But Gregory's main purpose was to shake Rome free of the empire. This bold design he never would have ventured to conceive, had not the dissensions which troubled the minority of Henry IV, and the revolt of the German princes, favoured its execution. The pope was then like one of the grandees of the empire. Making common cause with the other great vassals, he forms a party in the aristocratic interest, and then forbids all ecclesiastics, under pain of excommunication, to receive investiture to their benefices from the Emperor. He breaks the ancient ties which unite churches and their pastors to the authority of the prince, but it is to yoke all of them to the pontifical throne. His aim is by a powerful hand to enchain priests, kings, and people, and make the pope a universal monarch. It is Rome alone that every priest must fear, in Rome alone that he must hope. The kingdoms and princedoms of the earth are his domain, and all kings must tremble before the thunder of the Jupiter of modern Rome. Woe to him who resists! Subjects are loosed from their oath of allegiance, the whole country is smitten with interdict, all worship ceases, the churches are shut, and their bells are mute; the sacraments are no longer administered, and the word of malediction reaches even to the dead, to whom the earth, at the bidding of a haughty pontiff, refuses the peace of the tomb. The pope, who had been subject from the earliest days of his existence, first to the Roman Emperors, then to the Frank Emperors, and, lastly to the German Emperors, was now emancipated, and walked, for the first time, their equal, if not, indeed, their master. Gregory VII was, however, humbled in his turn; Rome was taken, and Hildebrand obliged to flee. He died at Salerno, saying, "I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, therefore die I in exile."[21] Words thus uttered at the portals of the grave who will presume to charge with hypocrisy? [21] "Dilexi justitiam, et odivi iniquitatem, propterea morior in exilio." The successors of Gregory, like soldiers who arrive after a great victory, threw themselves, as conquerors, on the subjugated churches. Spain, rescued from Islamism, Prussia, delivered from idols, fell into the hands of the crowned priest. The crusades, which were undertaken at his bidding, every where widened and increased his authority. Those pious pilgrims, who had thought they saw saints and angels guiding their armies, and who, after humbly entering the walls of Jerusalem barefoot, burned the Jews in their synagogue, and, with the blood of thousands of Saracens, deluged the spots to which they had come, seeking the sacred footsteps of the Prince of Peace, carried the name of pope into the East, where it had ceased to be known from the time when he abandoned the supremacy of the Greeks for that of the Franks.