Cardinals Colonna who had previously taken refuge in Paris, to seize the person of the Pope at Anagni; and, though Boniface was rescued and conveyed to Rome, he died a few days later from the shock of his humiliation. And so the saying of the ex-Pope Celestine, whom Boniface had compelled to resign, and afterwards imprisoned, was fulfilled: "This cardinal, who stole like a fox into the chair of St. Peter, will have the reign of a lion and the death of a dog."
"Imprisoned, insulted, deprived eventually of life by the violence of Philip, a prince excommunicated, and who had gone all lengths in defying and despising the papal jurisdiction, Boniface," says Hallam, "had every claim to be avenged by the inheritors of the same spiritual dominion. When Benedict XI. rescinded the bulls of his predecessor, and admitted Philip the Fair to communion without insisting on any concessions, he acted perhaps prudently, but gave a fatal blow to the temporal authority at Rome."
Blow after blow was given to that authority. On the death of Boniface the cardinals had hastily elected Benedict XI., who died within the year. The next pope was Philip's nominee, and he transferred the headquarters of the Papacy to Avignon. There, for seventy-three years, seven popes,[1] all Frenchmen,
- ↑ 1305, Clement V.; 1316, John XXII.; 1334, Benedict XII.; 1342, Clement VI.; 1352, Innocent VI.; 1362, Urban V.; 1371, Gregory XI. Gregory returned to Rome in 1378, and died there in the same year, being succeeded by Urban VI. at Rome and Clement VII. at Avignon.
