During the course of these struggles was fought, between the Swiss and Austrians, the memorable battle of Morgart; which established the liberty of Swisserland, as the victory of Marathon had formerly done that of Greece: and Attic eloquence only was wanting to render it equally famous. Sixteen hundred Swiss, from the cantons of Uri, Schwitz, and Underwald, defeated an army of twenty thousand Austrians, in passing the mountains near Morgart, in 1315, and drove them out of the country with terrible slaughter. The alliance which these three cantons had entered into for the term of ten years, was now converted into a perpetual league; and the other cantons occasionally joined it2.

Lewis V. had no sooner humbled the duke of Austria than a new antagonist started up: he had the pope to encounter. The reigning pontiff at that time was John XXII. who had been elected at Lyons in 1315, by the influence of Philip the Long, king of France. John was the son of a cobler, and one of those men who, raised to power by chance or merit, are haughty in proportion to the meanness of their birth. He had not hitherto, however, interfered in the affairs of the empire; but now, all at once, he set himself up as its judge and master. He declared the election of Lewis void: he maintained, that it was the right of the sovereign' pontiff to examine and confirm the election of emperors; that the government, during a vacancy, belonged to him: and he commanded the emperor, by virtue of his apostolic power, to lay aside the imperial ensigns, until he should receive permission from the holy see to reassume them3.

A. D. 1824.

Several attempts were made by Lewis towards a reconciliation with his holiness, but in vain: the proud pontiff was inflexible, and would listen to no reasonable conditions. The emperor, therefore, jealous of the independency of his crown, endeavoured to strengthen his

2. Simler, de Repub. Helvetic.

3. Steph. Baluzii. Vit. Pontiff. Avenion, vol. i,

interest

interest both in Italy and Germany. He continued the government of Milan in the family of the Visconti, who were rather masters than magistrates of that city; and he conferred the government of Lucca on Castruccio Castruccani, a celebrated captain, whose life is pompously written by Machiavel. The German princes were mostly in his interest, and no less jealous than he of the dignity of the empire.

A. D. 1325.

Enraged at such firmness, pope John excommunicated and deposed the emperor Lewis, and endeavoured to get Charles the Fair, king of France, elected in his room. But this attempt miscarried. None of the German princes, except Leopold of Austria, came to the place appointed for an interview with the French monarch; and the imprudent and ambitious Charles returned chagrined and disappointed into his own dominions*.

A. D. 1327.

Thus freed from a dangerous rival, the emperor marched into Italy, in order to establish his authority in that country. He was crowned at Milan, and afterwards at Rome; where he ordered the following proclamation to be made three times by an Augustan friar: "Is there any one who will defend "the cause of the priest of Cahors, who calls himself "pope John?"-And no person appearing, sentence was immediately pronounced against his holiness. Lewis declared him convicted of heresy, deprived him of all his dignities and benefices, and delivered him over to the secular power, in order to suffer the punishment of fire; and Peter Rainaucci, a Neapolitan cordelier, was created pope under the name of Nicholas V3.

A. D. 1328.

But Lewis, notwithstanding this mighty parade, was soon obliged, like his predecessors, to quit Italy, in order to quell the troubles of Germany and pope

4. Villani, lib. xi.

5. Balluzii, ubi sup.

John,

A. D. 1330.

John, though a refugee on the banks of the Rhone, recovered his authority in Rome. The Imperialists were expelled the city, and Nicholas V. the emperor's pope, was carried to Avignon, where, with a rope about his neck, he publicly implored forgiveness of his rival, and ended his days in a prison.

The emperor, in the mean time, remained in peace at Munich, having settled the affairs of Germany. But he still lay under the censures of the church, and the pope continued to solicit the princes of the empire to revolt against him. Lewis was preparing to assemble a general council in order to depose his holiness a second A. D. 1334, time, when the death of John made such a measure unnecessary, and relieved the emperor from all dread of the spiritual thunder. This turbulent pope, who first invented the taxes for dispensations and mortal sins, died immensely rich. He was succeeded in the papacy by James Fournier, surnamed the White Cardinal, who assumed the name of Benedict XII.

The new pope, who seemed desirous to tread in the steps of his predecessor, confirmed all the bulls which had been issued by John against the emperor. But Lewis had now affairs of more importance to engage his attention than those important fulminations. John of Luxem burg, second son of the king of Bohemia, had married Margaret, surnamed Great Mouth, heiress of Carinthia; and that princess accusing her husband of impotency, a bishop of Frisingen dissolved the marriage, and she espoused the margrave of Brandenburg, son of the emperor Lewis, who readily consented to a match that added Tyrol and Carinthia to the possessions of his family. This marriage produced a war between the houses of Bavaria and Bohemia, which lasted only one year, but occasioned abundance of bloodshed; and the A. D. 1336. parties came to a very singular accommodation. John of Luxemburg confessed that his wife had

6. Ibid.

VOL. I.

7. Baluz. Vit. Pontif. Avenion.

3x

reason

reason to forsake him, renounced all claim to her, and ratified her marriage with the margrave of Brandenburg3.

A. D. 1338.

This affair being settled, Lewis exerted all his endeavours to appease the domestic troubles of the empire, which were still kept alive by the intrigues of the pope; and notwithstanding all the injuries and insults he had sustained, he made several attempts towards an accommodation with the holy see. But these negociations being rendered ineffectual by the influence of France, the princes of the empire, ecclesiastical as well as secular, assembled at Frankfort, and established that 'famous constitution, by which it was irrevocably fixed, "That the plurality of the suffrages of the "electoral college confers the empire, without the con66 sent of the holy see; that the pope has no superiority "over the emperor of Germany, nor any right to approve or reject his election; and that to maintain the contrary is high-treason." They also refuted the absurd claim of the popes to the government of the empire during a vacancy; and declared, that this right appertains, by ancient custom, to the count Palatine of the Rhine".

Germany now enjoyed for some years what it had seldom known, the blessings of peace; which was again interrupted by the court of Avignon. Benedict XII. was succeeded in the papacy by Clement VI. a native of France, and so haughty and enterprising as to affirm that his "predecessors did not know what it was to be popes." He began his pontificate with renewing all the bulls issued against Lewis; with naming a vicar-general of the empire in Lombardy, and endeavouring to make all Italy shake off the emperor's authority.

Lewis, still desirous of an accommodation with the holy see, amidst all these acts of enmity, sent ambassadors to the court of Avignon. But the conditions prescribed by his holiness were so unreasonable, that they were reject

8. Hist. de Luxemburg.

9. Heiss, liv. ii. chap. 26.

ed

ed with disdain by a diet of the empire, as an insult upon the imperial dignity. Clement, more incensed than ever at this instance of disregard, fulminated new excommunications against the emperor. "May the wrath

"of God," says the enraged pontiff in one of A. D. 1346. his bulls, "and of St. Peter and St. Paul, crush him in "this world, and that which is to come! May the earth "open and swallow him alive; may his memory perish, "and all the elements be his enemies; and may his "children fall into the hands of his adversaries, even in "the sight of their father."

Clement issued another bull for the election of a new emperor; and Charles of Luxemburg, margrave of Moravia, afterwards known by the name of Charles IV. son and heir of John, king of Bohemia, having made the necessary concessions to his holiness, was elected king of the Romans by a faction. Lewis, however, A. D. 1347. maintained his authority till his death, which happened soon after the election of his rival; when Charles, rather by his money than his valour, got pos session of the imperial throne.

While these things were transacting in Germany, a singular scene was exhibited in Italy. Nicholas Rienzi, a private citizen of Rome, but an eloquent, bold, enterprising man, and a patriot, seeing that city abandoned by the emperors and the popes, set himself up as the restorer of the Roman liberty and the Roman power. Proclaimed tribune by the people, and put in possession of the Capitol, he declared all the inhabitants of Italy free, and denizens of Rome. But these convulsive struggles of long-expiring freedom, like many others, proved ineffectual. Rienzi, who styled himself" the severe though "merciful deliverer of Rome, the zealous assertor of the "liberties of Italy, and the lover of all mankind," as he

10, Annal. de l'Emp. tom. ii.

attempted