Meanwhile the ecclesiastical reformation went steadily on under the direction of Hildebrand. The young King Henry endeavoured to free himself from the great German ecclesiastics who held him in thrall, by repudiating the wife whom they had forced upon him. He was checked by the austere and resolute papal legate, Peter Damiani, and was obliged to accept Bertha of Savoy, to whom subsequently he became much attached. Peter Darniani's visit, however, brought him relief in another way, for the legate took back such a report of the prevalence of simony that the archbishops of Mainz and Köln were summoned to Rome, whence they returned so humiliated that their political influence was gone. It is almost equally remarkable that the two English Archbishops also appeared at Rome during this Pontificate, Lanfranc of Canterbury in order that he might obtain the pall without which he could not exercise his functions as Archbishop, and Thomas of York, who referred to the Pope his contention that the primacy of England should alternate between Canterbury and York. In France, too, we are told that the envoys of Alexander interfered in the smallest details of the ecclesiastical administration and punished without mercy all clergy guilty of simony or of matrimony. Almost the last public act of Pope Alexander was to excommunicate five counsellors of the young King of Germany, to whom were attributed responsibility for his acts, and to summon Henry himself to answer charges of simony and other evil deeds. CHAPTER II GREGORY VII AND LAY INVESTITURE [Sidenote: Gregory VII (1073-85).] The crowd which attended the funeral of Alexander II acclaimed Hildebrand as his successor. The Cardinals formally ratified the choice of the people and contrary to the wish of the German bishops the young King Henry acquiesced. [Sidenote: His rise to power.]