CHAPTER XIII. In the cardinal I have lost a good friend, in the pope I shall find my worst enemy. Such were Frederick's words when his courtiers congratulated him on the elevation of one who in the past had seemed his friend. He had no illusions about the endurance of that friendship. No pope can be a giveline, he said. Yet even he must have been astounded at the sudden change from the supposed good will to the rankerous enmity which seemed to blaze up in the heart of Cinnabald with the assumption of his new title and dignity. Innocent IV soon proved that all the more repellent features of Gregory's character were present in his own to a superlative degree. No pope before him, not Hildebrand himself, had asserted with such amazing audacity the ineffable sanctity of the papal person. We are no mere man, he declared. We have the place of God upon earth. His bearing was consistent in its domineering arrogance with such a pretension. The humility, the gentleness, the charity which might seem to be the fitting attributes of the vicar of Christ found no place in his relentless nature. He left behind him, says Milman, a name odious for ambition, rapacity, and implacable pride. His greed was insatiable, and before his death he is reputed to have become the wealthiest pope that had ever occupied the chair. Milman suffered even more grievously from his extortions than from those of his predecessor. He was won't to refer to her as our garden of delights, our inexhaustible well. To her despicable king as our vassal, or rather our slave. Her benefices were filled by Italian priests who might live in what manner they would so long as they sent a goodly portion of the wealth of their flock to Rome. The money gathered by his agents went rarely to any more holy purpose than the persecution of the emperor or the enrichment of his own relatives. The sin of nepotism was his a special crime in the eyes of good churchmen. His kinsmen were made cardinals, bishops, and abbots, or endowed with civil offices. Wretches, why are ye weeping? He was reported to have said to them as they gathered around his deathbed. Have I not made you all rich enough? In the choice of his instruments he paid little heed to holiness of life as a qualification for advancement. Among his legates might be found ruthless warriors such as Cardinal Renier, drunkards such as the Bishop of Ferrara, profligates such as Montalengo, or dishonest knaves such as Albert von Baham. The church itself groaned under his oppression and greed. His favorite agents, the Franciscan and Dominican friars, swarmed over every country, intruded into every parish, and spied upon every prelate or priest who was suspected of falling short in that unquestioning submission to the papal authority which was incumbent upon ecclesiastics.  With such a pope there could be no possibility of peace unless Frederick should cast aside his pride, surrender his honor, and clad in sackcloth and ashes go in penitence to his enemy and cast himself down before his feet. To the unspeakable ignominy of such another canosa it was not likely that Frederick would ever descend. He might be passionately anxious for an end to this feudal strife, might be ready to humiliate himself in some measure by yielding to harsh demands, but to an abject and unconditional submission he would never fall. The new pontificate could not however open without some overtures of peace. The emperor's congratulations upon his new dignity were born to an assent by Peter Divinia and Thaddeus of Sueza. An embassy returned to him with the pope's conditions which must be fulfilled before more serious negotiations could be commenced. If a truce was to be made it must include all those who had fought for the church. The prelates and priests who still lingered in confinement in Naples must be released. The emperor must state what satisfaction he was ready to give for the crimes which had induced Gregory to excommunicate him. The church on her side, if by any chance she had done him any wrong, would do him justice. On this matter and on many others a general council composed of kings, princes and prelates should decide. Frederick II had his conditions. The papal legate Montalango must be recalled from Milan. His presence there lent the countenance of the papacy to the rebels. Solangheta, who had been treacherously imprisoned after the capture of Ferrara by the papal allies, must be released. It was the cause of offence that the Archbishop of Mence, while under the ban of the empire had been made legate in Germany. The pope must take active steps to suppress heresy in Lombardy. He must cease to slight the imperial dignity by refusing to admit Frederick's ambassadors to his presence. Innocent answered these demands in sequence. The emperor had no business to question the pope's right to send his legates where he would. Solangheta was the captive of the men of Venice. His release was no affair of the popes. The Archbishop of Mence was a devout son of the church and should retain his office as legate. During the heresy of the Lombards it was impossible for the pope to deal with that until the emperor had abandoned his warfare against them. The imperial ambassadors shared the excommunication of their lord and could not therefore be permitted to gaze upon the face of the pope. He would, however, concede so much as to absolve them from the excommunication and with them the Archbishop of Palermo, who had performed the forbidden sacred offices before Frederick in defiance of the sentence of the church. Other causes of dispute arose. The inclusion of the Lombards in the truce continued to be an insuparable obstacle. Innocent also demanded that the two provinces of Ancona and Spoleto, which Frederick had torn from the church, should be restored. Frederick replied that they had been given by him to the papacy and had been justly forfeited by Gregory's conduct. He would, however, consent to hold them in feudal tenure from the pope, would supply a body of five hundred knights when required, and would pay a yearly rent into the papal coffers. He would also undertake the reconquest of the Holy Land at his own cost. But nothing would satisfy Innocent but the complete restoration of the provinces. They were too valuable and adjunct to his temporal power to be relinquished. The relations between the two parties became more and more precarious. The pope wrote to Montalango urging him to stir up the Lombards to a more active warfare against the emperor. Frederick sent two friars to the gallows for carrying seditious letters, and kept a strict watch upon the roads to Rome to intercept any stores of money that might be on their way thither. The revolt of Viterrable threatened to precipitate an open rupture. This city had cast off its allegiance to the pope in 1240, and had invited Frederick to become its lord. Its citizens had seen him build a vast stronghold of eighteen towers called the Castle of Hercules as a sign of his authority, and had uttered no word of protest. Now, however, in the August of 1243 they broke out into sudden rebellion. The imperial captain Count Simon of Chieti withdrew into the castle and prepared to withstand a siege. The cardinal Renier hastened with his forces to the assistance of the rebellious townsmen and blockaded the garrison. Count Simon dispatched urgent appeals to his master for succor. The fathers of old, he wrote to Frederick, did not look for Christ's coming more eagerly than we look for your arrival. Show your face and we shall be saved. The pope protested to the emperor that the cardinal Renier was acting without his instructions but secretly sent a large sum of money to the militant churchmen. Frederick appeared before Viterrable early in October and laid siege to the city. Two months passed in vain endeavors to batter down its walls. Then cardinal Otto came to the emperor bearing urgent requests for peace for innocent. If Frederick would agree to withdraw from Viterrable, the imperial garrison and the gibbalines of the city should be allowed to join him unmolested. To that Otto pledged his word of honor. Frederick agreed and the garrison left their stronghold. They were immediately attacked by the populace at the instigation of the friars and Otto strove in vain to save them. Many were killed, many captured, but few reached the imperial camp. The emperor withdrew his forces from the city which had withstood his might and complained loudly to the pope of the treacherous massacre of his soldiers. The pope replied that it was no matter for surprise that his city should return to its true lord. So uncompromising an answer should have assured Frederick that it was futile to hope for peace, but he curbed his anger and made one more attempt. Peter Divinia, Thaddeus of Suessa and the Count of Toulouse were sent to Rome with full powers to arrange a treaty by whose terms the emperor should abide. These terms as propounded by the pope were harsh in the extreme. The emperor must restore all the lands which he had taken from the papacy or its adherence since his excommunication in 1239. He must explain to the world that his disregard of that excommunication was not prompted by any contempt for the late pope, but by the fact that the sentence had never been formally and personally declared to him. There was, he must aver, no question about the pope's right to excommunicate him, and he must henceforth respect the excommunication until he should be formally absolved. For his offence in this matter he must atone by fasting and almsgiving and must pay a fine hereafter to be named. The prelates whom he still held in captivity must be released and amply compensated for their losses and sufferings. The compensation should be estimated by three cardinals. A free pardon and amnesty must be granted to all who had fought on the side of the church. All prisoners must be released, all exiles recalled. The pope and his cardinals should arbitrate between the emperor and the Lombard rebels. All these things should be carried out, saving only the honor and the integrity of the empire, and then, and not till then, should the emperor be absolved and received back into the bosom of mother church. To this treaty which deprived Frederick of all the material advantages he had gained in the late wars, which relegated him to the position of the conquered when the balance of success had certainly weighed in his favor, the imperial ambassadors set their seal on March 31st, 1244. It was agreed that its terms should be kept secret until such time as both parties consented to their publication. Frederick uttered no protest when he heard of the hard bargain that his enemy had driven, but wrote joyfully to his son Conrad of the impending reconciliation. It was too soon, however, for rejoicing. The pope was not sincere. He had expected no doubt that the emperor would repudiate the treaty and thus place himself in the wrong. And when Frederick accepted it without reservation he began to repent that he had not exacted more humiliating terms. The gall arose in him and he commenced a series of wanton provocations with the object of goading the emperor into retaliation. He buzzed like an angry wasp. A slight reaction against his popularity in Rome was attributed to Frederick's treacherous machinations. The stipulation that the terms of the treaty should be kept secret was flagrantly violated and men might purchase copies at the latter and for six pence. He vowed that the compensation of the prelates for their imprisonment by the emperor should cost the imperial treasury a prodigious sum. He declared that in his arbitration between the emperor and the Lombards he would consult only those cardinals whom he chose. He worked himself up into a fury and said that the Lombards should have his help whether the emperor was absolved or no. The men of Viterbo meanwhile were slaughtering and plundering the friends of the empire in their neighborhood, but Frederick held his hand and would do nothing to give innocent cause to retire from the truce. Frederick's calmness and restraint seemed to exasperate innocent the more. He moved from Rome nominally to meet the emperor and arrange more comprehensive and final terms of peace. She halted at Narni some few miles distant from the emperor's resting place at Tarni. These two towns had striven against each other in the late wars, and innocent declared that there should be no peace until the men of Tarni had made compensation for the defeat they had wrought on the men of Narni. He had agreed to meet Frederick at Rieti, half way between the two towns, but the whole journey was merely a deception and his real plans were now complete. Rome, he had decided, was no comfortable abode for him. The emperor was too near and too powerful the populace of the city too fickle. He would retire to a safer distance where he might pursue his designs against the emperor in safety. On the 27th of June, instead of advancing to Rieti, he fell back to Sutri. A report was spread that Frederick had sent a body of troops to capture him. Pretending to credit this wise and salutary fiction as his chaplain terms it, he mounted his horse soon after midnight and rode furiously through the dark hours until he arrived at Civitavecchia. Five cardinals followed hard in his wake and joined him on board a Genoese galley, twenty of which were awaiting his arrival according to his carefully laid plans. Seven days later the fleet rode into the harbor of Genoa. Our soul is escaped, even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler said innocent as he entered his native city. The snare is broken and we are delivered. He was received with a tumultuous welcome. The streets were decked with velvets and silks and banners. The bells pealed joyfully, the trumpets blared, and the long procession of priests and choristers chanted, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. The trick, meanwhile, was in no amiable frame of mind. The wicked flea when no man pursueth, he quoted. He realized that innocent had been playing with him in these long negotiations. He cursed his captains in the compagnya roundly for their negligence in allowing the pope to elude them. He declared that innocent had gone to Genoa to place himself at the head of the Lombard rebels. He advanced northwards to Pisa, perhaps with the intention of laying siege to the city that harbored his enemy. Innocent, however, had no intention of remaining in such close proximity to the imperial power. In November he left Genoa, journeying northwards across the Alps, and on the 2nd of December arrived at Lyon. Here he was safe from the emperor's clutches, for Lyon, though nominally a part of the empire was a free city under the authority of its archbishop. He would have preferred indeed to have sought an even safer abode, to have found refuge under the protection of a monarch who would espouse his cause. But no monarch was anxious to shelter so formidable a guest. The pious king of France visited him at the Monastery of Sito, and knelt before him in becoming reverence. His reply to the pope's request for an asylum at Reims, however, was to refer the matter to his nobles and counsellors, and these declined the heavy and costly responsibility. The king of Adujon regretted that he could not undertake to offer the holy father the hospitality of his kingdom. The king of England might lend an ear to the honeyed words of the papal legate. What an immortal glory for your reign, said that dignitary, if the father of fathers should personally appear in England. He is often said that it would give him great pleasure to see the pleasant city of Westminster and wealthy London, but the father of fathers was in bad odor with the king's council. We have already suffered too much, they replied, from the usuries and simonies of Rome. We do not want the pope to pillage us. Matthew Parris comments on this refusal in sufficiently picturesque language. The evil name of the papal court he writes, the stench of which exhaled its foul smoke to the clouds, deserved that such a result should ensue. Vincent gnashed his teeth at these several rebuffs. We must first crush or pacify the great dragon, were his rumored words, and then we shall easily trample these smaller basalisks underfoot. Even in Lyon his domineering conduct had excited unpopularity and the angry townsmen had threatened to throw his priests into the Rhone, and had burnt his costly and extensive wardrobe. They were only conciliated by lavish gifts of English money which continued to flow into the papal coffers. Yet even this source of pecuniary consolation unfailing though it seemed began to grow precarious and thereby caused innocent much anxiety. From Lyon he had sent Master Martin to England to demand a special contribution for the necessities of the Apostolic See. The matter had come to the ears of the Emperor, who thereupon sent Walter of Okra with a letter to Henry in his council. This letter ended with something like a threat, that all money sent to the Pope's assistance would be added to the Imperial Treasury. The Emperor begged the English King to contribute nothing more to the Pope to his prejudice. If that request was disobeyed, the subjects of the English King who were so journeying in the Empire should be visited with a heavy vengeance. On the other hand, if the King would abide by his counsels he would free England from the tax which Pope innocent the Third had laid upon it and would rescue it from other burdens with which it was daily oppressed by the Pope. This letter, according to Matthew Parris, regained the affections of many for the Emperor and it certainly worked not a little harm to the Pope. Master Martin's demands were met by the Prelates of England with a flat refusal. The treacherous Master Martin, then clandestinely laid greedy hands upon the revenues of many vacant churches, continues the same chronicler. But of these things it is better out of respect to the Roman church to be silent than to relate them for the purpose of exciting scandal. They served, however, to excite a popular outburst of fury against the papal collector. Folk Fitzwarn and some other nobles bearded him in his own chamber. Arise, get thee forth! Depart at once from England, commanded the intruders. In whose name speakest thou, said Master Martin, in the name of the barons of England, if you are not gone in three days you and yours shall be cut in pieces. Martin sought the King and demanded if this thing was done in his name. It is not by my command, answered Henry, but my barons will no longer endure your depredations and iniquities, and with difficulty I have hitherto prevented them in their fury from attacking you and tearing you limb from limb. The priest was overcome with fear and trembled. I ask your majesty out of your love for God and reverence for the pope to allow me a safe conduct out of your realms. May the devil carry you away to hell, was Henry's impatient answer. Master Martin slunk away from London at night and rode to Dover with the speed of panic, and his departure we are assured rejoiced the hearts of many. Frederick at this time was like a bear robbed of her welps. He ravaged the papal territories with a ruthless hand. His temper was not improving under the stress of continued persecution, and the pope's subjects met with little mercy. A letter sent to the pope by some zealous gvelf rises to fine heights of virulent abuse in its description of the emperor's harrying of the faithful. He is compared with Lucifer the Great Dragon, Herod, Nero, Nimrod, Uzziah, Belchazar, and a host of other notorious characters. He has an iron neck and a brazen forehead. His oaths are as fleeting as the morning clouds.  Let him be hurled forth from the sanctuary and let his name be forgotten even as that of Jeroboam who made Israel to sin. Innocent might have expected that Frederick would avenge himself in this way, but he was not minded to let it pass in silence. On Holy Thursday, 1245, he renewed the excommunication which had been pronounced by Gregory and included King Enzo with his father in the sentence. Europe, however, was becoming too familiar with the situation to regard the anathema with becoming awe, or to accept, unreservedly, the awful guilt of the emperor which it implied. The words of a priest of Paris expressed the general state of mind throughout Christendom. I have received commands, he said to his flock, to issue a solemn sentence of excommunication against the emperor of Frederick.  I know not whether the pope or the emperor be the offender, but I excommunicate the guilty party whichever of the two it be and the one who is innocent I absolve. End of Section 26 Section 27 of Stupor Mundi the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 14 The Council of Lion, Part 1 There was a deeper motive behind Innocence Flight from Rome than the mere desire for personal safety. He realized, as his predecessor at last had done, that the condemnations and anathemas of the pope had lost the efficacy they once possessed, and that Frederick could never be brought to submission by these means. Gregory had sought to bring a more potent weapon to his aid, the voice of the whole of Christendom, the judgment of a general council of the church. If such a power pronounced the emperor guilty of the heinous crimes laid to his charge, if it judged those crimes worthy of the utmost penalty and deposed him and his heirs from the imperial dignity, then, in the eyes of at least the half of Christendom, Frederick would no longer be the emperor of Rome, and another might be chosen in his stead. Whether such a deposition would be lawful or unlawful was written in no constitution of Christendom, nor was the composition of such a council defined by Ritt. But however vague the powers it exercised, however inadequate it might represent the great Christian commonwealth, its decrees would be invested with far greater solemnity than the unsupported pronouncements of the pope. The council which Gregory had summoned had never reached Rome, and the destination of most of its members had been an imperial prison. If innocent had stayed in Italy, a similar reverse might well have befallen him. In Lyon, however, he could hold his council in peace. The august representatives of Christendom could travel there in safety. They could deliberate, without fear of rude interruption, either from the armies of the incensed emperor or the irreverent clamorings of the Roman rabble. It was to Lyon, therefore, that he summoned the kings, princes and prelates, and bade them gather themselves together on the day of St. John the Baptist. The emperor himself was cited to appear before the great tribunal to answer for his sins and make such reparation as should seem good to his judges. The great Lateran council, held by Innocent III in 1215, had been attended by no less than five hundred prelates. The council of Lyon, held by Innocent IV in 1245, was attended by only one hundred and forty. This singular decline was due in some measure to the distracted state of Christendom. Palestine was overrun by the Charismian Turks. The Patriarchate of Constantinople was rent by schism. Hungary had not yet recovered from the devastations of the Tartar hordes. Germany was seething with internal disorders. But we may believe that many of the Fathers of the Church were absent from other reasons than this. If a prelate sympathized with the emperor, if he deprecated the harshness of Innocent and the inordinate ambition of the papacy, he would choose, unless he were a man of singular courage, to remain in his own country and lend no hand in the condemnation of Frederick, rather than to raise his voice openly in the council and incur the enmity of so ruthless and formidable a pope. Frederick himself had foreseen this eventuality in connection with the council which Gregory had summoned, and had protested that while his enemies would flock to the assembly eager for his destruction, those who believed in the right of his own cause would either remain away, or, over-odd by their spiritual head, would acquiesce by their silence in the sentence which would inevitably be pronounced. On the 26th of June the council met in the convent of Sangeust for its first session. Besides the great body of prelates and the twelve cardinals there were the lay envoys from the various states of Christendom. The Latin emperor of Constantinople was there in person and sat on the pope's right hand. The council Provence and Toulouse sat on his left. Roger by-god, Earl of Norfolk, was among the ambassadors of England and seized the opportunity to protest vigorously against the papal extortions in his native land. The great function of representing the emperor, of refuting on his behalf the charges that would be made against him, was entrusted to Thaddeus of Sueza, one of Frederick's most trusted councillors. The meeting was inaugurated with due solemnity with Psalms and prayers and hymns. Then Thaddeus stepped forward, and in the name of his lord made a final appeal for peace. The emperor would do great things for Christendom, would use all his might in her service, he would compel the eastern empire to return to the fold of orthodoxy, he would hurl the Tartars back into their Asiatic homes, would sweep the Charismians from the soil of Palestine, and restore it to the worshippers of Christ. He would give back to the papacy all the territories that she claimed, and would give ample satisfaction for his offences. The pope, however, had gathered the council for a sterner purpose than that of enforcing terms. How shall I bind this shifting Proteus, he asked? These are fine words and specious promises. The axe is laid at the root of the tree and he would avert it. If we were weak enough to believe this deceiver, who would guarantee that he would be kept to his word? The kings of France and England answered Thaddeus. We object to them, said Innocent, for if he violated the treaty as he assuredly would, we should be obliged to rebuke them, and then instead of one we should have the three greatest monarchs of Christendom for our enemies. Thaddeus answered nothing and the council broke up in silence. Two days later it assembled again in the Cathedral of St. John. The pope clad in the sumptuous robes of his office celebrated mass and afterwards mounted the pulpit. O all ye who pass by the way, he quoted, Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. I have five sorrows, which I may liken unto the five wounds of Christ. These are the tartar invasion. The schismatical spirit of the Greeks, the heresies which have crept in especially in Lombardy, the seizure of Jerusalem by the Charismians, the active enmity of the emperor to the church which he is especially bound to protect. On this last gore he enlarged with such eloquence as to move himself and his hearers to tears. From pathos he proceeded to bitter invective and accusation. The emperor, he said, had trifled with the unclean thing. He had built a city in his realm, had peopled it with Saracens and allowed them to exercise even joined in their superstitious rights. He had contracted a familiar friendship with the Sultan of Cairo and other infidel princes. He had shamelessly polluted himself with Saracen women whom he maintained in his harem. He had been many times guilty of perjury and had sworn to the church things which he refused to perform. Of this the pope had damning evidence in the shape of numerous letters sealed with the imperial seal. Here Thaddeus rose from his seat. He too could produce his proofs, letters sealed with the papal seal which contained no less certain evidence of the pope's dishonesty. The obsequious assembly professed to scrutinize these letters and derived at the dutiful conclusion that all the promises contained in the emperor's letters were absolute. All those in the papal letters conditional. Thaddeus refused to accept such a judgment and declared that the emperor had been justified in any seeming lapses from the honorable fulfillment of his word by the pope's own perjuries. As to the charge of harris he made against my lord, for this no one can answer but himself, he must be present to declare his creed, who shall presume to read the secrets of his heart. But, and he regarded the pope and the cardinals with accusing eyes, that he is no heretic you may judge from this fact, he will not allow any usurer to dwell in his dominions. The pope and his creatures frowned uncomfortably when thus reminded of the particular heresy which all Christendom imputed to the court of Rome. My master, he continued, only uses common prudence in cherishing the alliance of Egypt. He allows Saracens to dwell in his realm in order to put down sedition. He employs them in his expeditions, as soldiers because he thinks that the blood of these infidels is not so precious as that of Christian soldiers. He does not indulge in sinful intercourse with Saracen harlots, who can prove it, but he amuses himself with the jests and certain feats of some women whom he has now however sent away because they create suspicion. And he is then requested that the next session of the council should be postponed so that he might obtain fuller powers from the emperor, where that the emperor himself might come to Lyon. Now, God forbid, exclaimed the pope, I have already had trouble enough to escape his snares, and if he comes I will go. I do not wish for blood and I do not feel myself fit already for martyrdom or imprisonment. The French and English envoys however insisted that such a postponement was just, and innocent was forced to consent to an adjournment of fourteen days. If Frederick had come to Lyon, if the arch culprit himself had appeared to justify himself before the representatives of Christendom, then the vast pageant of the world's history would have been enriched by one more grand and moving scene. The lively imagination cannot but glow at the vision conjured up by such a meeting. Frederick, the greatest if not the most powerful of the medieval emperors, faces innocent the most implacable of the popes. The two enemies personify in their mortal combat the culmination of the long and bitter strife between the empire and the papacy. The greatly persecuted emperor, curbing it may be for a while his haughty spirit, appeals for peace, refutes the accusations against him with calm and majestic dignity, protests his faithfulness to the church's creed, and scorns the slanders that have tainted him with infidel beliefs. The proud innocent will hear nothing of peace at so late an hour. He sweeps aside his opponents' denials, heaps charge upon charge, invective upon invective. The emperor casts aside his restraint, hurls back accusation for accusation, enlarges upon the notorious rapacity of the Roman sea, its ungodly ambition and covetousness, its alliance with the Lombard heretics, its malignant hatred of one who would else have been its most faithful son. The air is surcharged with venom, electric with tensy motion, heavy with portent. The vast assembly hearkens to the duel of words with bated breath, dreads the moment when upon itself shall fall the honorous duty of pronouncing between these two. For since the emperor himself is there, the ultimate judgment must rest with the council. The pope cannot, dare not, presume to take for granted its dutiful acquiescence in his declaration of the emperor's guilt. What will be the verdict of the council? The lay envoys who might be expected to take Frederick's side, or in a minority and among them are the ambassadors of Genoa, Venice, and other states in open warfare against him. The preponderant body of churchmen are bound in some measure by their holy calling to obey their head, are exposed to his favor or resentment, are mindful of the manner in which Frederick has exacted from their brethren in Sicily the obedience and financial burdens which are due to him from his lay subjects. Can the emperor so sway them by his eloquence, so impress them with the justice of his cause as to make them forget these things? To that question no answer can be given. There are bounds beyond which the imagination of the writer may not legitimately stray. But Frederick did not go to Leo. Doubtless he knew in his own mind that even his own presence could not avert his condemnation by such an assembly, and it would be hard for him, after he had himself pleaded his cause before the council and thus tacitly recognized its authority to deny the validity of its sentence. His pride revolted, moreover, at submitting himself to the censure of meaner men. Who were these prelates, he asked, that they should presume to sit in judgment on the emperor of Rome, on one who was answerable to none but God. I see as clear as light, he said, that the pope is eager to revenge himself upon me, because I caused his kinsmen, Genoese pirates, old enemies of the empire, to be seized at sea and imprisoned, together with there are betters the prelates. It is plain that he has called the council for no other purpose than to work my ruin, and it is not meat that the empire should be bound by the decision of a hostile synod. CHAPTER XIV Such an answer could do his cause no good. The pride of many was ruffled by his refusal to recognize the authority of the council, and his enemies were emboldened to say aloud that his absence was proof of his guilt. At the next session, on July 17, accusations poured in against him, for there were many of the prelates who had suffered imprisonment at his hands, and not a few others were as bitter foes. The bishop of Catana denounced him as a heretic, an epicurean, an atheist, and oppressor of the church. I can no longer keep silence, cried Thaddeus, bold as a lion in his defense of his absent lord. You are unworthy of belief.  The bishop was silenced, but others arose to confront the dauntless envoy. The sacrilegious capture of Gregory's council in which some prelates had lost their lives in the fury of the naval engagement was the emperor's worst crime in the eyes of the assembly. My lord said Thaddeus is truly sorry for that affair, which happened by chance and contrary to his intentions. Had he been present at the battle no prelates or churchmen should have suffered bodily harm, but in a sudden and fierce engagement by sea, his servants could not discriminate between the innocent and the guilty. Why did he not allow the innocent to depart free after the seizure and retain only the others demanded the pope? It must be remembered, answered Thaddeus, that Pope Gregory called to Rome the open enemies of the empire, such as the count of Provence and the men of Milan. This was not to promote peace, but to stir up sedition. Thereupon my lord the emperor sent letters to England as well as to other countries begging the prelates in a friendly way not to come to such a treacherous council, warning them beforehand that if they did come with the enemies of himself and the empire they would be attacked, he also refused them safe transit through his dominions and civilly forewarned them of the impending danger. God delivered them into the hands of my master he continued haughtily. God took away the strength of the rebels and of them who had despised the emperor and showed by his abandonment that their imprisonment was just. Yet angered as he was he remembered mercy, and softened by the councils of his faithful advisers wished to dismiss those prelates and other unwor-like persons in peace, when lo the bishop of Pryneste and some other saucy prelates, heaping threat upon threat although prisoners, hesitated not to excommunicate the emperor before his face, heedless of that salutary council, humble yourselves to the hand of power.  Your lord the emperor said innocent ought to have been convinced unless he distrusted his own cause that such a large assembly of such good men would rather have released than bound him if he deserved to be released. But from his proceedings it plainly appears that his conscience nod him and the offence of which he was guilty wounded him. What then could my lord hope from such a council, Thaddeus replied, in which presided his greatest enemy Pope Gregory, or from judges who even from their prison breathed forth nothing but menace. If one has broken out into violence was innocence answer all should not have been treated with this indignity. Nothing remains but ignominiously to depose a man laden with such manifold offenses. The English envoys protested in vain that the emperor's children should not be disinherited for their father's sins. Thaddeus saw that all hope was gone, yet he would not tamely accept his defeat. I appeal from this council, from which there are absent so many great prelates and secular princes, to a general and impartial council. I appeal from this pope, the declared enemy of my lord, to a future more gentle, more Christian pope. Innocent disdainfully swept the appeal aside. This general council of the many patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, and other nobles from various parts of the world, who have all been waiting for your lord the emperor to humble himself, is fully satisfied. Those who are absent are prevented from attending by becoming ensnared in the toils laid by your master. Therefore it is not proper for the sentence of deposition to be any longer delayed, lest he should profit by his malice, and now, he taunted, let your lord come. I, my lord will come, cried Thaddeus, the day of his deposition, if that be decreed, may be called that day of wrath, that day of tribulation, that day of calamity and misery, a day too great and too bitter. One prelate alone, the German Behrtolt, patriarch of Aquileia, raised his voice against the impending sentence. Remember, he said, that the pillars which uphold the world are two, the one the pope, the other the emperor.  He would hear no more words in defense of the emperor. He would not condescend to consult the council to invite the votes of the prelates and envoys. They were there merely to lend solemnity to the sentence which he should pronounce. That sentence was already inscribed on parchment, drawn up and decided before the imperial ambassador had completed his defense, no doubt before ever the council had assembled. Without further deliberation he proceeded to issue his irrevocable decree. It was prefaced by a long recapitulation of the culprit's sins, in which there was some little truth, much exaggeration, and more deliberate falsehood. He first enlarged upon the emperor's persistent refusal to make peace and his constant violation of his oaths. Wherefore, as we are neither willing nor able, without serious offense to Jesus Christ, any longer to tolerate his iniquities and offenses we are in conscience compelled to proceed against him. To be silent for the present on his other crimes and iniquities, he has committed foremost heavy offenses which cannot be excused by any palliation. He has rashly broken his oaths between the church and the empire. He has been guilty of sacrilegion causing the capture of the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, the prelates and clerks of other churches, religious men and seculares, who are coming to the council which our predecessor had thought proper to convoke. He is also suspected of heresy, not on dubious and light grounds but by evident proofs, and that he has committed many acts of perjury as sufficiently clear. For when formerly he was staying in Sicily, before he was elected to the imperial dignity, he in the presence of the legate of the apostolic sea gave a note of allegiance to our predecessor, the pope innocent the third of happy memory, and to his successors and also to the Church of Rome, in consideration of the session of the kingdom of Sicily to him by the said church. And as is reported, he, after he had been elected to the said dignity, renewed that oath before the said innocent and his cardinals and did legal homage to the said pope with uplifted hands. After this, when he was in Germany, he in the presence of the princes and nobles of the empire made oath to the said pope innocent, and after his decease to pope Honorius and to his successors, to preserve and protect, as far as lay in his power, the honors, rights and possessions of the Roman Church. But of these oaths, he has proved himself the daring and dangerous violator, thus incurring the stain of treachery and the charge of treason. For he sent to the cardinals letters containing threats against our predecessor Gregory, and presumed to defame him and slander him in manifold ways throughout the world. He has also ordered the persons of our venerable brother Otto, the Bishop of Porto, and the Bishop of Pryneste, the legates of the apostolic sea and high members of the Roman Church to be seized on, imprisoned and themselves deprived of all their goods. He has moreover endeavored with all his power to diminish or to deprive the Church altogether of the privilege which our Lord Jesus Christ granted to St. Peter and to his successors, namely, that whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall also be loosed in heaven, in which privilege rests the power and authority of the Roman Church. And writing word that he did not regard the sentence of excommunication pronounced against him by Pope Gregory, he, despising the keys of the Church, not only did not observe it himself but also by means of his officials compelled others to disregard that sentence and the sentence of interdict which he himself altogether despised. The possessions also of the Roman Church, namely the march and the duchy of Benevento, and other possessions which he held in parts of Tuscany and Lombardy and some other places, with a few exceptions he dared to occupy and still holds them. And as if that was not sufficient he either by himself or by his officials compelled the inhabitants of those possessions to take an oath, absolve them, although he had no right to do so, from the oath of fealty by which they were bound to the Roman Church, and after making them abjure the said oath of fealty he compelled them to make oaths of allegiance to himself. Touching the evil he has wrought to the Church in his kingdom, there are eleven Archaeopiscopal seas and a great many Episcopal seas as well as Abbasis and other Churches at present vacant in the aforesaid kingdom, and through his means they have been for a long time destitute of the management of prelates to the great injury of the Churches themselves and to the peril of many souls. He has not only caused the substance and goods of the Churches of the said kingdom to be taken possession of at his pleasure, but has carried off the crosses, chalices, and other holy treasures belonging to them as if a despiser of the divine worship. Clerks are oppressed in manifold ways by collections and tally-ages, and not only are they dragged before a secular tribunal, but even as it is reported they are compelled to undergo the ordeal of single combat, they are imprisoned, slain, and tortured on gibbets, to the confusion and disgrace of the whole clerical order. But he has been guilty of sacrilegious certain, for when the aforesaid bishops of Porto and Preneste, and several prelates and clerks of the Churches, were coming by water to the apostolic sea for the purpose of attending the council, which he the Emperor had asked to be confoked, all the roads of his territory were altogether stopped by his command, and having sent his son Enzo with a number of galleys in order to vent his anger upon them, he dared to lay his sacrilegious hands upon them, some of the prelates and other persons being drowned, some slain, and the others put to flight. The others were ignominiously imprisoned in the Kingdom of Sicily, and some of them, worn away by sickness and oppressed by want, have fallen away to a wretched condition. With good cause, moreover, has a suspicion of heresy arisen against him, for after he had incurred the sentence of excommunication, he despised and still despises the keys of the Church, causing divine service to be performed, or rather profaned before him. Besides, he is united by a detestable alliance with the Saracens, he embraces their customs, notoriously keeping them with him in his daily service, and after their fashion, he shamelessly appoints as guards over his wives, whom he has received from the descendants of a royal race, certain eunuchs, especially those whom he has lately caused to be castrated, and what is a more execrable offense, he, when formally in Palestine made a kind of agreement or collusion with the Sultan, and allowed the name of Muhammad to be publicly proclaimed in the Temple of the Lord day and night. He also, in opposition to the Christians, abuses the pernicious and horrid rights of other infidels, and entering into an alliance of friendship with those who wickedly pay little respect to the Apostolic Sea, and have seceded from the unity of the Church, he caused, as is positively asserted, the Duke of Bavaria of illustrious memory to be murdered by assassins. He has also given a daughter in marriage to Vodakus, the schismatic of Constantinople, who was solemnly expelled from the communion of Christians by excommunication. Rejecting the proceedings and customs of Catholic princes, neglecting his own salvation and the purity of his fame, he does not employ himself in works of piety. And what is more, he does not trouble to relieve those oppressed by injuries by extending his hand to bestow alms, although he has eagerly aimed at the destruction of the Churches, and has crushed ecclesiastical persons with the burden and persecution of his yoke, and it is not discovered that he has ever built or founded either Churches, monasteries, hospitals, or other pious places. Now these, then, are not light but convincing grounds for suspicions of heresy being entertained against him. Besides this the Kingdom of Sicily, which is the spiritual patrimony of St. Peter, and which he holds in fee from the Apostolic Sea, has been reduced by him to wretchedness and slavery. He has also omitted to pay the annual tribute of a thousand sequins in which he is bound to the Roman Church for the tenure of the said Kingdom. The Pope rose from his throne, his cardinals rose around him, each bore in his hand a lighted torch, wherewith to perform the last impressive rites of the portentous scene. In solemn, measured utterance, innocent proceeded to strip the Emperor of all his earthly pomp. We therefore, having maturely and carefully deliberated with our brother cardinals and the Holy Council on the above-named and other nefarious deeds of his, seeing that we, unworthy as we are, hold on earth the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, who said to us in the Person of St. Peter, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, do hereby declare the above-named Prince, who has rendered himself unworthy of the honors of sovereignty, for his crimes to be deposed from his throne by God, to be bound by his sins and cast off by the Lord, and to be deprived of all his honors, and we do hereby sentence and deprive him. And all who are in any way bound to him by an oath of allegiance, we forever absolve and release from that oath, and by the apostolic authority strictly forbid anyone from obeying him, or in any way whatever attempting to obey him as an Emperor or King. And we decree that anyone who shall from henceforth give him assistance or advice, or show favor to him as an Emperor or King, shall by so doing be excommunicated, and those in the Empire on whom devolves the election of an Emperor may freely elect a successor. With respect to the Kingdom of Sicily, we with the advice of our Cardinals will make such provision as may seem expedient unto us. The Assembly sat silent and stricken with awe. The Imperial Envoy's groaned aloud and beat their breasts. O day of wrath, of tribulation, and of agony, cried Thaddeus. Now will the heretics rejoice, the Charismians prevail, the foul Tartars pursue their devastations. I have done my part, said Innocent. God must do the rest. He chanted the first line of the hymn, We praise thee, O God. Quiveringly at first, then exultantly, the enemies of the Emperor lifted up their voices in his wake. The hymn ended, and the Pope and the Cardinals beat out their torches on the ground. As the last flame died out, he uttered his final malediction. So be the glory and the fortune of the Emperor extinguished upon the Earth. CHAPTER XV Frederick was enthroned amidst the splendid court when the tidings of his deposition were brought to him at Turin.  The Pope has deprived me of my crown, he exclaimed, once this presumption, this audacity, bring hither my treasure chests. He opened them. Not one of my crowns but is here. He took out the crown of the Empire, placed it upon his head, and rose from his throne. I hold my crown of God alone, he cried, and neither the Pope, the Council nor the Devil shall rend it from me. Does he and his vulgar pride think that he can hurl me from the Imperial dignity? Me who am the chief prince of the world? Ye who am without an equal? I am now released from all respect. I am set free from all ties of love and peace. No longer need I keep my measure against this man. He straightway dispatched his envoy to all the kings and princes of Christendom. What may not all kings fear from the presumption of a Pope like Innocent IV? He declared, in the proclamation which they bore. We grant the Pope's spiritual power, but we nowhere read that he may transfer empires at his pleasure or rob the kings of their realms. Is he set above all law and order? He has disregarded every legal form in his late proceedings against us and has taken hearsay to be fact. How long has the word of an emperor been so despicable as not to be heard against that of a priest? A very few unjust witnesses stood forth against us such as the Bishop of Catana, the son of a traitor, or the Spanish prelates who know nothing of the affairs of Italy and were our enemies owing to the poisonous suborning practiced upon them. Not one of our German princes who have the right of electing and deposing us was at hand to confirm the sentence. The utter falsehood of all the charges made against us was proved by irrefragable documents. But were they all true? How would they justify the monstrous absurdity that the emperor in whom dwells the supreme majesty can be a judged guilty of high treason? That he who has the source of law is above all law should be subject to law. To condemn him to temporal penalties who has but one superior in temporal things, God. We submit ourselves in spiritual things not only to the Pope, but to the humblest priest. But alas, how unlike are the clergy of our day to those of the primitive church who let apostolic lives imitating the humility of our Lord?  Now they are abandoned to this world and to drunkenness. Their religion is choked by their riches. It were a good work to relieve them from the noxious wealth. It is the interest of all princes to deprive them of these vain superfluities to compel them to salutary poverty. In the inditing of this letter Frederick sacrificed his discretion to his wrath. In all his attacks upon the Pope he had hitherto been careful to insist that his quarrel was not with the church but with its head. Now, however, he included the whole body of the clergy in his resentment, declaimed against their unnatural wealth, and invited his brother Monarchs to cooperate with him in reducing them to a more humble state. The inevitable result was that almost the whole body of the clergy of Christendom was henceforth bitterly hostile to him. Matthew Paris reflects this animosity in his chronicle and is highly indignant with the emperor. When the news reached the ears of the Christian kings of France and England, it appeared as clear as the light to them and their nobles that Frederick was endeavoring to destroy the liberty and nobility of the church and by this very fact rendering himself suspected of heresy he had by his imprudence and shamelessness extinguished and destroyed every spark of good opinion and respect for his wisdom which had hitherto existed among the people. However continues the sagacious monk. There was one grievous wound which pressed upon princes as well as prelates in a heavier degree than all others. This was that although the emperor of Frederick was deserving on many accounts of being humbled and deprived of all his honors, yet if by God's assistance the papal authority should irrevocably depose him, the Romans see abusing God's favor would in future be puffed up to such a degree of haughtiness and intolerable pride that it would on some light cause or other either depose Catholic chiefs, especially prelates, although innocent or appropriately threatened to depose them. And the Roman pontiffs though sprung from plebeian blood, wood with lofty talk and boasting, exclaim, we have trodden down the most powerful emperor of Frederick and who are you that rashly think to resist us? The pope himself realized that this fear must be allayed, his answering manifesto opened in tones lofty enough, but ended with an assurance that other monarchs were safe from such a sentence as he had passed upon the emperor. When the sick man, who has scorned mildly the remedies as subjected to the knife and the cottery, he complains of the cruelty of the physician. When the evildoer, who has despised all warning as at length punished, he arraigns the judge. But the physician only looks to the welfare of the sick man, the judge regards the crime, not the person of the criminal. The emperor doubts and denies that all things and all men are subject to the sea of Rome, as if we, who are to judge angels are not to give sentence on all earthly things? In the Old Testament priests dethroned unworthy kings. How much more is the vicar of Christ justified in proceeding against him who expelled from the church as a heretic is already the portion of hell? Ignorant persons aver that Constantine first gave temporal power to the sea of Rome. It was already bestowed by Christ himself as inalienable from its nature and absolutely unconditional. Christ founded not only a pontifical but a royal sovereignty. Constantine humbly gave up to the church and on lawful tyranny and received back from Christ's vicar a power divinely ordained for the punishment of the bad and the reward of the good. Peter was not bidden to throw away his sword, but to put it up into its sheath. By these words we see that it was to him that the sword belonged, and he it was who had the right of using it. The power of the sword lodged in the church is bestowed upon the emperor. This is typified in his coronation right. The pope delivers to Caesar a sheathed sword which the prince draws and brandishes in token that he has received the power of using it. Let not other kings take alarm. Our authority over them is not the same as over the prince of the Romans who takes an oath to the Roman pontif. Other kings have an hereditary right to their crowns, but the Roman emperor is chosen king by the free vote of the Germans and is afterwards promoted to the empire by us. It was the apostolic sea that transferred the empire from the Greeks to the Germans. We have all so special power with respect to the crown of Sicily, which is our own thief. Both parties in their letters courted the active assistants as well as the approval of foreign monarchs, but those princes were too wise or too cautious to plunge into the immittable strife. If they aided the pope, they helped to elevate a power which might afterwards crush them in turn. If they espoused the cause of the emperor, they invoked the anathemas of the pope. Better to stand apart from the fray, to devote themselves to the work which lay nearer to their hands and to watch the two mighty forces rending each other in their mortal struggle. That struggle became more fierce and sanguinary now. The emperor was fighting for his life. His heart was bitter with hatred of the foe who had so relentlessly pursued him. The taint of cruelty, which was never absent from the hoe and stauf and blood, gained the ascendancy. He became ruthless and terrible in his revenge. It became a war in which little quarter was asked or given for the pope by asserting his power to break all treaties left little room for mercy. A town might pledge its word to the emperor to fulfill conditions and abstain from enmity, but of what use to talk of terms, when as soon as the emperor should have withdrawn his armies, the pope would absolve that city from its oath. Innocent sent his legates into every corner of the empire, bidding all faithful Christians to cast off the yoke of the man who was no longer their lord. They need have no fear. They were assured that the pope would never make peace with the emperor and abandon them to his vengeance. No feigned penitence, no simulated humility shall so deceive us as that when he is cast down from the height of his imperial and royal dignity, he shall be restored to his throne. His sentence is absolutely irrevocable. His reprobation is the voice of God by his church. He is condemned and forever. His viper progeny are included in this eternal prescription. Whoever loves justice should rejoice that vengeance is thus declared against the common enemy and wash his hands in the blood of the transgressor. These last words seem directly to encourage the assassination of the emperor, and they soon bore fruit. Frederick II had his weapons to wield. He levied attacks of one-third upon the possessions of every cleric and religious community throughout his kingdom.  The friars must be cast out from the borders of his realm, since from them he could expect nothing but the most diligent enmity. In the September of this year, 1245, he left Turin, where the above enactments had been issued and marched to Parma and Cremona. Both cities received him with apparently undiminished loyalty, though a plot against his life was discovered in which some few Parmasans were implicated. While in the north he made another attempt to destroy the city of Brescia, but the Lombards turned out in force against him and held the fords of the river to Cinello, which he must cross to reach the town. He abandoned the campaign in November, but not before he had inflicted a heavy loss upon the rebels. His son Enzo captured thirteen hundred of their infantry and forty knights who had taken shelter in a strong castle. The winter months were spent in Tuscany over which the emperor's natural son Frederick of Antioch was made imperial vicar. A great danger called him back to the kingdom in the spring of 1246. The machinations of innocent had raised up a powerful conspiracy against him, a conspiracy that aimed not merely at his possessions, but at his life. The plotters were many of them nobles of high position. Pandol of Fazanella had been his vicar in Tuscany. Andrew of Cicala was the captain general of Apulia. James of Mora was the son of Frederick's chief justitiary. There were also Teobalt Francesco, who would have been Podesta of Parma, and William of San Severino in his sons. The plot was betrayed to Frederick by one of the conspirators, and for some time he refused to credit the tail, but the sudden flight of Pandolphe and James from his court convinced him. They found refuge at Rome, and from there informed their fellow traders, who were daily expecting to hear that Frederick's murder had been accomplished, that the emperor had discovered their secret plans. End of Section 29 Section 30 of Stupor Mundi the Life and Times of Frederick II by Lionel Alshorn. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 15 The Deposed Emperor Part 2 The guilty nobles shut themselves in the two castles of Scala and Capaccio and spread the report that Frederick was dead, which caused a rising among the populace. The arrival of the emperor on the scene quickly produced order and the traders were besieged. The castle of Scala made a short resistance, that of Capaccio held out for three months. Some of the captives before they died confessed that the pope had instigated them in their treacherous designs on Frederick's life. The vengeance of Frederick was fearful enough. The plotters were blinded, disfigured and maimed. He had a mind to send them in this wretched state round the courts of Europe as a forcible testimony of the pope's murderous plans and of the retribution which all those should find who sought to wash their hands in the blood of the transgressor. But he desisted from this drastic step and the victims were put out of their misery by being broken on the wheel. Their fate seems barbarous to the mind of a more gentle age, but we can judge from the friar Salim Bene that it seemed only just in those times. The princes of the kingdom, he writes, whom Frederick had raised from nothing and had exalted from the dust, lifted their heels against him. They kept no faith with him but betrayed him. There was no wisdom in those who thought themselves wise. I knew them. They suddenly vanished from the world, and for the most part made a wretched end of their lives because they walked after vanity. The pope, whether truly or falsely, denied all complicity in this plot and accused Frederick in turn of designs upon his own life. Two murderers, it was said, were sent by the emperor to the Roman court for the purpose of killing the pope by secret treachery. Their purpose was discovered and they were cast into prison. There were some, however, who said that this report was cunningly invented and fraudulently arranged, in order that Frederick, who declared that it was by the pope's contrivance that a similar recurrence had lately happened to him, might be defamed by a similar crime. Two other conspiracies were also detected against innocent in which gibbalines were involved, but neither could be traced to the emperor's instigation. It is improbable that he would resort to such means as this, for the assassination of the pope by his orders would call down upon him the unanimous execration of Christendom and all but the most fanatical or unscrupulous of his supporters would desert him in the struggle that must be taken up by innocent's successor. In Germany, meanwhile, the pope was strenuously endeavouring to destroy Frederick's power and fanning those flames of civil war which had blazed up after the emperor's second excommunication. Albert von Biham was his agent among the great of the land, the friars among the populace in the towns. A crusade was declared against the church's foe and a papal bull forbade anyone to journey to the holy land and fight against the infidels when there was a more evil enemy of religion vexing the church at home. The result of the sentence of the Council of Lyon was to cause many of the prelates to desert the emperor, while the great princes, who had formally lent an ear to the pope's beguilings, now returned to their loyalty. Otto of Bavaria, who had for some time dallied with the offer of the imperial crown, now refused it with uncompromising finality. He cast in his lot openly with a deposed hohenstaufen by giving his daughter in marriage to King Conrad. The papal party cast around for another powerful prince to set up as king of the Germans and subsequently as emperor of Rome and Frederick's place. Some were too loyal, others too fearful of endeavouring to supplant a sovereign whose name was still held in awe. The papal offers were rejected with contempt by the king of Bohemia, the dukes of Austria, Brabant and Saxony, the margraves of Meissen and Brandenburg. Finally Henry Raspa, the landgrave of Turingia, yielded to the persuasions and commands of innocent. I will be crowned emperor, he said, but I shall not live a year. Innocent threw all his energies into the task of furthering the cause of his puppet. A stream of English gold flowed from Lyon to Germany and was there distributed with a lavish hand. The princes and prelates of the empire were bidden to elect Henry as king. The princes scorned to obey, but the prelates were no longer loyal to their Kaiser. The archbishops of Menz, Cologne, Treves and Bremen, the bishops of Mess, Spears and Strasbourg, gathered together on May 22nd and chose Henry of Turingia as king and emperor-elect. Such an election could not be valid and the partisans of Frederick scoffed at Henry as the priest's king. But a powerful army assembled under his leadership and defeated Conrad in a great battle near Frankfurt. His triumph, which short-lived. The towns would nowhere submit to him and in a few months Conrad had assembled another force of fifteen thousand men. The papal champion and the son of Frederick met again in a bloody battle near the town of Ulm and the imperialists gained a decisive victory. Henry fled to his home in Turingia and died on February 17th, 1247, nine months after his election. The papalists then endeavored to seduce Conrad from his allegiance to the emperor. It was not the first time that the vickers of Christ had incited the son to rise against the father. But Conrad rejected their efforts with scorn. Innocent invited the king of Norway and the king of Denmark to fill Henry's place, but neither would accept the perilous honor. It was at last accepted by William Count of Holland, an ambitious youth of twenty years of age. He was elected king of the Romans by three archbishops and a few bishops and princes on Christmas Day, 1247. There remained still to crown him. He advanced to Exla Chapelle, but the burgers of the imperial city of Charlemagne shut their gates against the usurper. For six months they endured a siege until their provisions had failed and the walls were crumbling to pieces. They lost heart when the false report was spread that their Hohenstdalfen Kaiser was dead and yielded upon fair conditions. William of Holland was crowned by the papal legate in the ancient church which thirty-two years before had witnessed the coronation of Frederick. The Star of the House of Hohenstdalfens had already begun to set and from henceforth Conrad slowly but surely lost ground. A blight seemed to settle upon Germany. The partisans of Innocent and Frederick were unceasingly at strife. Three of her great princes, the Duke of Austria, the landgrave of Turingia and the Duke of Moran died without male issue and their relations fought wildly among themselves for the succession. Every house seemed to be divided against itself. The old policy of the popes to weaken the power of the emperors by fostering internecine strife in their dominions was yielding a rich harvest of discord and desolation. Frederick meanwhile after having crushed the conspiracy of the nobles of Sicily was taking a few months of rest in his kingdom before setting forth on the final stage of the great struggle. The future might seem hopeless enough to him. With the half of Germany arrayed against his cause, with the resources of his kingdom strained to their utmost in the maintenance of his armies, the task of re-establishing his authority in every corner of his vast dominions was beyond his power. As Tim was arrayed many forces, the fanaticism inspired by a blind and unquestioning belief in the infallibility of the pope through which he himself must be regarded as the accursed enemy of God and the church. The more timid fear of the devout which rendered them unwilling to serve a master when thereby they invoked upon themselves the condemnation and anathema of the pope. The cupidity of baser men whose loyalty was no proof against the allurement of the papal gold. The self-interest of others who hoped to profit by anarchy and confusion to extend their own authority and possessions. In his own support he could count only personal devotion, unswerving loyalty, and the same emotion which inspired himself, the passionate detestation of priestly tyranny. It is wonderful enough that in an age of superstition and credulity so many could be found ready to imperil their souls in his service. The very nature of the warfare in which he was involved rendered a speedy culmination impossible unless he himself should be crushed into the dust or released from his burden by death. His enemies in northern Italy would never give him the opportunity to overthrow their power in one decisive battle. His more awful adversary could never be brought to submission. Frederick might overrun the papal territories, might destroy a few Lombard towns, but innocent would still sit at lions, unassailable, unrelenting and unsubdued. The tribute of Christendom would continue to flow into his coffers, would be employed to support mercenary armies, to encourage and fortify the old enemies of the emperor, to raise up new champions of the church. Yet to Frederick, though he realized the hopelessness of his cause and the weary road he must travel for the remainder of his years, there came no thought of abandoning the struggle. He was seized instead with an irresolution almost inevitable, for he knew not against which of his many foes to direct his arms. If he gathered all his might together and advanced upon Milan, bent upon utterly destroying this most aggressive of his Lombard enemies, he must prepare for a siege of many months duration, and meanwhile his other adversaries would profit by his preoccupation to invade his own territories or to attack the loyal Ghiblien states in their neighborhood. If he entered Germany to assist his son Conrad in the war against the papal intruder, then the rebels in northern Italy would redouble their energies, relieved from the menace of his proximity. There seemed only one course and that a desperate one by which Frederick might strike a decisive blow. He might march to Lyon at the head of his armies, appear in person before the face of his archenemy, and either rest justice from him by force or lead him back a captive into his kingdom. Such a course would be dramatic and impressive, but it would be attended by grave dangers. It might incur the national resentment of France, for Lyon, though nominally in Imperial City, was French in the sentiments of patriotic Frenchmen. There were many in Christendom, moreover, who though they might deprecate the harshness and ambition of innocent, would yet be aroused to active sympathy if he suffered the personal indignity of compulsion or captivity. Frederick nevertheless decided to march to Lyon. He advanced northwards to Turin in May 1247, with stores of treasure and many thousand knights. He declared that he would bring his cause before the pope and before the world. He talked of appearing in Germany with a pope in his train. Innocent cried to France for succor and his appeal was answered. Louis had befriended the Emperor in some measure, but he was too pious to be his friend in all things. The actions of innocent might be subject to condemnation and reproof. But the person of the vicar of Christ must remain in violet. The French king offered to lead his chivalry to Lyon when the pope should need his protection. Frederick still persisted in his design. He made a compact with the Count of Savoie, which ensured him an undisputed crossing of the Alpine passes. Further to the west the Count of Vienne promised to aid him to the utmost of his power. He appointed Chambéry as the meeting place between himself and his trans-Alpine subjects and allies. It seemed probable that the strife would become international, that the armies of France would meet the armies of the Emperor before the city of Lyon. But the pope had other weapons to wield. He had many friends among the great Guelphic houses of Italy, and not a few in the imperialist town of Parma. Some of these had been lately expelled by the Emperor for plotting against his life. With the influence of the pope added to their persuasions, they succeeded in gaining the connivance of their friends inside the walls to their plans. They appeared before Parma with a strong force of mercenaries hired by the gold of innocent. The imperial captain sallied forth to give them battle, was defeated and slain. The victorious exiles found the gates open to them, took possession of the citadel, won the enthusiasm of the fickle populace, and Parma was no longer an imperialist city. CHAPTER XVI The revolt of Parma called for Frederick s immediate presence and he was compelled to abandon his march to Lyon. He turned back from Turin with black rage in his heart, and swore to visit the traitor city with a terrible vengeance. From the days of his grandfather Barbarossa the emperors had cherished Parma as a city-state whose loyalty was excelled by none in northern Italy, and the Parmes had ever been foremost in sending their knights to aid the emperors against their foes. Frederick himself had been lavish with his favors to the city. He had extended its territories and enlarged its privileges. If Parma had turned against him where could he look for loyalty and faith? The defection of the city was a severe blow to his material power. Many great roads of commercial and strategical importance converged on its market place. Its territories situated in the fertile valley of the Poe yielded a rich harvest of grain. The wealth of its merchants enabled it to put a large force of soldiers into the field. Its walls were stout, the hearts of its citizens stouter still. The accession of so powerful an ally gave fresh courage to the gvelfs, and reinforcements soon commenced to pour into the city, which was preparing for the inevitable siege. The Count of San Bonifatso arrived with his Mantuan levies. Three hundred knights with their attendant infantry came from Piacenza. The legate Gregory of Montelengo brought a thousand knights from Milan. The Marquis of Esti brought more troops from Ferrara. Jenna was sent three hundred cross-bowmen and the Count of Lavagna a larger force. Parma herself contributed a thousand knights. Walls which were defended by such a garrison were not likely to be quickly overthrown. The emperor arrived at Cormona on the last day of June and was joined by Ecellino de Romano, who had hastened thither from the Trevis in March. King Enzo was already in the neighborhood, with Count Lancia and every man that Cormona could furnish under his banner. Frederick of Antioch came from Tuscany. There were men from Apulia, Burgundy and Germany, and a great force of Frederick's Saracen soldiers. The imperial army numbered ten thousand knights and a countless host of infantry and bowmen. The beleaguered of so large a city as Parma, whose forces were concentrated while those of Frederick were dispersed in the effort to encircle the walls, was a long and laborious process. Many were the skirmishes and conflicts, stubborn defenses of roads and bridges, desperate endeavors to break the ring of the besieging army. Victory in these minor engagements fell now to one side, now to the other. But slowly and shortly every means of communication between the city and the outer world was barred by the emperor's captains, and the citizens began to grow fearful as their reserves of food and water dwindled away. If Frederick, hardened and embittered by the adverse incidents of recent years and mightily incensed against the Parmes themselves, was cruel and merciless in his warfare, his enemies were no more gentle in their methods.  Fourteen had thus perished in the sight of their friends before he relented and put a stop to the spectacle. The Parmes, if they suspected, men or women of acting as the emperor's spies, would torture them until they confessed to guilt and then burned them in the public square. By the end of 1247 the emperor had almost surrounded Parma with his works, and at the strongest point of his fortifications had erected a castle and commenced to build a city around it. Houses and ramparts were constructed, and the river which supplied Parma with water was diverted to feed a canal for the benefit of the new city. It bore the hadi name of Vittoria, and in its castle was stored all the treasure which Frederick had collected for the campaign. Its mint issued golden coins, and within its ramparts were stored vast quantities of provisions, arms and tents, and many military engines. The besieged town, completely isolated from its friends, gave up all hope of relief. The gvelfs of northern Italy could give it no more assistance. They had sent their troops to aid in its defense, but they dare not advance to its sucker when so formidable an army under the victor of Corte Nuova must first be encountered in the open field. The surrender of the city could not be long delayed. Its non-militant populace was starving, the soldiers themselves commenced to tighten their belts. Desperate sallies were made, but were beaten back with heavy losses. The imperial army, confident of a speedy victory, grew careless and relaxed its vigilance. One fatal morning, on the eighteenth of February, 1248, Frederick rode out of Vittoria with some of his knights on a hunting expedition. An hour afterwards, some Milanese and Placentine sallied from the southern gate of Parma, and Lancia, with a great body of cavalry, left Vittoria to support the imperial troops at the point of attack. The sallie was merely a faint. Montalengo gathered together every available man in the city and dashed at Vittoria. It was a forlorn hope, and the desperate citizens resolved to perish rather than return to starvation. Thaddeus of Sueza was in command at Vittoria, and was at first inclined to scorn all thought of danger. What, he cried, have the rats left their holes? But the fortifications, denuded of a large portion of the garrison, were unable to withstand the furious onslaught of the Parmes. The hunger-maddened crowd swept over the ditches and walls and hewed the defenders down. Thaddeus of Sueza was seized and torn, limb from limb. The imperial troops were overwhelmed with panic and fled, pursued by the Lombard knights. The victorious citizens worked their will on Vittoria. Inestimable stores of treasure fell into their hands. Money and jewels, vessels of gold and silver, robes of silk and precious fabrics, even the very crown of the empire with the scepter and the imperial seals. The crown was seized by a Parmes dwarf who placed it on his head and strutted derisively through the streets of the jubilant city. The emperor taking his pleasure in the chase saw far away on the horizon the flames of his burning castle and town. He mounted his charger and spurred toward the scene of disaster. He had galloped but a few miles when he was met by a vast multitude of his soldiers flying in disorderly terror from the pursuing foe. He dashed into their midst, strove vainly to rally them, but was himself swept backward and onward by their impetuous rush far along the road to Cromona. That city whose streets had so often rung with the clamor of welcome and ovation now received with gloomy silence the frowning emperor who entered in the evening at the head of his shame-faced army. The Cremonese had lost their carocio and many of their best men in the fall of Vittoria.  His fellows expected to see him dragged away to the gallows but the emperor bore the reproach in silence. Hard words were nothing after the humiliation of that day. Loud were the exaltations of the Gvelfs. Parma might henceforth be called Palma. She was the chief shield and defense of the church. The emperor had been forsaken by his familiar devils, Bielzebub and Ashtaroth. The capture of the pretty deers of his harem had grieved his heart beyond all the men in treasures he had lost. Let Brescia and Milan rejoice. Let Genoa, Piacenza, Mantua, Venice and Ancona break forth into joy. Woe to Pavia, the modern Babylon. Two peas are the handmaid of Pilate. Two Cromona howling over the loss of her carocio. Even the pope contributed an appropriate verse. Vittoria vanquished Thou dost lie that Christ his name may glorify. The emperor's pride had received a mortal wound, but his arm had not yet lost its weight nor his name its terror. A few days after their victory the Parmes, supported by eighty-seven ships which had come up the pole from Mantua and Ferrara, made an attempt to destroy a bridge which Frederick had erected across the river. The rumor suddenly spread through their ranks that the emperor was approaching and one and all incontinently fled, leaving the ships to be seized by the Cremonese. They had reoccupied many castles in the neighborhood, but were quickly driven back into their city by Frederick and his captains, and the imperial army again encamped on the site of Vittoria. Innocent, alarmed at the quick recovery of the emperor's cause, exhorted all the gvelfik cities to hasten to the assistance of Parmes, and issued numerous excommunications against the supporters of Antichrist. Frederick himself had already been adequately cursed, but now anathemas were launched against his sons and grandsons and all states and nobles and clergy who should send their envoys to his court. King Louis, who passed through Lyon on his way to the Crusades, made one last effort to intercede for Frederick. The emperor, he said, had promised to join him in Palestine if the pope would annul the sentence of Lyon. But Innocent replied that peace should never be made while Frederick and his brood held the empire. Holy Father, cried Louis, the ruin of the Holy Land will lie at your door. As for Frederick, he had abandoned the hope of securing justice from that old serpent, that good shepherd of the church. He avowed that he would never again seek for peace until it was sought from him. We who read and examine into the annals of history, writes Matthew Parris, never found such an instance of intense and inexorable hatred as that which existed between Frederick and the pope. The emperor was still in the neighborhood of Parma in June. The Milanese and Placentines marched out against him but fled by night at his approach. In July he left the command at Cremona in the hands of Enzo and himself proceeded northwards to Piedmont. The Marquis of Montferrat was induced to return to his allegiance by the burning of his castles and the wasting of his lands, but a celly surrendered to the emperor without a struggle, and here he stayed for the remainder of the year. CHAPTER XVI. All the nobles of Piedmont flocked to his court, and many ambassadors of foreign kings, who thus testified to their continued recognition of Frederick as emperor in spite of the papal deposition. The count of Savoy came to patrode his daughter to Manfred, the youngest of those natural sons of Frederick who figured it all prominently in the history of the day. Many favors were bestowed upon those cities and nobles who had remained faithful to the emperor, nor were those forgotten who had lost husbands or fathers in the disaster of Vittoria. His fame remained still undiminished. Indeed the amazement and absorbing interest which he excited in the minds of men increased as he rose triumphant after his defeat and continued to defy the sentence of the pope. The scriptures were searched for prophecies which by devious ways might be found to apply to his name. The great magician Merlin was said to have foretold that he should live in prosperity for seventy-two years, that nothing but the hand of God could strike him down. The more ardent of his supporters drifting further and further away from the old doctrines and the established order of religious things began to regard him as something more than an earthly potentate. He should come to be lord of the world in spiritual as well as earthly things. He was the second messiah and Peter Divinia, happily named, was the first among his disciples, the rock upon whom he should build his church. This strange and fanatical devotion was shared even by ecclesiastics of high position. The archbishop of Capua, unable to reach the court through the bad state of the roads, wrote thus to Divinia, If the cup of this journey may not pass from me, I am ready to cast myself not only into the mud but into the sea, that I may walk on the waters toward the Lord. And thou, Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. There were some who would have liked to see the new messiah openly proclaimed. To have seen his trusted minister, assume the position which the pope falsely held as the vicar of Christ. Do not hide your light under a bushel, wrote one to Divinia. Our Lord says unto you, Peter, you love me, feed my sheep. He has set you up in opposition to that false vicar of Christ who is abusing the power of the keys. Do not shrink from the burden because you are not used to it. Your honesty, your moderation, your strength recommend you for it. Our Lord will take no denial. You must answer, Lord thou knowest, that I love thee, thy will be done. But the minister whom Frederick had raised up from the dust to the highest post in the kingdom, upon whom he had heaped riches and honor, whom he had admitted to his confidence and intimate affection, was to prove himself more nearly allied to Judas than to that Peter who merely denied his Lord. The reasons of the terrible tragedy of his end are wrapped in gloom, but from many conflicting accounts we may accept that of Matthew Paris as most reliable and most generally credited in Europe. He was the only chronicler who wrote contemporaneously of the event, and his version is confirmed by Frederick's own letters. In the beginning of 1249 Frederick returned from Vercelli to Cromona, where he was seized with an illness. The imperial physician was in a Parmes prison, and Peter, who it was said had been bribed by the Pope, offered the services of his own physician to the royal patient. This functionary, probably himself and the Pope's pay, or merely obeying his master, mixed a strong and deadly poison in the draft he prepared. Frederick, however, had been informed of the plot and said to Peter and the physician, My friends, my soul confides in you.  My Lord answered Peter, my physician has often given you wholesome and beneficial medicine. Why, therefore, do you now fear? Frederick scowled and turned to the physician. Drink half this medicine with me. The trembling man took hold of the cup and purposely spilled its contents on the floor. But a few drops remained, and Frederick commanded that these should be given to some criminals who were already condemned to the gallows. The wretches expired in horrible agony, and the physician was straightway taken out and hanged. A full council of nobles was immediately summoned to judge the greater culprit, and letters were produced, which proved the Pope's connivance in the crime. The sentence of death was passed upon Peter but not a speedy death.  But on the way to Pisa, whose citizens, for some reasons, bore him an inexorable hatred, and into whose mercy he was to be delivered for the final penalty, he wrought his own destruction by dashing his brains out against the stone pillar to which he was chained. His terrible downfall was long remembered in Italy, but Dante exculpates him from the crime and attributes his apparent guilt to the machinations of jealous rivals. Frederick, on reflecting on these circumstances, writes Matthew, grieved inconsolably and with abundance of tears, which is a pitiable sight in a person of such authority and such an age, and clasping his hands together exclaimed, Woe is me for my own bowels fight against me, this Peter whom I believe to be a rock and who was the half of my life laid a plot for my death. In whom shall I now place confidence? Where can I henceforth be safe? Where happy? His friends who sat around him joined in his grief with sighs and tears, and by this occurrence the pope's fame was much deteriorated, but God alone knows the truth. From the scene of this tragedy Frederick, stricken in spirit by the treachery of his trusted friend, returned to his kingdom in the March of 1249. But he had not yet had his fill of grief, for the news of another disaster followed hard on his heels. Enzo, the best beloved of his sons, the gallant knight, the fearless soldier, the troubadour, the winner of all hearts, was captured by his enemies and consigned to a lifelong captivity. While Enzo was ravaging the country round Parma the Cardinal Octavian gathered the whole force of Bologna together in advance against Modena. Enzo, dashed back to the help of the besieged town, was met for once by the papal forces in the open field, and after a long and sanguinary battle was utterly defeated and with over a thousand of his men led a prisoner to Bologna. Frederick threatened the city with destruction but to no avail. Promised to encircle its walls with a ring of gold if only it would restore his son to him. The citizens refused all ransom and he dared not carry his thread into effect and besiege the city lest the enraged townsmen should put Enzo to death. He could only wait, in the hope that someday he should be able to enforce a general peace from all his enemies in which the release of his son should be included. That release never came and Enzo languished in his prison for three and twenty years. He was treated with great consideration for even among his enemies his personal charm exerted its sway and procured him many friends amongst the higher citizens. A noble maiden named Lucia Viadalgo became enamored of him and solaced him in his captivity for several years. Once he almost managed to escape was concealed in a cask and conveyed to the gates of the city but one of his long golden locks was hanging outside the cask and attracted the attention of the guards. His treatment henceforth became more rigorous until death released him in later Middle Age. He was buried by his captors with all the honors befitting his rank and his tomb is still to be seen in the Dominican Church of Bologna. Innocent meanwhile, freed from the restraining influence of King Louis who had departed to Palestine, redoubled his efforts to bring his enemy to destruction. He turned all his energies to the task of shaking Frederick's power in the kingdom which still remained firm in its allegiance. He anticipated his own victory by bestowing its territory upon his adherents and by issuing a number of new laws for its government. The papal fulminations were again repeated against all who should continue to regard Frederick his king. Every bishop or priest who should dare to accept a favor from him was to be deprived forever of his office. All cities and nobles who espoused his cause were to be stripped of their privileges and to be tainted with everlasting infamy. The adherents of the deposed monarch were to be outlawed from all the rights of citizenship, were to be outcasts against whom every man might raise his hand. But those who should rise against Frederick should be shriven of all their sins. Frederick himself was driven to ruthless severity by these measures and by the sedition which the begging friars preached in every corner of the kingdom. All traitors who were proved to be guilty, they must be condemned by the mouth of two witnesses for justice must still be maintained, were to be hung. The friars who were crawling about the land-like crabs were no longer to be imprisoned or banished, but burnt alive. The pope could do little to shake the loyalty of the kingdom. In central Italy the emperor's cause was still triumphant. Cardinal Renier was defeated at Civita Nuova with the loss of two thousand men. Cardinal Capoccio was routed a few months later. Town after town fell into the hands of the emperor's captains. The conflict became more violent and ruthless between the rival forces as each month went by, and central Italy became a scene of carnage and desolation. In Lombardy also the fortunes of the emperor were in the ascendant. Cremona had won a great battle over Parma, had captured her Caroccio and some thousands of her soldiers. Ecellino de Romano had reduced the strongest castle of the Marquis of Esti. Piacenze, which had been among the most stubborn of the rebellious cities, had proclaimed her allegiance to the emperor. Milan and Brescia were losing heart and becoming feeble in their aggression. In Christendom the mass of public opinion was becoming warm in his favor and disgusted with the violence and blind fury of the pope's hostility. In the pages of the English chronicler we find entries such as this. By some it was positively affirmed that the pope eagerly desired above all things to overthrow Frederick, whom he called the great dragon, in order that he being trampled underfooting crushed, he might more easily trample down the French and English kings and the other kings of Christendom, all of whom he called petty princes and the little serpents, who would be frightened by the case of the said Frederick and might dispoil them in their prelates of their property at his pleasure. These speeches together with the enormous deeds which bore powerful evidence to the meaning of his words generated offense in the hearts of many and strengthened the justice of Frederick's so that his cause began to improve daily. A more definite ground for displeasure against the popes was the ruin they had wrought to the cause of the church in Palestine. What had the popes done for Christendom in these latter times, men asked, that might be compared with the emperor's achievement on his crusade? If the fruits of that achievement had been lost it was because the partisans of the pope had broken the truce which Frederick had made with the sultan and because the persistent enmity of the popes had prevented Frederick from again taking the cross. The emperor had still continued to aid the crusaders, had maintained a force in the east under his marshal, had interceded with the sultan of Egypt, had secured the release of a great number of French prisoners. He was now helping King Louis and his crusade by sending him fast stores of provisions in spite of the heavy demand upon his resources made by his wars. He was the one monarch who by virtue of his material power and the high prestige which he enjoyed among the infidels might restore the holy land to the Christians. He had offered to spend his life in Palestine in the fulfillment of this object if the pope would give him peace. What had been innocence conduct in the matter, men asked. He had refused to grant peace to the emperor in spite of the intercession of King Louis and Queen Blanche. He had diverted the money which had been contributed by Christendom for the crusades to the prosecution of his own schemes against the emperor. He had obtained more money by selling to many who had taken the cross an absolution from their vows. He had still further depleted the ranks of the crusaders by commanding all those who had taken the cross in Germany and Italy to turn their arms against Frederick instead of against the Turks. The disastrous defeat of King Louis in Egypt raised the resentment against innocent to a dangerous height. He was accused by the French of being the sole cause of the ruin of the expedition and of the disgrace of the French crown. The two brothers of Louis journeying home from Acker had threatened to bring the whole French nation about the pope's ears if he did not straight way make his peace with the emperor. Innocence position became more insecure every month. Those nobles of Arles who had formerly been his protectors were returning to their rightful lord. He sought leave from England to take up his abode at Bordeaux, but met with decided refusal. Bordeaux was too near to London and Englishmen had no mind to see the pope in their own country. With his arms triumphant in northern Italy, with the half of Germany still holding firm to its allegiance, with his powerful western neighbor bidding fair to make common cause with him against the pope, it might seem that the emperor would yet rest an honorable peace from his foe. But Frederick himself knew that the smiles of fortune had come too late. He had turned his face to the wall. He was sick unto death. End of section 32


British people warned that they may be called to war if NATO enters into conflict with Russia. British people are being warned that they may be called to war if the UK enters into any conflicts because the army does not have enough members according to National World Media outlet. It is noted that the warning comes ahead of a speech from the head of the army, General Sir Patrick Sanders. He is expected to emphasise the need for the government to mobilise the nation in the event of war with Russia. General Sir Patrick, who has criticised the cuts in army numbers, is reported to have said that British men and women should be prepared for a call-up to service if NATO goes to war with Vladimir Putin. National World Media outlet says that his supposed claims comes after a senior NATO military official warned that the public should prepare for an all-out war with Russia within the next 20 years and said that it would mean a change in their lives. Admiral Rob Bauer said that nations needed to be prepared to find more people if it comes to war and to consider mobilisation reservists or conscription. This is not the first time that General Sir Patrick has hinted that members of the public may be needed to support the army. In 2022, he predicted that the UK was facing its 1937 moment over the war in Ukraine and said Britain must be ready to fight and win to ward off the threat from Russia.