beauty and the rich inheritance of Maria, the only daughter of the Count of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudoxia, the daughter of the Emperor of the East, attracted the gallant and ambitious Pedro. There was an impediment to the marriage, it might have been supposed, more insuperable than the ties of consanguinity. She was already married, and had borne two children, to the Count of Comminges; she afterwards, indeed, asserted the nullity of this marriage, on the plea that the Count of Comminges had two wives living at the time of his union with her. But the easy Provençal clergy raised no remonstrance. Innocent, if rumours reached him (he could hardly be ignorant), closed his ears to that which was not brought before him by regular appeal. The espousals took place at Montpellier, and Pedro set forth again for Rome. He sailed from Marseilles to Genoa, from Genoa to Nov. 8, 1204. Ostia. He was received with great state: two hundred horsemen welcomed him to the shore; the Senator of Rome, the Cardinals, went out to meet him; he was received by the Pope himself in St. Peter's; his lodging was with the Canons of that church.

Three days after took place the coronation of the new feudatory king (thus was an example set to the King of England) in the Church of San Pancrazio beyond the Tiber, in the presence of all the civilians, ecclesiastical dignitaries of Rome, and of the Roman people." He was anointed by the Bishop of Porto, and invested in all the insignia of royalty the robe, the mantle, the sceptre, the golden apple, the crown, and the mitre. He swore this oath of allegiance :-" I, Pedro, King of Arragon, profess and declare that I will be true and loyal to my lord the Pope Innocent, and to his Catholic successors in the See of Rome; that I will maintain my realm in fidelity

"Si bien Doña Maria di Mompeller fue en santitad y valor ornamento de el estado de Reynas, y traia en dote tan ricos y oportunos pueblos." Abarca, indeed, says, "Ella ni era hermosa ni doncella.' He adds that she had been forced to this marriage, neither legitimate nor public, with the Count of Comminges; see also on her two daugh

ters, and the count's two wives-i. p. 225.

He soon repented of his ill-sorted marriage. Abarca says he set off" para salir el bien de ellos (desvios de el Rey con la Reyna); y alexarse mas de ella," and hoped to get a divorce from the Pope.

St. Martin's day. Gesta, c. 120.

CHAP. VI. FEUDAL SURRENDER OF ARRAGON.

119

and obedience to him, defend the Catholic faith, and prosecute all heretical pravity; protect the liberties and rights of the Church; and in all the territories under my dominion maintain peace and justice. So help me God and his Holy Gospel."

The King, in his royal attire, proceeded to the Church of St. Peter. There he cast aside his crown and sceptre, surrendered his kingdom into the hands of the Pope, and received again the investiture by the sword, presented to the Pope. He laid on the altar a parchment, in which he placed his realm under the protection of St. Peter; and bound himself and his successors to the annual tribute of two hundred gold pieces." So was Arragon a fief of the Roman See; but it was not without much sullen protest of the high-minded Arragonese. They complained of it as a base surrender of their liberties; as affording an opening to the Pope to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom with measures more perilous to their honour and liberty. Their discontent was aggravated by heavy burthens laid upon them by the King. They complained that in his private person he was prodigal, and rapacious as a ruler. When these proceedings were proclaimed at Huesca, they were met with an outburst of reprobation, not only from the people, but from all the nobles and hidalgos of the kingdom." Pedro of Arragon will again appear as Count of Montpellier, in right of his wife, if not on the side of those against whom the Pope had sanctioned a crusade on account of their heretical pravity; yet as the mortal foe, as falling in battle before the arms of the leader of that crusade, Simon de Montfort.

The lesser kingdoms of Europe, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland-those on the Baltic-were not beyond the sphere of Innocent's all-embracing watchfulness, more especially Bohemia, on account of its close relation to the March 1, Empire. The Duke of Bohemia had dared to 1201. receive the royal crown from the excommunicated Philip.P

The Pope lifts up his voice in solemn rebuke. The Bohemian shows some disposition to fall off to Otho; the great prelates of Prague and Olmutz are ordered to employ all their spiritual power to confirm and strengthen him in that cause. Hopes are held out that Bohemia may be honoured by a metropolitan see.

To the King of Denmark Innocent has been seen as the protector of his injured daughter; throughout, Denmark looks to Rome alone for justice and for redress. Even Thule, the new and more remote Thule, is not inaccessible to the sovereign of Christian Rome. We read a lofty but affectionate letter addressed to the bishops and nobles of Iceland. A legate is sent to that island. They are warned not to submit to the excommunicated and apostate priest Swero, who aspired to the throne of Norway. Yet, notwithstanding the Pope, Swero the apostate founded a dynasty which for many generations held the throne of Norway.

The kingdom of Hungary might seem under the special protection of Innocent III.: it was his aim to urge those warlike princes to enter on the Crusades. Bela III. died, not having fulfilled his vow of proceeding to the Holy Land. To his elder son Emeric he bequeathed his kingdom; to the younger, Andrew, a vast treasure, accumulated for this pious end, and the accomplishment of his father's holy vow. Andrew squandered the money, notwithstanding the Pope's rebukes, on his pleasures; and then stood up in arms against his brother for the crown of Hungary. His first insurrection ended in defeat. The Pope urged the victorious Emeric to undertake the Crusade; yet the Pope could not save Zara (Jadara), the haven of Hungary on the Adriatic, from the crusaders, diverted by Venice to the conquest. Andrew, ere long, was again in arms against his royal brother; the nobles, the whole realm were on his side; a few loyal partisans adhered to the King. Emeric advanced alone to the hos

Epist. i. On all these minor transactions, for which I have not space, Hurter is full and minute. Hurter, I think, is an honest writer; but sees all the acts of Innocent through a haze

of admiration, which brightens and aggrandises them. Never was the proverb more fully verified, proselytes are always enthusiasts.

CHAP. VI.

ANDREW OF HUNGARY.

121

The

tile van; he threw off the armour, he bared his breast; "who will dare to shed the blood of their King?" army of Andrew fell back, and made way for the King, who confronted his brother. He took the rebel by the hand, led him away through his own hosts. Both armies broke out in loyal acclamations. Andrew was a prisoner, and sent to a fortress in Croatia: Emeric, before he undertook the Crusade, would have his infant son Ladislaus crowned; a few months after he was dying, and compelled to entrust his heir to the guardianship of his rebel brother. Ere long the mother and her royal son were fugitives at Vienna; but the timely death of the infant placed the crown on the head of Andrew. After some delay, Andrew atoned in the sight of the Pope for all the disobedience and ambition of his youth, by embarking at the head of a strong Hungarian army for the Holy Land. The King of Hungary could not overawe the fatal dissensions among the Christians, which thwarted every gallant enterprise. He returned after one ineffective campaign. Yet Andrew of Hungary left behind him the name of a valiant and prudent champion of the Cross. He returned to his kingdom in the year of Innocent's death. The Golden Bull, the charter of the Hungarian liberties, was the free and noble gift of Andrew of Hungary.

Innocent extended his authority over Servia, and boasted of having brought Bulgaria, even Armenia (the Christian Crusader's kingdom), under the dominion of the Roman See.

CHAPTER VII

the East.

INNOCENT AND THE EAST.

INNOCENT III., thus assuming a supremacy even more Innocent and extensive than any of his predecessors over the kingdoms of the West, was not the Pontiff to abandon the East to its fate; to leave the sepulchre of Christ in the hands of the Infidels; to permit the kingdom of Jerusalem, feeble as it was, to perish without an effort in its defence; to confess, as it were, that God was on the side of Mohammedanism, that all the former Crusades had been an idle waste of Christian blood and treasure, and that it was the policy, the ignominious policy of Christendom to content itself with maintaining, if possible, the nearer frontier, Sicily and Spain.

Failure of

Crusades.

Yet the event of the Crusades might have crushed a less lofty and religious mind than that of Innocent to despair. Armies after armies had left their bones to crumble on the plains of Asia Minor or of Galilee; great sovereigns had perished, or returned discomfited from the Holy Land. Of all the conquests of Godfrey of Bouillon remained but Antioch, a few towns in Palestine, and some desert and uncultivated territory. The hopes which had been excited by the death of Saladin, and the dissensions between his sons and his brother, Melek al Adhel, had soon been extinguished. The great German Crusade, in which the Archbishops of Mentz and Bremen, the Bishops of Halberstadt, Zeitz, Verden, Wurtzburg, Passau and Ratisbon, the Dukes of Austria, Carinthia and Brabant, Henry the Palgrave of the Rhine, Herman of Thuringia, Otho Margrave of Brandenburg, and many more of the great Teutonic nobles had joined, had ended in disgraceful failure. The death of the Emperor Henry gave them an excuse for stealing back ignominiously, single or in small bands, to Europe; they were called to take their share in the settlement of the weighty