Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/46

38 pretence or provocation, if the pope had not openly approved and sanctified his cause, exhorting him to it as a meritorious action; which seems to have been but an ill return from the vicar of, to a prince who had performed so many brave exploits for the service of the church, to the hazard of his person, and ruin of his fortune. But the very bigotted monks, who have left us their accounts of those times, do generally agree in heavily taxing the Roman court for bribery and corruption. And the king had promised to remit his right of investing bishops, which he performed immediately after his reduction of Normandy, and was a matter of much more service to the pope than all the achievements of duke Robert in the Holy Land; whose merits, as well as pretensions, were now antiquated and out of date.

1109. About this time the emperor Henry V sent to desire Maude the king's daughter in marriage, who was then a child about eight years old: that prince had lately been embroiled in a quarrel with the see of Rome, which began upon the same subject of investing bishops, but was carried to great extremities: for, invading Italy with a mighty army, he took the pope prisoner, forced him to yield to whatever terms he thought fit to impose, and to take an oath of fidelity to him between his hands: however, as soon as Henry had withdrawn his forces, the pope assembling a council, revoked all his concessions, as extorted by compulsion, and raised great troubles in Germany against the emperor, who, in order to secure himself, sought this alliance with the king. About