As it was near midnight when they sat down, Father Omehr felt at liberty to leave the room without ceremony. The Lady Margaret stayed no longer than courtesy demanded, when she rose and retired to her chamber. This young lady had always been noted for her piety and her charities to the poor, whose wants she was sure to discover and supply. Under the skilful and fervent training of Father Omehr, she had learned to repress a spirit, perhaps naturally quick and imperious, and to practise on every occasion a humility very difficult to haughty natures. There was even some austerity in her devotion; for she would subject herself to rigorous fasts and to weary vigils, and deny herself the luxuries that her father delighted in procuring for her, little dreaming that they were secretly dispensed to the sick of the neighborhood. She never failed to hear Ma.s.s, unless prevented by sickness or some other controlling cause, but every morning laid a bunch of fresh and fragrant flowers upon the altar of our Blessed Mother. And who shall say that the sweet lilies of the field, the roses and the violets, colored with the hues of the dawn, and freshened in the dew of the twilight, when offered and consecrated by the homage of an innocent heart, are not grateful to her whose purity they typify! Yet there was a lurking family pride in Margaret's heart that she could not entirely eradicate, and a sleeping antipathy to the house of Hers that at times betrayed itself to her watchful self-examination. The reader must not imagine that, when she told the missionary at Gilbert's bedside that had the youth fallen in battle she perhaps would rejoice, she actually desired such an event.

She spoke to one who knew her better. She felt this antipathy, but did not know its extent; and, with the humility of virtue, she feared that, although engaged in an act of charity, there might be the fiend of revenge at the bottom of her soul. Margaret de Stramen was not blind to her imperfections, and she did not hesitate to impute to herself an inclination to the un-Christian hate so cherished by her family. But she endeavored to overcome it by prayer, by the Sacraments, by penance, and by pondering the splendid example of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Lady Margaret was not one of those fair and fanciful creations, endowed with such exquisite sensibilities as to perceive and return the admiration of a young knight-errant with whom she had been a.s.sociated by any romantic circ.u.mstance. Nor was her disposition of that impulsive kind which will permit the impression of a moment to overthrow the prejudices of years. But to her joy and surprise, she found that, far from rejoicing at Gilbert's misfortune, she had regretted it; and regretted it, not merely because it might stigmatize the fair name of Stramen, but also in obedience to an elevated generosity that sickened, ungratified, at the sight of obtained revenge. She had been almost constrained to render a.s.sistance to the youth; and there are some who think the sting of a favor worse than the fang of an injury, and are more disposed to forgive after having benefited. With the facility peculiar to a gifted woman, she had read in Gilbert's face the ingenuousness and goodness of his heart, and though she did not ascribe to him any exalted qualities, she admitted that it was not easy to believe him guilty of cruelty or meanness. In a word, the sympathies of the woman were now arrayed against family pride and family prejudice, and a trial still more dangerous and severe awaited her piety and resolution.

In the morning, after hearing Ma.s.s, she found the duke and her father in close conversation, while her brother was busily preparing for some important event. It was soon evident that Rodolph was about to depart, and that Henry was to accompany him; for the grooms led to the door two handsome and stalwart steeds, richly caparisoned, and four mounted men-at-arms rode up and halted upon the terrace, where they waited motionless as statues of steel.

When their private conference was over, the duke advanced, and took the Lady Margaret by the hand. "I am selfish enough," he said, "to deprive you of your brother for a few weeks, to a.s.sist me by his counsel, and protect me by his arm, should it be necessary, in a little adventure we have resolved to undertake."

"I am too true to you, my lord," replied Margaret, "to desire my brother's society when you request his a.s.sistance. Were I a young knight, I should esteem it no light favor to march--no matter where--as an escort to Rodolph, Duke of Suabia."

"And I, fair maiden," returned the duke, "could wander to the end of the world with such a companion."

"I hope you may not find Henry so agreeable as to carry you so far, for I expect to welcome you back in a week."

"If I consulted my pleasure," said Rodolph, "I should not be absent a day, but my duty may detain me a month. I will not offer an apology for so long a stay, because I fear that before sunset you will have ceased to think of me, or remember me only in connection with your brother."

"A n.o.ble duke," replied the lady, "whose name is heard wherever the minstrel tunes his harp, whose word was never plighted in vain, whose sword was never stained in an unrighteous cause, whose arm and purse are ever at the command of the poor and persecuted, whose courage and clemency, wisdom and piety, so well ent.i.tle him to the love of all his people, is not so easily forgotten."

"I a.s.sure you, on my honor," exclaimed Rodolph, "that I value your words more than all the songs of all the minstrels I ever heard. I would I were worthy your praise; but you have inspired me to deserve it.

Farewell! I see that Henry is impatient, and we must not lose the early morning."

He bade adieu to the baron and his daughter, and turned to mount his horse, when Bertha touched his arm, and placed in his hand something enveloped in silk. Bertha said not one word, but she looked earnestly up in Rodolph's face, and then walked away as swiftly and silently as she came. The duke could not help remarking the wild beauty of her pale and wasted face, and remained some moments gazing after her with a painful interest. He removed the silk and found that it contained a ring garnished with a stone of rare value. He started as his eye fell upon the trinket, for he remembered that years ago he had given it to the Lord of Hers. How could it have come into Bertha's possession, was the question that naturally occurred to him; but the answer came not so readily as the question. While the duke was thus pondering, Henry had embraced his father and sister, and leaped upon his horse. Rodolph mounted slowly, after examining the girths with his own hand; and the little troop, waving a parting salute, swept over the drawbridge, and were soon lost among the trees.

About the same hour, or a little earlier, the Lord of Hers, with a small retinue, had set out in an opposite direction, but on the same mission.

Rodolph had long seen that King Henry's unprincipled ambition threatened the liberties of religion and of Austria, and he only paused for the Papal excommunication to throw off all allegiance to a monarch who could not be safely trusted. That excommunication was impending, and, as may be easily conjectured, the duke was making a rapid circuit of his dominions, to unite his barons more closely to his interests; to warn them to prepare for the approaching struggle; to confirm the weak and wavering in their fidelity; inspire the resolves of those who were true and firm, and make all the pulses of the circle of Suabia throb in concert to the action of one grand moving power. To gain time, the Lord of Hers had been despatched to the provinces bordering upon the Rhine with letters from Rodolph to the princ.i.p.al barons there, while the duke himself, with Henry of Stramen, followed the Danube.

For many months there had been no active warfare between the hostile houses, though the feud had lost none of its venom. But age was stiffening the impetuosity of the old barons; and their sons, no longer urged on by the battle-cry of their sires, listened with more attention to the advice and representations of their spiritual instructors.

Gilbert of Hers was not inclined to take an injury to his breast, and hug it there; but the bold and frequent incursions of Henry of Stramen had induced him to retaliate rather in a spirit of rivalry than of revenge. Henry of Stramen inherited all his father's implacability, but he had often yielded to his sister's solicitation to dedicate to the chase the day he had devoted to a descent upon the lordship of Hers. The troubled condition of Germany had also diverted the chiefs from the disputes of their firesides to the civil wars of the empire; and neither the Lord of Hers nor the Baron of Stramen gave much attention to aught else than the league that Rodolph was forming against Henry IV of the house of Franconia.

Gilbert, left almost without a companion--for the good priest Herman, whose time was divided between his pastoral duties, his prayers, and his studies, saw him but at intervals--found time to hang very heavily upon his hands. He thought the old reaper weary and sluggish, for the scythe flies fast only when we employ or enjoy the moments. The autumn blast was beginning to lend a thousand bright colors to the trees, and the giddy leaves, like giddy mortals, threw off their simple green for the gaudy livery that was but a prelude to their fall--for the beauty that, like the dying note of the swan, was but the beauty of death. It was the season of all others for the chase, that health-giving but dangerous pastime, which our ancestors pursued with almost incredible eagerness, hunting the stag or the boar, over hill and dale, bog and jungle, through every twist and turn, as their Anglo-Saxon descendants now pursue the flying dollar.

But Gilbert often declined the invitation of the forester to fly the falcon, rarely indulging in his favorite amus.e.m.e.nt. He preferred to wander along the borders of the magnificent Lake of Constance, or to loiter among the neighboring hills, and watch, from some bare peak, the broad-winged vulture sailing slowly and steadily through the skies. He would watch it until it became a mere speck in the blue distance: we may often catch ourselves gazing after receding objects as though they were bearing away a thought we had fixed upon them. His wound was nearly well, and the freshness of health was again in his cheeks; but his spirit had lost a part of its sprightliness, and he seemed to have grown older. He did not evince his former relish for the ma.n.u.scripts of Herman, but his visits to the chapel were more frequent and lasted longer. Thus, day after day, he would study the lake, the clouds, and the cliffs, neither fearing an attack from the men of Stramen, nor meditating one against them.

We shall leave him in his inactivity, to trace the progress of events which form one of the most important and exciting periods in history.

Rodolph was not a moment too soon in concentrating his power; for Henry IV, flushed with his recent victory over the Saxons, had called at Goslar a diet of the princes of the empire, under the pretext of deciding, in their presence, the fate of their Saxon prisoners. Only a small minority of the princes obeyed the summons; but the real object of the king became evident when he made them swear to exalt, upon his own death, Conrad his son, a minor, to the throne. In the meantime, the news of the nomination of Hidolph, as successor to the sainted Anno, had spread to Rome. The Pope beheld with profound sorrow the obstinacy and ambition of the king. Henry was not to be driven from his purpose by the universal contempt this nomination excited, and he replied to the repeated remonstrances of the citizens of Cologne, that they must content themselves with Hidolph or with a vacant see. And his firmness triumphed over the popular indignation; for Hidolph was invested by the king with the crozier and the ring, and finally consecrated Archbishop of Cologne.

But his victory was not complete. He had yet to cope with an adversary more formidable than popular opposition; one who would not yield to temporal tyranny the watch-towers and guardian rights of spiritual liberty. That adversary was Gregory VII. Already the tremendous threat had issued: "Appear at Rome on a given day to answer the charges against you, or you shall be excommunicated and cast from the body of the Church." But the infatuated monarch, too proud to recede, hurried on by his impetuous arrogance, and by the unprincipled favorites and corrupt prelates who shared his bounty, loaded the Papal legates with scorn and contumely, and drove them from his presence.

He did not even wait for the sentence of excommunication to fall, that now hung by a hair above his head, but began the attack, as if resolved to have the advantage of the first blow. Couriers were despatched to every part of the empire, with commands to all the prelates and n.o.bles upon whom he could rely, to a.s.semble at Worms, where he promised to meet them without fail. Twenty-four bishops and a great number of laymen hastened to obey the summons. The conventicle sat three days, and the following charges were formally preferred against the Pope: "That he had by force extracted a solemn oath from the clergy not to adhere to the king, nor to favor or obey any other Pope than himself; that he had falsely interpreted the Scriptures; that he had excommunicated the king without legal or canonical examination, and without the consent of the cardinals; that he had conspired against the life of the king; that, in spite of the remonstrances of his cardinals, he had cast the Body and Blood of our Lord into the flames; that he had arrogated to himself the gift of prophecy; that he had connived at an attempted a.s.sa.s.sination of the king; that he had condemned and executed three men without a judgment or an admission of their guilt; that he kept constantly about his person a book of magic."

So palpably absurd and false were these charges that three of the a.s.sembled prelates refused to sign an instrument for the deposition of a pontiff, so little conforming to the ancient discipline, and unsupported by witnesses worthy of belief. Nor were Henry's machinations confined to Germany, but he ransacked Lombardy and the marches of Ancona for bishops to sign these articles of condemnation, and even aspired to infect Rome itself by presents and specious promises. But the golden a.s.s could not then leap the walls of Christian Rome.

Gregory's princ.i.p.al accuser was the Cardinal Hugues le Blanc, whom he had previously excommunicated. This ambitious man rose in the council and taunted the Pope with his low extraction, at the same time charging him with crimes that were proved to be the offspring of calumny and error. He produced a forged letter, purporting to come in the name of the archbishops, bishops, and cardinals, from the senate and people of Rome, inveighing against the Pope, and clamoring for the election of another head of the Church. Encouraged by imperial patronage, and stimulated by a desire to rid himself of disgrace by sullying the hands that had branded him, the excommunicated cardinal did not hesitate to call the Pope a heretic, an adulterer, a sanguinary beast of prey. The emperor himself knew Gregory too well to believe such a tissue of absurdity; but he hoped to find others more credulous than himself.

Upon the accusations already specified, and the invectives of Hugues le Blanc, the a.s.semblage of prelates at Worms resolve upon the deposition of Gregory VII. It is then that Henry steps forth, as the life and soul of the conventicle, armed with its decree, and addresses an insulting letter to the Pope, inscribed "Henry, king by the grace of G.o.d, to Hildebrand." In this letter, the decree of the conventicle is lost in the insolence of the king. "I," is the language of the missive, "I have followed their advice, because it seemed to me just. I refuse to acknowledge you Pope, and in the capacity of patron of Rome command you to vacate the Holy See." Can the most jaundiced eye, can the man who learned, even in his boyhood, to loathe the name of Hildebrand, read these expressions without confessing that the king was the aggressor, and that if the Christian Church had a right to expect protection from its appointed head, Gregory VII was called upon to vindicate the majesty and liberty of religion so grossly outraged in his person? Surely it will not be a.s.serted at this day that the head of the State, by virtue of his temporal power, should be the head of the Church; or does that beautiful logic still exist, which denied an absolute spiritual supremacy in the successor of St. Peter, yet admitted it as an incidental prerogative to the crown of England? But we have yet to see the last act of this attempted deposition.

A clerk of Parma, named Roland, was charged with the delivery of this letter, and the decrees of the conventicle of Worms. A synod had been convoked in the Church of Lateran, and the Pope, surrounded by his bishops, occupied a chair elevated above the rest. Roland's mission had been kept a profound secret, and, when he appeared before the conclave, not a prelate there could guess his purpose. They had not heard the voice that had gone forth from Worms. But they did not long remain in suspense. Turning to the Pope, the envoy thus began "The king, my master, and all the ultramontane and Italian bishops, command you to resign, at once, the throne of St. Peter and the government of the Roman Church, which you have usurped; for you cannot justly claim so exalted a dignity without the approbation of the bishops and the confirmation of the emperor!" Then addressing the clergy, he thus continued: "My brothers, it is my duty to inform you, that you must appear before the king at the approaching festival of Pentecost, to receive a Pope from his hand; for the tiara is now worn, not by a Pope, but by a devouring wolf!"

Receive a Pope from the king! receive from Caesar what he must usurp to bestow! Had Gregory flinched, the independence of the Church would have been sacrificed, and her acknowledged inability to cope with royal vices would have permitted every European monarch to change his queen with his courtiers. Henry IV would have had his successor to Bertha; Philip Augustus his Agnes de Meranie; and Henry VIII his Cranmer and his scaffold without one moment's opposition.

But no sooner had Roland p.r.o.nounced those last words, than the Bishop of Porto leaped from his chair, and cried out: "Seize him!" The prefect and n.o.bles of Rome and the soldiers drew their swords, and, in their sudden fury, would have killed the audacious envoy, had not Gregory, repeating his magnanimity to Cencius, covered the clerk with his own body, and by his calmness and eloquence controlled the indignation and disgust of his too zealous friends.

"My friends!" he said, with all the dignity of human greatness, elevated and purified by the most exalted piety, "disturb not the peace of the Church. Behold the dangerous times, of which the Scripture speaks, are come, when men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, and disobedient to parents. We cannot escape these scandals; and G.o.d has said that He has sent us like sheep in the midst of wolves. It is necessary for us then to combine the innocence of the dove with the prudence of the serpent. Now, when the precursor of Antichrist erects himself against the Church, he must find us innocent and prudent; these dispositions const.i.tute wisdom. We must hate no one, but bear with the madmen who would violate the law of G.o.d. Remember that G.o.d, descending a second time among men, proclaims aloud: 'He who would follow me must forsake himself!' We have lived in peace long enough, and G.o.d wishes that the harvest should again be moistened with the blood of His Saints.

Let us prepare for martyrdom, if it shall be needed, for the law of G.o.d, and resolve that nothing shall sever us from the charity of Jesus Christ."

The synod, in breathless interest, listened to the holy Pontiff, who then proceeded with wonderful composure to read the charges that had been preferred against him. Among Roland's letters was another signed, "Henry, king not by usurpation, but by the grace of G.o.d, to Hildebrand, false monk and anti-pope." This was couched, if possible, in language more insulting than the former. One sentence will show the temper of the doc.u.ment, and prove that the king was struggling to build up a monarchy of divine rights and appointment. "A true Pope, Saint Leo, says, _Fear G.o.d! honor the king_! But as you do not fear G.o.d, neither do you honor me whom He has appointed king." Can any expression more clearly indicate that Henry of Austria had resolved to crush a Pontiff who stood between him and unquestioned despotism, and that he aimed at a heaven- commissioned temporal power, often conceded, it is true, but never by Catholicity. The letter concludes with these words: "I, Henry, king by the grace of G.o.d, warn you, with all our bishops: descend! descend!"

When the Pope had finished reading the invectives of Henry and those who were weak enough to second his ambition, so great was the exasperation of the synod, that he adjourned it to meet the next day. When the morrow came, in the presence of one hundred and ten bishops, he recited his former indulgence to Henry, his paternal remonstrances, and his repeated proofs of love and goodness. The whole a.s.sembly rose in a body, and implored him to anathematize a perjured prince, an oppressor, and a tyrant, declaring that they would never abandon the Pope, and that they were ready to die in his defence. It was then that Gregory VII rose and p.r.o.nounced, amid the unanimous acclamations of the synod, the sentence of excommunication against the emperor.

Thus went forth this awful thunderbolt for the first time against a crowned head. A dissolute and ambitious monarch had called upon the successor of St. Peter to yield up the keys, and lay the tiara at the feet of the lion of Austria, because that successor had declared an invincible determination to preserve the purity of the Church and its liberties, at the sacrifice of life itself. The tyrant struck in anger, and the Pontiff, incapable of yielding, gave the blow at last; for the _temple_ of religion was insulted and invaded.

It is easy, when calmly seated at a winter's fireside, to charge Gregory VII with an undue a.s.sumption of temporal power. But he who will study the critical position of Europe during the eleventh century, must bow down in reverence before the mighty mind of him who seized the moment to proclaim amid the storm the independence of the Christian Church. Was not this resistance to Henry expedient? Yes! And to one who knows that the Church was the lever by which the world was raised from barbarism to civilization, and will confess, with Guizot, that without a visible head, Christianity would have perished in the shock that convulsed Europe to its centre, the truth is revealed, as it was to the master mind of Gregory, that had he pursued any other course, peace and unity, as far as human eye extends, would have perished with the compromised liberty of the Church of Rome. Let us rejoice, then, that this sainted Pontiff hurled against the Austrian tyrant the anathema on which was written--"The independence of the Church of G.o.d shall be sustained, though the thrones of princes crumble around her, or though her ministers are driven to seal their fidelity with death."

CHAPTER V

Fierce he broke forth: "And darest thou then To beard the lion in his den?

The Douglas in his hall?

And hopest thou hence unscathed to got No, by Saint Bride of Bothwell, no!

Up drawbridge, grooms!--ho! warder, ho!

Let the portcullis fall!"

MARMION

For three weeks the Lady Margaret had expected the duke and her brother; for three weeks Gilbert had impatiently awaited his father's return.

Toward the close of September, a group of young children might be seen cl.u.s.tering around an old man, at the edge of the forest, within a stone's throw of the Church of the Nativity. They were listening eagerly and delightedly to the patriarch they had surrounded, in whom we recognize Father Omehr. The faces of the infant band were bright with innocence and that happy alchemy which turns the merest toy to a costly treasure. There was a tender piety on the features of those children that moved the heart. Devotion lies upon the face of youth with a peculiar fitness. As we see it dwelling in that unsullied abode, we remember how the cheek of the Madonna is pressed against the infant in her arms. Their instructor seemed to have caught a portion of their light-heartedness. Sad recollections and gloomy antic.i.p.ations were forgotten. The throes of the empire and dangers of the Church intruded not; for a moment, the aged missionary felt the elasticity of childhood, and, as his heart was as pure, his face became as bright as theirs.

"Perhaps you have thought, my children," the priest was saying, while his hand rested lightly upon the head of the nearest boy, "perhaps you have thought at times, that had you been little children at Jerusalem when our Saviour entered the city in triumph, and the people went forth to meet Him with palm-branches, you too would have run to welcome Him, and laid fruits and pretty flowers at His feet. Perhaps you have thought that you would have offered Him some refreshing drink as He tottered under His cross up the hill of Calvary; that you would have embraced Him and wept most piteously when He fainted away in agony. How delightful would it have been to receive a smile from your suffering Lord! You have still the very same opportunity, my children, you would have had at Jerusalem. You can still run to meet your Redeemer! He loves the flowers of a pure heart better than those which make the green fields as beautiful as the blue sky with its stars; and He values the tears we shed for our sins more than the pain we should have felt to see Him suffer. Still continue to bring the fruits and flowers of piety and obedience to your parents to Jesus, and you will be permitted to wait upon Him in heaven for all eternity.

"Go, now, and play! And when the bell rings, come quietly to the church."

Not until his little flock had dispersed did Father Omehr perceive that the Lady Margaret was standing almost at his side.

The Lady Margaret has changed since we saw her return the parting salute of Rodolph and Henry. Her cheek has grown brighter, but her brow is smoother and paler. Her face is sweeter than ever, though still more melancholy. It may have been the balminess of the afternoon, solicitude for her brother's return, or a transient feeling, that controlled the expression of the maiden's face, but it seemed to have still less of earth in its exquisite proportions, and her eye was softer and deeper.

It was Monday afternoon; and on this day every week, the missionary instructed the children of the neighborhood and prepared them for Communion. There still remained an hour before the time for evening service, and Father Omehr proposed to the Lady Margaret a walk along the shady avenue at the border of the forest. Disengaging herself from the children, who loved her and were cl.u.s.tering about her, she readily a.s.sented.

"Father," began the maiden, as they walked together, "when may we expect the duke?"

"Before long, I hope," replied the missionary; "the conventicle at Worms will decide at once which of his barons are for and which against him. I should not be surprised to see them returning at any moment."

"Are they in no danger from ill-disposed chieftains?" asked the lady.

"The duke will pa.s.s through a friendly country, and is too much loved and feared to be a.s.sailed in his own dominions. Your father, I presume, is not anxious about their safety?"