Meantime a remarkable experience befell Gregory at Rome, and it is not unlikely that he held Henry responsible for it; though it is practically certain that Henry was wholly innocent. The increasing difficulties of the Pope encouraged the anti-Puritans at Rome, and one of them, Cenci, a notorious bandit, burst into the church of Sta. Maria on the Esquiline while Gregory was saying midnight mass there on Christmas day (1075). His men scattered the attendants, and one of them struck the Pope with a sword, causing a wound on the forehead. Gregory was stripped of his sacerdotal robes, thrust on a horse behind one of the soldiers, and hurried to Cenci's fortified tower. Some noble matron was taken with him--one of the strangest circumstances of the whole mysterious episode--and she bound his wounds as he lay in the tower, while Cenci threatened to kill him unless he handed over the keys of the Papal treasury. It is fairly clear that the motive was robbery. Meantime the bells and trumpets had spread the alarm through Rome, and the militia beset the tower and relieved the Pope. This remarkable picture of a winter's night in the capital of Christendom ends with Gregory, who cannot have been severely wounded, calmly returning to the altar and finishing his mass. Henry's envoys had left Rome before Christmas, and it is therefore a mistake to suppose that the message they brought from Gregory had any reference to the violence of Cenci. They reached the court at Goslar on January 1, 1076, and we can easily believe that they would not moderate the offensiveness of the oral message. Gregory had a deliberate policy of preferring oral to written messages. There may at times have been an advantage in this, but in the present instance it was gravely imprudent. Henry's friends urged him to avenge the insult, and three weeks later a synod of twenty-six German bishops, with a large number of abbots, met at Worms and declared Gregory deposed. The irregularity of his election, the despotism of his conduct, and what was described as his scandalous association with women, were the chief reasons assigned for this action. The decree was sent to the insurgent bishops of north Italy, who met in council and endorsed it, and a priest of the church of Parma volunteered to serve the sentence on Gregory. He reached Rome at a moment when Gregory was presiding at a large synod in the Lateran Palace, and boldly read the sentence to the assembled bishops. Lay nobles drew their swords upon the audacious priest, but Gregory restrained them and bade them hear the words of Henry. His intemperate and insulting letter--so intemperate that the Pope could easily remain calm and dignified--could receive only one reply. The King and all his supporters were excommunicated, and Gregory issued a not unworthy letter "To All Christians"[224] informing them that the subjects of King Henry of Germany were released from their allegiance.