A TALE OF CHIVALRY.
(Continued from page 330.)
CHAPTER II.
THE CHAMPION.
The Emperor Henry IV. of Germany, the husband of the falsely accused empress, was one of the bravest and most unfortunate princes who ever sat upon a throne. He had succeeded his father, Henry the Black, in 1056, at the age of six years, and the diet had given to Agnes of Aquetaine the administration of the affairs of state during his minority. But the princes and barons of Germany feeling themselves humiliated by their subjection to a foreign female, revolted against the empire, and Otho, Margrave of Saxony, commenced that series of civil wars, in which the emperor was destined to consume his life. Thus Henry IV. was always engaged in contests, first with his uncles, and then with his son; sometimes an emperor, sometimes a fugitive; to-day a proscriber, to-morrow proscribed; but always a “man of war and wo,” even in his greatest triumphs. After having deposed Pope Gregory VII.—after having, in expiation of that sacrilege, crossed the Apennines on foot, his staff in his hand, like a mendicant, in the depth of winter—after having waited three days in the court of the Castle of Canassa without clothes, without fire, without food, till it pleased his highness to admit him to his presence, he kissed his feet, and swore on the cross to submit himself to his authority; for at this price alone would the pope absolve the imperial penitent of the guilt of sacrilege; but the humiliation of the emperor displeased and disgusted the Lombards, who accused him of cowardice. Threatened by them with deposition, if he did not break the shameful league he had made with the pope, he purchased peace with the Lombards by renouncing his submission to Gregory. His acceptance of these terms set him at variance with the German barons, who elected Rodolphe, of Suabia, in his place. Henry, who had gone to Italy as a supplicant, returned to Germany a soldier, though under the ban of the church, for his rival, Rodolphe, had received from Pope Gregory a crown of gold, in token of his investiture by him of temporal dominion, and a bull invoking the malediction of heaven upon his enemy. Henry defeated and slew Rodolphe at the battle of Wolskieur, near Gera, after which he returned victorious and furious into Italy, bringing with him the Bishop Guibert, whom he had made pope. This time it was for Gregory to tremble, who could not expect more mercy than he had shown to Henry. He shut himself up in Rome, and when the emperor appeared under the walls, sent a legate to make up the quarrel, by the offer of the investiture of the crown, and absolution and reconciliation to the church. Henry’s only reply was the capture of the city. The pope fled to the Castle of St. Angelo, where he was put in a state of blockade by Henry, who placed upon the papal throne the Anti-Pope Guibert, from whose hand he received the imperial crown. He had scarcely done this before he received the annoying intelligence that the Saxons had elected in his room, Hermann, Count of Luxembourg. Henry repassed the Apennines, beat the Saxons, subdued Thuringia, and took Hermann prisoner, whom he permitted to live and die unknown in an obscure corner of his empire. He once more re-entered Italy, where he caused his son Conrad to be elected King of the Romans. Believing he had settled peace on a firm basis, he came back to Germany, and turned his arms against the Bavarians and Suabians, who still remained in a state of revolt.
His son, whom he had just made king of the Romans, and who aspired to the empire, conspired at that time against his father, raised an army, and got Pope Urban II. to excommunicate him a second time. Henry upon this convoked the diet to Aix-la-Chapelle, laid open before it his paternal grief, and displayed the wounds of a heart wrung by filial ingratitude, and demanded that his second son, Henry, should be acknowledged for king of the Romans, in the place of his brother. In the midst of the sitting, he received a mysterious intimation that his presence was required at Cologne, where, he was told, an important secret would be made known to him. Henry quitted the diet in great haste; and found two of the noblest barons in the empire, Guthram de Falkenbourg and Walter de Than, waiting for him at the gates of his palace. The emperor invited them to enter with him, and led them into his chamber, when perceiving sadness and gloom painted on their faces, he demanded “why they appeared so thoughtful and sorrowful!”
“Because the majesty of the throne is in danger,” replied Guthram, with some abruptness.
“Who has endangered the throne?” demanded the emperor.
“The Empress Praxida, your wife,” said Guthram.
No other tidings would have made Henry of Germany turn pale, for he had only been married to the empress two years, for whom he felt the tenderness of a parent, and the faithful love of a husband. His union with this angelic young woman had given him the only happy hours he had passed during his stormy and unfortunate life. He had not courage at this miserable moment even to ask what his wife had done, but was gathering the strength of a failing heart to do so, when Guthram broke the ominous silence, by saying, “she has done what we cannot pass by unnoticed, for the honor of the imperial throne, and we should deserve the name of traitors to our sovereign lord, if we should hesitate to make her misconduct known to him.”