The effect of Henry's excommunication was extraordinary. The world of Christendom, looking on beyond the sphere of Henry's immediate surroundings and partisans, evidently felt with an impulse almost unanimous that the anathema launched by a partly lay assembly and a secular King against a reigning Pope unassailable in virtue, a man of power and genius equal to his position, was a sort of grim jest, the issue of which was to be watched for with much excitement, but not much doubt as to the result, the horror of the profanity being the gravest point in the matter. But no one doubted the power of Gregory on his part, amid his lawful council, to excommunicate and cut off from the Church the offending king. Already, before the facts were known, many bishops and other ecclesiastics in Germany had sent timid protests against the act to which in some cases they had been forced to append their names: and the public opinion of the world, if such an expression can be used, was undoubtedly on Gregory's side. Henry's triumphant career came to a pause. Not only the judgment of the Church and the opinion of his peers, but the powers of Heaven seemed to be against him. One of his greatest allies and supporters, Gottfried, surnamed Il Gobbo, the son of that Gottfried of Lorraine who married Beatrice of Tuscany, and who had imposed his hunchback son as her husband upon the young Matilda, the daughter of Beatrice--was murdered immediately after. The Bishop of Utrecht, who had been one of the king's chief advisers and confidants in his war with Gregory, died in misery and despair, declaring with his last breath that he saw his bed surrounded by demons, and that it was useless to offer prayers for him. On the other hand, the great Dukes of Suabia, Bavaria, and Carinthia, all faithful to the Church, abandoned the excommunicated king. Some of the greater bishops, trembling before the just ire of the Pope whom they had bearded, took the same part. The half-assuaged rebellion of the Saxon provinces broke forth with greater force than ever. Henry had neither arms nor supporters left to secure further victories, and the very air of the empire was full of the letters of Gregory, in which all his attempts to win the young king to better ways, and all the insults which that king had poured forth against the Holy See, were set forth. The punishment, as it appeared on all sides, was prompt as thunderbolts from heaven to follow the offence.