Taking the name of Gregory VII, Hildebrand reluctantly, if we are to believe his own account, accepted the headship of the Church. Perhaps, knowing how different was his ideal of the office from its reality, he momentarily trembled at the task he had set himself; but once enthroned there was no weakness in his manner to the world. In his ears the words of Christ, ‘Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church’, could never be reconciled with vassalage to any temporal ruler. To St. Peter and his successors, not to emperors or kings, had been given the power to bind or loose, and Gregory’s interpretation of this text did not even admit of two co-equal powers ruling Christendom by their alliance. ‘Human pride has created the power of kings,’ he declared, ‘God’s mercy has created the power of bishops ... the Pope is master of Emperors and is rendered holy by the merits of his predecessor St. Peter. The Roman Church has never erred and Holy Scripture proves that it never can err. To resist it is to resist God.’ Such a point of view, if put to any practical test, was sure to encounter firm if not violent opposition. Thus, when Gregory demanded from William of Normandy the oath of fealty alleged to have been promised by the latter to Alexander II in return for the Papal blessing upon the conquest of England, the Conqueror replied by sending rich gifts in token of his gratitude for papal support, but supplemented them with a message as uncompromising as the Pope’s ideal: ‘I have not sworn, nor will I swear fealty, which was never sworn by any of my predecessors to yours.’ William thereupon proceeded to dispose of benefices and bishoprics in his new kingdom as he chose, and even went so far as to forbid the recognition of any new Pope within his dominions without his leave, or the publication of papal letters and decrees that had not received his sanction. Perhaps if England had been nearer to Italy, or if William had misused his authority instead of reforming the English Church, Gregory VII might have taken up the gauntlet of defiance thus thrown at his feet. Instead he remained on friendly terms with William; and it was in the Empire, not in England, that the struggle between Church and State began. The Emperor Henry III, who had summoned the Synod of Sutri, had been a great ruler, great enough even to have effected a satisfactory compromise with Hildebrand, but, though before he died he succeeded in securing his crown for his son Henry, a boy of six, he could not bequeath him strength of character or statesmanship. Thus from his death, in 1056, the fortunes of his House and Empire slowly waned.