and the Crown, while a quite recent historian, Gfrörrer, has fallen into the mistake of making this special saving clause for soothing the Emperor's pride the origin of the privilege which certain Catholic Powers still claim of applying a veto in Conclave against the election of some particular Cardinal.
The rights so conferred were exercised not without much contest; but it was not until after more than a century that the constitution so roughly hewn out received any further touches at the hands of Alexander III. This great Pope, the unbending antagonist of Barbarossa, and the protecting genius of the leagued cities of Lombardy, won his way to high position, athwart as various and as persistent hardships as ever fell to the lot of any Pope. Of a reign of twenty-two years, during more than half of which Alexander was an exiled wanderer, eighteen were spell in the bitterness of a schism which was perpetuated through three anti-Popes, and had commenced at the very instant of Alexander's elevation. At that conjuncture the leading divisions between the Empire and Holy See had penetrated also into the College of Cardinals; and when
