king of Lombardy, at Pavia, with his army towards Rome, where he
proposed to give the last finish to his brilliant successes, by
receiving the crown of empire from the pope. Frederic and Adrian had
both sent forward ambassadors to each other, who crossed on the road
without knowing it: the king, to treat about the imperial crown; the
pope, to sound the intentions of a visitor, who was approaching in
such warlike array. The papal envoys encountered Frederic at St.
Quirico, in Tuscany; and, on being told that he meant nothing hostile
to the rights of the Church,--but, on the contrary, that he was ready
to act as her champion, and, therefore, came simply to ask the
imperial crown,--they promised the pope's acquiescence in his views,
provided, among other services required of him, he would procure the
delivery of Arnold of Brescia into the hands of justice.

This was all the more insisted upon, as that indefatigable demagogue,
having, after his banishment, obtained the protection of certain
counts of the Campagna, still continued to exercise from his place of
refuge the most pernicious influence over the popular mind in Rome.

Frederic readily undertook to do a service, which agreed as well with
his personal feeling as with his policy. For Arnold of Brescia, on the
election of the Duke of Swabia to the German throne, had written him a
letter, inviting him to come and receive the imperial crown from the
senate in contempt of the pope, but couched in such arrogant and
fanatical terms, as highly to incense the king, who refused to listen
to it; whereupon, Arnold aggravated his offence, by announcing that he
would persuade the Romans to choose an emperor of their own, and throw
up their allegiance to foreign ones.

The plan which Frederic took to seize Arnold, was, first of all, to
send a body of troops to waylay and capture one of the chiefs of the
lawless counts of the Campagna, who had been mainly instrumental in
liberating the arch-republican out of the hands of the papal officers,
into which he had shortly fallen before at Oriculum; and then to
threaten the speedy execution of the prisoner, unless Arnold were
given up as a ransom. This plan succeeded. The other Campagnian
counts, frightened at the resolute conduct of Frederic, and trembling
at the consequences of his further anger, if the ransom demanded were
not given, soon brought their client, whose revolutionary doctrines so
much promoted those disorders by which t