It was brought to issue upon the night of Christmas, 1075. Gregory, wounded in the forehead while he was celebrating mass in the basilica of St. Peter, was carried prisoner from the altar into one of the towers; from which he was almost at once delivered by the people, and brought back to the altar to terminate the service. The pope showed great clemency towards the conspirators. Six weeks afterwards the Diet of Worms pronounced his deposition, and the bishops gave in their solemn adherence to the decree. Gregory VII., nowise cast down or discouraged, anathematized the emperor at a council held in Rome; and, then addressing himself to the whole Christian world, he entreated it to join him in the defence of their outraged religion. The most distinguished women of Europe--at the head of whom was Matilda, princess of Tuscany (Fig. 210), widow of Godfrey the Humpbacked--declared themselves openly for the pope, in whose favour a sudden reaction took place. Feudal Germany deserted the cause of the emperor, who was compelled to withdraw to Spires until a diet, convoked to meet at Augsburg, should decide as to the respective complaints of the two sovereigns. But the emperor, impatient to get rid of the sentence of excommunication which had been passed against him, went to meet the pope on his way to Augsburg with the Countess Matilda. This illustrious lady interposed to effect a reconciliation between the two rivals, who had an interview in the fortress of Canossa, near Reggio, when the emperor, in order to obtain his pardon, submitted to the humiliation of going on his knees to the pope to ask for it (1077). It was then that the Countess Matilda bequeathed all her patrimonial domains and all her personal property to the Church and to the Court of Rome. The unhappy Henry, ashamed of the penance which he had been made to undergo, peremptorily separated himself from the papal communion. Council after council was convoked, and in the space of two years Gregory had convoked no less than seven for discussing the general affairs of the Church. He had not omitted to secure for himself allies, while the emperor was confronted in Germany by enemies who were attempting to wrest from him the imperial crown. Henry IV. succeeded in defeating them, and then turned to encounter Gregory, against whom he had set up an anti-pope. After the victories of Fladeheim and Marburg he crossed the Alps, crushed the papal army, and threatened Rome, where Gregory, inflexible as ever, had assembled an eighth council, which excommunicated the emperor afresh. The investment of the city had lasted three years when the emperor, by the sacrifice of a vast sum of money, caused the gates of the town to be opened to him; and though Gregory attempted a last effort to assemble a fresh council, Henry was already inside with his anti-pope, whom he had crowned under the title of Clement III. The intrepid Gregory, immured in the Castle of St.