Then the Roman people, assembled together, sent messengers to king Henry with a letter beseeching him, as servants beseech their lord, or children their father, to appoint for them a chaste and benign man of godly life as shepherd of the holy Roman church and of the whole world. Now when Benedict, the former pope, learned of the death of Clement (for he was staying at Tusculum), he succeeded in winning over a part of the Roman people by bribery and again usurped the pontificate. But when the ambassadors of the Romans came to the king, he received them in his palace with great honor and gave them many gifts; then, calling together a great assembly of bishops, abbots, counts, margraves, and other princes, according to the decrees of the holy fathers, he chose a pope who should be pleasing to God and the whole people. The ambassadors of the Romans returned to Rome, preceding the new pope, Damasus. But the good pope himself changed his route and betook himself to Italy. Now when he had come to the margrave Boniface, who had assisted the aforesaid pope Benedict to seize the papal throne, the margrave addressed him in these cunning words: "I cannot go on to Rome with you, because the Romans have restored the former pope, and he has regained the power which he had formerly, and has made peace with them. Therefore I cannot go to Rome, especially as I am now an old man." When the holy pope heard this, he returned and told all these things to the emperor. When the king heard it, he recognized the shrewdness and cunning of the margrave, and addressed him by letter, as follows: "Since you have restored to the pontificate a pope who was canonically deposed, and have been led by your love of gain to hold our empire in contempt, understand now that, unless you mend your ways, I will come quickly and make you mend against your will, and I will give the Roman people a pope worthy in the sight of God." Then Boniface, seeing that his rebellion would profit him nothing, drove Benedict from the papal throne by his ambassador and went to Rome with pope Damasus. ... And Damasus held the pontificate twenty-three days and then died, and Leo was enthroned in the Roman see by the emperor and his nobles. {69} Apparently this was a reënactment of the grant of Leo VIII to Otto I, 963. See no. 55. 58. The Pope Becomes the Feudal Lord of Southern Italy and Sicily, 1059. The Oaths of Robert Guiscard to Pope Nicholas II, 1059. Baronius, Annales, anno 1059, §§ 70 and 71.