THE THRONE OF THE WORLD
burning in the distance. The frightened Romans submitted to the master of the Empire, and Pascal crowned the Emperor and Empress once again. Barbarossa's next objective was the destruction of the Norman power. But suddenly death threw itself across the path o the army. Thousands died in a few days of the pest and among them were the best of Frederic's loyal retainers. The foremost victim was Reinald of Dassel, who, falling at the height of his power, left behind him no comparable advocate of German Imperialism. The people maintained that this was God's judgment on the burning -of St, Peter s. Barbarossa, almost alone and disguised like the Pope he had put to flight, hurried back to Germany over difficult roads. That was the year 1168. Milan rebuilt itself from its ruins, and the Lom- bard League created a new army of defense which was called "Alles- andria" in honour of the Pope and in spite of the Emperor.
Pascal died during the same year and Calixtus III (11681178) followed him as anti-Pope. In England the war upon the Church came to a bloody end. Thomas a Becket returned after six years of exile, and made his peace with the King. But the monarch di- rected a word of censure at the Primate the occasion was the ex- communication of three bishops who had exceeded their rights and a few knights took it upon themselves to avenge the ingratitude shown their master. They slew Thomas in his Cathedral. Christendom was frightened, but it had been given a new martyr. Alexander him- self raised Thomas a Becket to the altar. Horrified at what had hap- pened, the king assured the Pope that he had not ordered this murder done, and sought to come to terms with the Roman See. The Church won a complete victory when Henry was obliged by the troubles and scandals incident to his family life and by the angry mood of his people to make a penitential pilgrimage to the grave of the Saint. He went barefoot and insisted that the monks scourge him with reeds.
Before these events had taken place, Frederic had already begun to negotiate with the Pope; but the effort came to naught, and he was compelled to resort to arms once more when England's alliances with Castile and Sicily hinted at imperialistic ambitions. His action was aided by dissension among the cities of upper Italy, and also by the secession o Venice from the League. Moreover Frederic laid a new foundation for the Imperial power in the South when he bought the
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