compelled the court of Rome to come forward to his support. By a
sentence, promulgated with more than the usual solemnity, he cut off
from the society of the faithful such of the royal ministers as had
communicated with the antipope, those who had framed the Constitutions
of Clarendon, and all who had invaded the property of the Church. At
the same time he confirmed by frequent letters the wavering mind of
the Pontiff, checked by his remonstrances the opposition of the
cardinals who had been gained by his adversaries; and intimated to
Henry, in strong but affectionate language, the punishment which
awaited his impenitence.

This mighty monarch, the lord of so many nations, while he affected to
despise, secretly dreaded, the spiritual arms of his victim. The
strictest orders were issued that every passenger from beyond the sea
should be searched; that all letters from the Pope or the Archbishop
should be seized; that the bearers should suffer the most severe and
shameful punishments; and that all freemen, in the courts to which
they owed service, should promise upon oath not to obey any censure
published by ecclesiastical authority against the King or the kingdom.
But it was for his Continental dominions that he felt chiefly alarmed.
There the great barons, who hated his government, would gladly embrace
the opportunity to revolt; and the King of France, his natural
opponent, would instantly lend them his aid against the enemy of the
Church. Hence for some years the principal object of his policy was to
avert or at least to delay the blow which he so much dreaded.

As long as the Pope was a fugitive in France, dependent on the bounty
of his adherents, the King had hoped that his necessities would compel
him to abandon the Primate. But the antipope was now dead; and though
the Emperor had raised up a second in the person of Guido of Crema,