Vainly Pallavicino sought to prevent the passage of the crusaders through Lombardy. The fate of Italy--one may almost say of the papacy--was decided, February 26, 1266, on the plain of Benevento, where Guelf and Ghibelline from all portions of the Peninsula faced each other. Had Charles been defeated it would have fared ill with the Holy See. Europe had looked with aversion on the prostitution of its spiritual power to advance its temporal interests, and success alone could serve as a justification, in an age when men looked on the battle ordeal as recording the judgment of God. In the previous August, Clement had despairingly answered Charles’s demands for money by declaring that he had none and could get none--that England was hostile, that Germany was almost openly in revolt, that France groaned and complained, that Spain scarce sufficed for her internal necessities, and that Italy did not furnish her own share of expenses. After the battle, however, he could exultingly write, in May, to Cardinal Ottoboni of San Adriano, his legate in England, that “Charles of Anjou holds in peace the whole kingdom of that pestilent man, obtaining his putrid body, his wife, his children, and his treasure,” adding that already the Mark of Ancona had returned to obedience, that Florence, Siena, Pistoja, and Pisa had submitted, that envoys had come from Uberto and Piacenza, and that others were expected from Cremona and Genoa; and on June 1 he announced the submission of Uberto and of Piacenza and Cremona.[259] Although one by one Pallavicino’s cities revolted from him in the general terror, his submission was only to gain time, and in 1267 he risked another cast of the die by joining in the invitation to Italy of the young Conradin, but the defeat and capture of that prince at Tagliacozza, in August, 1268, followed by his barbarous execution in October, extinguished the house of Suabia and the hopes of the Ghibellines. Charles of Anjou was master of Italy; he was created imperial vicar in Tuscany; even in the north we find him this year appointing Adalberto de’ Gamberti as podestà in Piacenza. Before the close of 1268 Pallavicino died, broken with age and in utter misery, while besieged in his castle of Gusaliggio by the Piacenzans and Parmesans. For a presumed heretic he made a good end, surrounded by Dominicans and Franciscans, confessing his sins and receiving the viaticum, so that, as a pious chronicler observes, we may humbly believe that his soul was saved. Despite the calumnies of the papalists, he left the reputation of a man of sterling worth, of lofty aims, and of great capacity. As for Rainerio Saccone, the last glimpse we have of him is in July, 1262, when Urban IV. orders him to come with all possible speed for consultation on a matter of moment, defraying, from the proceeds of the confiscations, all expenses for horses and other necessaries on the journey. His expulsion from Milan had evidently not diminished his importance.[260]