ame. But afterwards, as it pleased
God, to preserve the holy dignity of the Popes, no man dared to touch
him, nor were they pleased to lay hands on him, but they left him
robed under gentle ward, and were minded to rob the treasure of the
Pope and of the Church. In this pain, shame and torment the great Pope
Boniface abode prisoner among his enemies for three days; but, like as
Christ rose on the third day, so it pleased Him that Pope Boniface
should be set free; for without entreaty or other effort, save the
Divine aid, the people of Anagna beholding their error, and issuing
from their blind ingratitude, suddenly rose in arms, crying: "Long
live the Pope and his household, and death to the traitors"; and
running through the city they drove out Sciarra della Colonna and his
followers, with loss to them of prisoners and slain, and freed the
Pope and his household. Pope Boniface, seeing himself free, and his
enemies driven away, did not therefore rejoice in any wise, forasmuch
as the pain of his adversity had so entered into his heart and clotted
there; wherefore he departed straightway from Anagna with all his
court, and came to Rome to S. Peter's to hold a council, purposing to
take the heaviest vengeance for his injury and that of Holy Church
against the king of France, and whosoever had offended him; but, as it
pleased God, the grief which had hardened in the heart of Pope
Boniface, by reason of the injury which he had received, produced in
him, after he was come to Rome, a strange malady so that he gnawed at
himself as if he were mad, and in this state he passed from this life
on the 12th day of October in the year of Christ 1303, and in the
church of S. Peter, near the entrance of the doors, in a rich chapel
which was built in his lifetime, he was honourably buried.

Sec. 64.--_We will further tell of the ways of Pope Boniface._

[Sidenote: 1303 A.D.]

[Sidenote: Par. xxx. 148.]

This Pope Boniface was very wise both in learning and in natural wit,
and a man very cautious and experienced, and of great knowledge and
memory; very haughty he was, and proud, and cruel towards his enemies
and adversaries, and was of a great heart, and much feared by all
people; and he exalted and increased greatly the estate and the rights
of Holy Church, and he commissioned M. Guglielmo da Bergamo and M.
Ricciardi of Siena, who were cardinals, and M. Dino Rosoni of Mugello,
all of them supreme masters in laws and in decretals, tog