propensities began the difficulties for his descendants. It is true he
nominated Leo's successor at the request of the clergy and people of
Rome; but Henry's death in 1056 left the German throne to a child of
six under the regency of a woman and a foreigner who found herself
faced by all the hostile forces hitherto kept under by the Emperor's
powerful arm. And when Henry's last Pope, Victor II, followed the
Emperor to the grave in less than a year, the removal of German
influence was complete. The effect was instantaneous. The first Pope
elected directly by the Romans was a German indeed by birth, but he
was the brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, who, driven from Germany
by Henry, had married the widowed Marchioness of Tuscany. and was
regarded by a small party as a possible King of Italy and Emperor.
Whatever danger there was in the schemes of the Lotharingian brothers
was nipped in the bud by the death of Pope Stephen IX seven months
after his election. Then it became apparent that the removal of the
Emperor's strong hand had freed not only the upholders of
ecclesiastical reform but also the old Roman factions. The attempt was
easily crushed, but it became clear to the reformers that the papal
election must be secured beyond all possibility of outside
interference. At Hildebrand's suggestion and with the approval of the
German Court, a Burgundian, who was Bishop of Florence, was elected as
Nicholas II. The very name was a challenge, for the first Nicholas
(858-67) was perhaps the Pope who up to that time had asserted the
highest claims for the See of Rome.

[Sidenote: Provision for papal election.]

The short pontificate of the new Nicholas was devoted largely to
measures for securing the freedom of papal elections from secular
interference. By a decree passed in a numerously attended Council at