimoinus more truly informs us, in his History of the franks, that Pipin was legally elected King by the Franks themselves, and by the Nobility of the Kingdom was placed in the Throne.  At the same Time Childeric, a dissolute Prince, who contenting himself with the bare Title of a King, wasted both his Time and Body in Wantonness, was by them shaven for a Monk:  So that Zacharias had no Hand in the deposing him, but consented (as some say) to those that did.  For such deposing of a King for just Causes, and electing of another, does not belong to any Bishop or Ecclesiastick, nor to any College of Clergymen; but to the whole Body of citizens [ad universitatem civium] inhabiting that Region, and to the Nobles of it, or to the Majority of them both.”  Therefore those Pretences of the Popes, to a Power of creating or abdicating Kings, are apparently false to every Body.  But besides this fabulous Device, which is a sufficient Instance of their Wickedness and Malice, I think it worth my while to add a remarkable Letter of Pope Stephen, adapted to the foregoing Fable; by which we may make a judgment of the Madness and folly of that old crafty Knave.  This Letter is extant in Rhegino, a Benedictine Monk, and Abbot of Prunay, [Footnote:  Abbot Pruniacensis] an irrefragable Testimony in an Affair of this Nature; ’tis in Chron. anni 753.—­“Stephen the Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, &c.  As no Man ought to boast of his Merits, so neither ought the wonderful Works of God which are wrought upon his Saints without their Desert, to be buried in Silence, but published abroad as the Angel admonished Tobias.  I being constrained thro’