Gregory had dared to excommunicate Henry, because of the political conspirators against the latter; but he had not considered that his pardon would change those conspirators into enemies. The indignant Lombards turned their backs on Henry, the Bishops rejected the Pope's offer to release them from the ban, and the strife became more fierce and relentless than ever. In the meantime the German princes, encouraged by the Pope, proclaimed Rudolf of Suabia King in Henry's place. The latter, now at last supported by the Lombards, hastened back to Germany. A terrible war ensued, which lasted for more than two years, and was characterized by the most shocking barbarities on both sides. Gregory a second time excommunicated the king, but without the slightest political effect. The war terminated in 1080 by the death of Rudolf in battle, and Henry's authority became gradually established throughout the land.
1084.
His first movement, now, was against the Pope. He crossed the Alps with a large army, was crowned King of Lombardy, and then marched towards Rome. Gregory's only friend was the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, who resisted Henry's advance until the cities of Pisa and Lucca espoused his cause. Then he laid siege to Rome, and a long war began, during which the ancient city suffered more than it had endured for centuries. The end of the struggle was a devastation worse than that inflicted by Geiserich. When Henry finally gained possession of the city, and the Pope was besieged in the castle of St. Angelo, the latter released Robert Guiscard, chief of the Normans in Southern Italy, from the ban of excommunication which he had pronounced against him, and called him to his aid. A Norman army, numbering 36,000 men, mostly Saracens, approached Rome, and Henry was compelled to retreat. The Pope was released, but his allies burned all the city between the Lateran and the Coliseum, slaughtered thousands of the inhabitants, carried away thousands as slaves, and left a desert of blood and ruin behind them. Gregory VII. did not dare to remain in Rome after their departure: he accompanied them to Salerno, and there died in exile, in 1085.
Henry IV. immediately appointed a new Pope, Clement III., by whom he was crowned Emperor in St. Peter's. After Gregory's death, the Normans and the French selected another Pope, Urban II., and until both died, fifteen years afterwards, they and their partisans never ceased fighting. The Emperor Henry, however, who returned to Germany immediately alter his coronation, took little part in this quarrel. The last twenty years of his reign were full of trouble and misfortune. His eldest son, Konrad, who had lived mostly in Lombardy, was in 1092 persuaded to claim the crown of Italy, was acknowledged by the hostile Pope, and allied himself with his father's enemies. For a time he was very successful, but the movement gradually failed, and he ended his days in prison, in 1101.
1105. TREACHERY OF HENRY IV.'S SON.
Henry's hopes were now turned to his younger son, Henry, who was of a cold, calculating, treacherous disposition. The political and religious foes of the Emperor were still actively scheming for his overthrow, and they succeeded in making the young Henry their instrument, as they had made his brother Konrad. During the long struggles of his reign, the Emperor's strongest and most faithful supporter had been Frederick of Hohenstaufen, a Suabian count, to whom he had given his daughter in marriage, and whom he finally made Duke of Suabia. The latter died in 1104, and most of the German princes, with the young Henry at their head, arose in rebellion. For nearly a year, the country was again desolated by a furious civil war; but the cities along the Rhine, which were rapidly increasing in wealth and population, took the Emperor's side, as before, and enabled him to keep the field against his son. At last, in December, 1105, their armies lay face to face, near the river Moselle, and an interview took place between the two. Father and son embraced each other; tears were shed, repentance offered and pardon given; then both set out together for Mayence, where it was agreed that a National Diet should settle all difficulties.
On the way, however, the treacherous son persuaded his father to rest in the Castle of Böckelheim, there instantly shut the gates upon him and held him prisoner until he compelled him to abdicate. But, after the act, the Emperor succeeded in making his escape: the people rallied to his support, and he was still unconquered when death came to end his many troubles, in Liege, in August, 1106. He was perhaps the most signally unfortunate of all the German Emperors. The errors of his education, the follies and passions of his youth, the one fatal weakness of his manhood, were gradually corrected by experience; but he could not undo their consequences. After he had become comparatively wise and energetic, the internal dissensions of Germany, and the conflict between the Roman Church and the Imperial power, had grown too strong to be suppressed by his hand. When he might have done right, he lacked either the knowledge or the will; when he finally tried to do right, he had lost the power.
1099.
During the latter years of his reign occurred a great historical event, the consequences of which were most important to Europe, though not immediately so to Germany. Peter the Hermit preached a Crusade to the Holy Land for the purpose of conquering Jerusalem from the Saracens. The "Congregation of Cluny" had prepared the way for this movement: one of the two Popes, Urban II., encouraged it, and finally Godfrey of Bouillon (of the Ducal family of Lorraine) put himself at its head. The soldiers of this, the First Crusade, came chiefly from France, Burgundy and Italy. Although many of them passed through Germany on their way to the East, they made few recruits among the people; but the success of the undertaking, the capture of Jerusalem by Godfrey in 1099, and the religious enthusiasm which it created, tended greatly to strengthen the Papal power, and also that faction in the Church which was hostile to Henry IV.