view at Pavia. A.D. 743. refuge was in the unarmed Pope. Eutychius the Exarch, the archbishop, the people of the city and of the province joined in an earnest petition for the intervention of the pontiff. Zacharias espoused their cause; he sent an embassy to Pavia to dissuade Liutprand from further aggression, and to request the restoration of Cesena. The Lombard refused to receive the ambassadors. The unbaffled Pope determined once more to try the effect of his personal presence: he set Second interforth in state towards Pavia. The importance attached to this journey is attested by the miracles with which it was invested. A cloud, by the special interposition of St. Peter, hovered constantly over the sacred band, to shield them from the violent heats, till they pitched their tents in the evening. At some distance from Ravenna he was met by the Exarch; and, still overshadowed by the faithful cloud, which poised itself at length over one of the churches, he entered the city. He left it followed by the whole population, men and women, in tears, praying for the good pastor who had left his own flock for their protection. A new sign, like a fiery army in the heavens, marshalled him on his way towards Pavia. But he derived greater advantage from other guidance. He had sent forward some of his attendants to Imola, on the Lombard border, from whom he received intelligence of orders issued to stop him on his march. The Pope made a rapid journey and reached the Po. On the banks he was met by some of the Lombard nobles, whom the king, having in vain attempted to elude the reception of the embassy, sent to receive him with due honours. After the arrival at Pavia, a few days were passed in religious ceremonies, at which the king attended with his wonted devotion. It was St. Peter's day; a day happily chosen for the august ceremony. At length Liutprand consented to admit the pontiff to an interview in his palace. June 29. After long and resolute resistance on the king's part, Zacharias extorted the abandonment of his ambitious designs on the exarchate, the restoration of two-thirds of the territory of Cesena. Thus for a short time longer the wreck of the imperial dominion in Italy was preserved by the sole influence, the religious eloquence and authority, of the unarmed Bishop of Rome. But such was the power of religion in those times, that not merely did it enable the clergy to dictate their policy to armed and powerful sovereigns, to arrest Barbarian invasion, and to snatch, as it were, conquests already in their rapacious hands; in every quarter of Western Europe kings were seen abdicating their thrones, placing themselves at the feet of the Pope as humble penitents, casting off their pomp, and submitting to the privations and the discipline of monks. Kings become monks. It has been related that when Columban, some years before, endeavoured to persuade the Merovingian Theodebert to abandon his throne and become an ecclesiastic, the whole assembly broke out into scornful laughter.* "Was it ever heard that a Merovingian king had degraded himself into a priest?" The saint had replied, "He who disdains to become an ecclesiastic will become so against his will." The times had rapidly changed. From all parts of Western Christendom kings were coming, lowly penitents, to Rome, to lay aside the vain pomp of royalty, to assume the coarse attire, the total seclusion, and, as they hoped, the undisturbed and "Dicebant enim nunquam se audivisse Merovingum in regno sublimatum voluntarium clericum fuisse. Detestantibus ergo omnibus."-Vit. Columbani. heaven-winning peace of the cloister. Ceolwulf is said to have been the eighth Anglo-Saxon prince who became a monk. Now, within a few years, from the thrones of France and of Lombardy, the kings descended of their own accord, laid their temporal government down before the head of Christendom, and entreated permission to devote the rest of their lives to the spiritual state. Carloman, the elder son of Charles Martel, had commenced his reign with vigour, ability, and success. On a sudden he cast off at once the duties and the dignity of his station, and surrendered to Pepin, his brother, the power and all the ambitious hopes of his family. Carloman left his country, appeared in Italy, Carloman. humbly requested to be admitted into the monastic state, built a monastery on Mount Soracte, but finding that too near to Rome, retired to the more profound seclusion of Monte Casino. In that solitude the heir of Charles Martel hoped to pass the rest of his earthly days. A.D. 747. But Pope Zacharias beheld even a greater triumph of the faith. A Lombard king suddenly paused on the full tide of ambition and success, and from a deadly and formidable enemy of the Pope and of the Roman interest, became a peaceful monk.h During the year of his last interview with Pope f Carloman had been preceded in son, twenty-five years afterwards, this course by Hunald, Duke of scandalised Christendom by returning Aquitaine, who having treacherously lured his brother Atto from the strong city of Poitiers, blinded him, and a few days after shut himself up in a monastery in the isle of Rhe.-H. Martin, Histoire de France, ii. p. 301. Hunald, however, on the death of his to the world, and resuming not only his dominions, but his wife also.— Muratori, Ann. d'Italia, sub ann. 747. 8 Vit. Zachariæ. Chronic. Moissiac. apud Pertz, i. 292. h Pauli i. Epist. ad Pepin. Regem. -Muratori, R. I. Scrip. iii. 11. 116. Liutprand. Zacharias had died Liutprand, the ablest and mightiest Death of of the Lombard kings. Notwithstanding his A.D. 743. pious deference for the Pope, his munificent ecclesiastical foundations in all parts of his dominions, the papal biographer attributes his death to the prayers of the Pope and the direct intervention of St. Peter. The burthen of ingratitude need not be laid on the Pope on account of the mature death of a sovereign who had reigned for thirty years. DurA.D. 713-743. ing a dangerous illness of Liutprand, nine years before, his nephew Hildebrand had been associated with him in the kingdom. After seven months of his sole dominion Hildebrand was deposed by the unanimous suffrage of the nation, and Rachis, Duke of Friuli, was raised to the throne. The first act of Rachis was to confirm the peace of twenty years with the Pope. The truce with the exarchate expired in the fifth year of his reign. But suddenly, incensed by some unknown cause of offence, or in a fit of Rachis. ambition, Rachis appeared in arms, broke into the exarchate, and invested Perugia. The indefatigable Pope delayed not his interference. Again he was his own ambassador, and appeared in the camp of the Lombard king.k But he was not content with compelling King Rachis to break up the siege; he pressed him so strongly with his saintly arguments, perhaps with the holy example of Carloman, that in a few days the king stood before the gates of Rome with monk. his wife and daughter, having abdicated his throne, an humble suppliant for admission into the A.D. 749. Rachis a cloister. He too retired to Monte Casino, which thus boasted of two royal recluses. His wife and daughter entered the neighbouring convent of Piombaruola. Carloman will appear again, somewhat unexpectedly, on the scene of political life. The last act in the eventful pontificate of Zacharias was the most pregnant with important results to Latin Christendom, the transference of the crown of France from the Merovingian line to the father of Charlemagne, with the sanction, it has been asserted, under the direct authority, of France. of the Pope. To the Church and to Western Europe it is difficult to estimate all the consequences of the elevation of the Carlovingian dynasty. The Pope has been accused of assuming an unwarranted power in virtually, as it were, by his sanction of Pepin's coronation, absolving the subjects of Childeric from their allegiance; of want of stern principle in countenancing the violation of the great law of hereditary succession, and the rebellious ambition of the Mayor of the Palace, who thus degraded his lawful sovereign and usurped his throne. This is to confound the laws and usages of different ages. Hereditary succession among the Teutonic races had not yet attained that sanctity in which, in later times, it has been invested by supposed religious authority, and by the rational persuasion of its inestimable advantage. In theory it was admitted in the Roman empire; but the perpetual change of dynasty at Constantinople was not calculated to confirm the general reverence for its in violability. Among the Lombards, as in most of t Gothic kingdoms, the nobles claimed and consta exercised the privilege of throwing off the yoke c unworthy prince, and advancing a more warlike or |