A year after this event, in July, 768 the intruder Constantine was deposed, his brother Toto killed, while a second pretended Pope, named Philip, set up for the moment, was driven away. By the exertions of Christophorus, first of the seven Palatine judges, and his son Sergius, Stephen III., a Sicilian, and at the time cardinal priest of St. Cecilia, was duly elected Pope. He sat during three years and six months, in the course of which great events took place. His first act was to send Sergius to King Pipin and his sons, beseeching him to depute a number of Frankish bishops to Rome to hold a council there with him, and to make regulations which might prevent the recurrence of violence so deplorable. Sergius found king Pipin dying. He expired at St. Denys on the 24th September, 768. There he was buried and afterwards his monument bore the inscription, “Pipin, the king, father of Charles the Great”. He left his states, with the consent of the nobles and bishops, between his sons Charles and Carloman, who were crowned and anointed on the same day, 9th October, 768, Charles at Noyon, Carloman at Soissons. Pipin died aged fifty-five, having ruled France for twenty-seven years, ten as Mayor of the palace, seventeen as king of the Franks. The legate Sergius proceeded at once to the kings, Charles and Carloman. They granted all which he desired. They gave him twelve Frankish bishops well instructed in the scriptures and the holy canons, the archbishop of Sens, the bishops of Mainz, Tours, Lyons, Bourges, Narbonne, Rheims, Langres, Noyon, Worms, and two others with sees of names unknown. These bishops came to Rome in April, 769, and Pope Stephen III. assembled bishops from Tuscany, Campania, and the rest of Italy, and held a council in the Lateran Basilica. Among other decrees they passed one under anathema: “that no laymen, nor any one save a cardinal, deacon or priest, ascending through the distinct degrees, be promoted to the honour of the sacred pontificate”.(229) The Pope, all the priests, and the Roman people, prostrate on the pavement, deplored the sin they had committed in receiving Communion from the unhappy intruder, Constantine, who had been deprived of sight during the wild struggle which attended his deposition, and now in most abject guise confessed his crime before the council, and was condemned to penance.