An example justifying this theory is found in the case of Henry of Essex in 1163. He was a favorite of Henry II. and one of the most powerful nobles of his day, till he was accused of treason by his kinsman Robert de Montfort for having abandoned his king when in desperate straits in the Welsh war of 1157. A duel ensued, fought on an island of the Thames near Reading, in presence of an immense assemblage. Henry had been a bad neighbor to the Abbey of St. Edmund, and when engaged in the desperate contest he was dismayed at seeing the angry saint hovering in the air and threatening him; nor was this all, for Gilbert de Cerivilla, whom he had unjustly put to death, likewise appeared and menaced him. The inevitable result of this was his defeat; he was left for dead on the field, but at the instance of his powerful kindred his body was allowed Christian burial in the Abbey of Reading. Carried thither he unexpectedly revived and embraced a religious life in the abbey, where years afterwards he related the story of his discomfiture to the veracious chronicler who has handed it down.[383] That the combatants themselves did not always feel implicit confidence in the event, or rely solely upon the righteousness of their cause, is shown by the custom of occasionally bribing Heaven either to assist the right or to defend the wrong. Thus, in the eleventh century, we find the monastery of St. Peter at Bèze in the enjoyment of certain lands bestowed on the Saint by Sir Miles the Stammerer, who in this way endeavored to purchase his assistance in a combat about to take place—a bargain no doubt highly appreciated by the worthy monks.[384] According to the belief of the pious, Heaven might be propitiated by less venal means, for Cæsarius of Heisterbach relates on the authority of an eye-witness that when Henry VI. entered Lombardy in 1196, a castellan was accused before him of oppression and rapine by his neighbors, who produced a champion of enormous size to vindicate their case. The Emperor decreed the battle, when the brother of the accused offered himself for the defence—a slender and most unequal antagonist. He prepared himself for the strife, however, by assiduous confession and prayer, and easily overcame his huge adversary; and thus, exclaims the worthy chronicler, a guilty man escaped the death he had deserved, solely by virtue of the humble confession of his brother.[385] Cæsarius also mentions another case, in a duel decreed by Frederic Barbarossa between a knight and a gigantic champion, where the inequality was more than counterbalanced by the fact that the knight piously took the precaution of receiving the sacrament before entering the lists, and thus was enabled to overcome his adversary.[386]