council at Rome, with a view to depose me by the unanimous suffrages of his Cardinals and Prelates, that were to compose that assembly. But I disconcerted that audacious project by defeating, in the year 1241, a Genoese fleet; on board of which the greatest part of these Prelates were embarked. I committed to confinement these reverend Fathers, seized all their treasures, which disappointment, attended with others, so dejected the prisoner, that he changed his name to that of Celestine IV.

He had scarcely assumed this new title, before he claimed another, that of Pope Innocent IV. but although he had altered his appellation, his arrogance and fury remained the same. However, by this new name, he proposed terms of peace, but they were too imperious and extravagant, not to be rejected with indignation. The prisoner, not thinking his person safe in any part of Italy, set out for Genoa, and afterwards for Lyons, in the year 1244. Here he assembled a council the following year, when he deposed me, and declared the imperial throne vacant.

This unjust and insolent measure was regarded with such veneration, and looked upon as so weighty by the German Princes, who were blinded and seduced by the superstition of the times, that they proceeded instantly to a new election. Henry, Landgrave of Thuringia, was therefore first elected, and after

his death William, Count of Holland, to the head of the Empire. Far from being dejected by these cruel vicissitudes, I continued to carry on the war in Italy, and oppose the pris soner to the utmost of my power, until a vio lent dysentery disabled me from taking the command of the army, on the 13th of December, 1250, in Apulia.

Cross-examined by Counsellor Quibble.

Q You say, that Innocent IV. proposed conditions of peace, that were too imperious for you to submit to? Do you know what they were?

A. Yes, I certainly do, very well.

Q. What were they?

A. The preliminary conditions were, First, That I should give up entirely to the Church, the inheritance which was left to it by Matilda: And Secondly, That I should oblige my self to submit to whatever terms the Pope, or prisoner at the bar, should think fit to propose, as conditions of peace.

Philip, King of France, sworn.

Q. What name did the prisoner at the bar assume when you knew him?

A. Several. I knew him when he was called Pope Boniface VIII. Pope Benedict XI. and Pope Clement V.

Q. Will you relate to the court what you knew of him in France, during your reign?

A. About the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the prisoner was known by the title of Pope Boniface VIII. he sent me one of the haughtiest letters imaginable, in which he asserted that I, with all other Kings and Princes whatever, were obliged by a divine command, to submit to the authority of the Pope, in all political and civil matters, as well as religious. I answered him in terms expressive of contempt. He rejoined with more arrogance than ever, and in that famous bull, Unam Sanctam, which he puplished at this time, he asserted, that Christ Jesus had granted a two-fold power to the Church, or the spiritual and temporal sword to him. And also, that he had subjected the whole human race to his authority, as Roman Pontiff, and that whoever dared to disbelieve it, were to be deemed heretics, and stood excluded from all possibility of salvation.* And he maintained, in express terms, that the Universal Church was under his dominions; and that Princes and Lay-patrons, Councils and Chapters, had no more power in spiritual things than what they derived from him as Vicar of Christ.

I then assembled together the Peers of France, in the year 1303. And although several Princes had failed in the attempt to check his ambition, I resolved to try. I ordered William de Nogaret, a celebrated lawyer, to

* This Bull is yet extant in the Corpus Juris Canon. Extrava gans Com. Lib. i. tit. De majoritate et obedientia.

draw up accusations against him, publicly charging him with heresies, simony, and many vices, demanding a Council to depose such an execrable Pope. Immediately after this he excommunicated me and all my adherents.

Far from being terrified by any papal thunder, I again assembled the states of the kingdom, to sit in judgment upon him. After which I sent William de Nogaret, the lawyer, to seize him and bring him a prisoner to Lyons. Boniface, who then lived in perfect security at Anagni, was taken agreeable to order, by this resolute man; but being rescued by the inhabitants, he soon changed his name, through the illness, occasioned by the rage into which the lawyer had thrown him.

Emperor Sigismond, sworn.

Q. Do you not profess the Roman Catholic Religion?

A. I have long professed to be a Roman Catholic, and I confess I have been so deluded, that I have even worshipped the prisoner at the bar.

Q. Do you recollect attending a rebellious convention, called the Council of Constance, convened by the prisoner?

A. I do. It was at Constance, was opened in the year 1414, and sat about three years and a half.

Q. Do you know the reason assigned for calling this Council?

A. I do. It was to heal the divisions which had long rent the church. But there were others.

Q. Will you relate to, the court, some of the principal disorders, that were then thought to require a remedy?

A. I Will. When I came to the imperial throne, I found, the Church called after the name of the prisoner, divided into two great factions, and was governed by two who professed to be the Pontiff and Vicar of Christ. The prisoner, then at Rome, went by the name of Pope Boniface IX. and the other who resided at Avignon by that of Pope Benedict XIII. Soon after this, the prisoner assumed a new title, that of Pope Innocent VII. and in about two years after another, and was called Pope Gregory XII. Benedict being besieged in Avignon, by the King of France, escaped first to Catalonia and afterwards to Perpignan, but did not relinquish his pretensions to the Popedom.

A plan of reconciliation was however formed and the two contending Pontiffs bound themselves, each by an oath, to make a voluntary renunciation of the papal chair, if ne cessary for the peace and welfare of the church. This agreement they violated in the most scandalous manner. Eight or nine Cardinals deserted Benedict, on account of his. place of residence, and united themselves. to the others who espoused the claim of the pris