In the two following years Henry was compelled by the Saxon rebellion to come to amicable terms with the pope at any cost. Consequently in May 1074 he did penance at Nuremberg in presence of the legates to expiate his continued intimacy with the members of his council banned by Gregory, took an oath of obedience, and promised his support in the work of reforming the Church. This attitude, however, which at first won him the confidence of the pope, he abandoned so soon as he gained the upper hand of the Saxons: this he achieved by his victory at Hohenburg on the Unstrut (June 9, 1075). He now attempted to reassert his rights of suzerain in upper Italy without delay. He sent Count Eberhard to Lombardy to combat the Patarenes; nominated the cleric Tedaldo to the archbishopric of Milan, thus settling a prolonged and contentious question; and finally endeavoured to establish relations with the Norman duke, Robert Guiscard. Gregory VII. answered with a rough letter, dated December 8, in which--among other charges--he reproached the German king with breach of his word and with his further countenance of the excommunicated councillors; while at the same time he sent by word of mouth a brusque message intimating that the enormous crimes which would be laid to his account rendered him liable, not only to the ban of the church, but to the deprivation of his crown. Gregory ventured on these audacious measures at a time when he himself was confronted by a reckless opponent in the person of Cencius, who on Christmas-night did not scruple to surprise him in church and carry him off as a prisoner, though on the following day he was obliged to surrender his captive. The reprimands of the pope, couched as they were in such an unprecedented form, infuriated Henry and his court, and their answer was the hastily convened national council in Worms, which met on the 24th of January 1076. In the higher ranks of the German clergy Gregory had many enemies, and a Roman cardinal, Hugo Candidus, once on intimate terms with him but now at variance, had made a hurried expedition to Germany for the occasion and appeared at Worms with the rest. All the gross scandals with regard to the pontiff that this prelate could utter were greedily received by the assembly, which committed itself to the ill-considered and disastrous resolution that Gregory had forfeited his papal dignity. In a document full of accusations the bishops renounced their allegiance. In another King Henry pronounced him deposed, and the Romans were required to choose a new occupant for the vacant chair of St Peter. With the utmost haste two bishops were despatched to Italy in company with Count Eberhard under commission of the council, and they succeeded in procuring a similar act of deposition from the Lombard bishops in the synod of Piacenza. The communication of these decisions to the pope was undertaken by the priest Roland of Parma, and he was fortunate enough to