Dead Pope on Trial.
This scene, which marks the lowest point to which civil war and anarchy in Rome reduced the papacy, took place in February or March of 897. About eleven months before, Pope Formosus had died after a stormy pontificate of five years. He was followed to the grave in fifteen days by his successor. Then Stephen VI seated himself in the chair of St. Peter. Stephen belonged to the faction opposed to Formosus’s ally, Arnulf of Germany. Party feeling and party hatred ran high. The men temporarily in power had injuries to avenge, and Stephen, in a fit of almost insane fury, determined to try his predecessor.
On what charge the dead Formosus was actually tried is not now very clear—probably this detail was never considered of much importance. Stephen summoned a synod, dragged the corpse out of the grave, dressed it in its full pontifical robes and himself presided over the court. He made no pretence of being an impartial judge, however. Paying no attention to the trembling deacon to whom had been assigned the hopeless task of defending the dead Pope, Stephen turned savagely on the corpse.
“Why hast thou in thy ambition usurped the Apostolic Seat, who wast previously only Bishop of Portus?” he demanded.
The synod played out its part in the wretched farce. Formosus was convicted and solemnly deposed. The vestments were torn from the body of the dead pontiff, the three fingers of the right hand used in bestowing the benediction were cut off and the mummy, hauled through the streets by the mob, was thrown into the Tiber. A few months later Stephen was strangled in his palace.
Equally brutal was the treatment given to Cromwell’s body when the Restoration brought Charles II back to England and the cavaliers to power. Cromwell had directed that his interment be in Westminster Abbey, and every effort was made to have his funeral as impressive as that of any crowned king. The attempt, however, was not altogether successful. In his famous diary John Evelyn notes: