Albert of Hapsburg had a priest read to him the document, for he could not read it himself, and after pondering, resolved to do differently--that is differently from what the bull required. He tied the parchment to his horse’s tail, and in that guise rode into the battle of Spires where he slew with his own right hand, his rival Adolfus of Nassau. Boniface after some bitter moments of reflection, did the wisest thing possible. He rescinded the bull and received Albert back into the bosom of the church. Indeed the return of the prodigal son was so welcome that some years later Boniface issued another bull giving to Albert the kingdom of France, without however showing him how he was to get it. The power of the papacy had culminated in the hundred years between Innocent III. and Boniface VIII., and was now on the decline. To this downward tendency Boniface shut his eyes; but we can assure ourselves of that tendency by considering the different success of those two pontiffs Innocent at the beginning of the thirteenth century and Boniface at the end, in dealing with two able kings of France. Philip II. called Philip Augustus, the rival of the English Richard-the-lion-hearted, was the cotemporary of Innocent III. Philip had married a Danish princess named Ingerburge. The chronicles say she was young and handsome; but Philip fell none the less in love with Agnes de Méranie the daughter of a Flemish nobleman. He applied to the pope for a divorce so that he might marry Agnes. Innocent refused. Philip then took the matter into his own hands and decreed his own divorce. Innocent excommunicated him and laid his kingdom under interdict. A dreadful word that of Interdict! No churches open, no bells rung, no mass, no confession, no marriages, no funerals, no religious rites whatever except baptism and extreme unction--the ushering in and the ushering out of life.