The bishops of France were equally deaf to his annual summons to his Lenten synods and his orders that they should punish their King. He threatened, not only to pronounce an interdict, but that he would "endeavour _in every way_ to take the kingdom of France from him."[217] A similar threat of military action was sent to Spain. King Alphonso of Leon married a relative, and Gregory wrote to the abbot of Cluny that if the King did not obey his orders and dismiss her he would "not think it too great a trouble to go ourselves to Spain and concert severe and painful action [evidently military action] against him."[218] This policy of promoting or blessing invasions and usurpations was carried out in the case of smaller kingdoms. King Solomon was ejected from Hungary and appealed to Rome. Gregory blessed the usurper (who craftily promised to be a good son of the Church) and told Solomon that he had deserved the calamity by receiving his kingdom, which had been given to St. Peter by the earlier King Stephen, at the hand of Henry IV.[219] Then Ladislaus of Hungary seized Dalmatia and sought to strengthen his position by paying fealty to the Pope for it; so that, when the Dalmatians attempted to recover their independence, Gregory denounced them as "rebels against the Blessed Peter."[220] Lastly, when the Russian king was displaced by his brothers, and promised to acknowledge the feudal supremacy of Rome if he were restored, Gregory induced Boleslaus of Poland to restore him. If this kind of procedure incurred the censure of Gregory's great friend and successor, Abbot Didier, we can easily understand the violent language of his opponents. These are usually writers of the Lombard-German faction, and we must now endeavour to disentangle from the contradictory narratives of the partisan writers the truth about his relations with Henry IV. The facts I have hitherto given are taken from the authentic letters of Gregory. Henry IV. was a boy at the time of his father's death, and it is beyond dispute that the prelates and nobles who quarrelled for power shamefully neglected, or consciously misdirected, his education. When he came to the throne he was a wilful, loose-living, and imperious young man, forced into marriage with a woman whom he disliked. Exhortations to abandon simony and avoid evil companions fell lightly on such ears, and, as we saw, Gregory's early letters threatened war. Five of Henry's favourites were under sentence of excommunication, yet the young King would not part with them. Gregory turned to the bishops, but they flatly refused to allow his legates to call a synod in Germany, and his excommunication of the Archbishop of Hamburg only embittered them. Suddenly, however, before the end of 1073, Gregory was delighted to receive a most humble and submissive letter from Henry, and legates were sent to absolve him.