chronicler; 'all honours are mine; I hold at once both Pope
and King, the princes of Italy and those of Gaul, those of Rome, and
those from far beyond the Alps.' The stage was ready; the audience had
assembled; and now the three great actors were about to meet.
Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, Henry sent for his cousin,
the Countess Matilda, and besought her to intercede for him with
Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions or to undergo any
humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication might be removed;
nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious conscience, and by the
memory of the opposition he had met with from his German vassals, does
he seem to have once thought of meeting force with force, and of
returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the overthrow of
Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause before the
Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. 'If Henry
has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown and
sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The only
point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in the
garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his
retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks,
and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the
citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding
bastions. Here he was bidden to wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, in
the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of the
Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte
Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth,
fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of
the fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit
would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas,
which stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid
the Abbot of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations,
and who, much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be
supposed to look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage.
The Abbot told Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope;
but Matilda, when in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged
to do for him the utmost. She probably knew that the moment for
unbending had arrived, and that her imperious guest could not with
either decency or prudence prolo