The wicked Irene sat on her ill-gained throne for some five troublous years, much vexed by rebellion abroad and palace intrigues at home. It is astonishing that her reign lasted so long, but it would seem that her religious orthodoxy atoned in the eyes of many of her subjects for the monstrous crime of her usurpation. The end did not come till 802, when Nicephorus, her grand treasurer, having gained over some of the eunuchs and other courtiers about her person, quietly seized her and immured her in a monastery in the island of Chalke. No blow was struck by any one in the cause of the wicked empress, and Nicephorus quietly ascended the throne. [Illustration] Details Of St. Sophia. Though containing little that is memorable in itself, the reign of Irene must be noted as the severing-point of that connection between Rome and Constantinople, which had endured since the first days of empire. In the year 800 Pope Leo III. crowned Karl, King of the Franks, as Roman Emperor, and transferred to him the nominal allegiance which he had hitherto paid to Constantinople. Since the Italian rebellion in the time of Constantine Copronymus, that allegiance had been a mere shadow, and the papacy had been in reality under Frankish influence. But it was not till 800 that the final breach took place. The Iconoclastic controversy had prepared the way for it, while the fact that a woman sat on the imperial throne served as a good excuse for the Pope’s action. Leo declared that a female reign was an anomaly and an abomination, and took upon himself the onus of ending it, so far as Italy was concerned, by creating a new emperor of the West. There was, of course, no legality in the act, and Karl the Great was in no real sense the successor of Honorius and Romulus Augustulus, but he ruled a group of kingdoms which embraced the larger half of the old Western Empire, and formed a fair equipoise to the realm now ruled by Irene. From 800, then, onward we have once more a West-Roman empire in existence as well as the East-Roman, and it will be convenient for many purposes to use the adjective Byzantine instead of the adjective Roman, when we are dealing with the remaining history of the realm that centred at Constantinople. XVI. THE END OF THE ICONOCLASTS. (A.D. 802-886.)