It was now towards the end of January; the year of grace was nearly expired; and Henry resolved to accept the pope's conditions. He was determined to do and to bear all, so that he might but disappoint the plottings of his rebellious subjects, and retain the empire.
"On a dreary winter morning," says Milman, "with the ground deep in snow, the king, the heir of a long line of emperors, was permitted to enter within the two outer of the three walls which girded the castle of Canosa. He had laid aside every mark of royalty, or of distinguished station; he was clad only in the thin white linen dress of the penitent, and there, fasting, he awaited in humble patience the pleasure of the pope. But the gates did not unclose. A second day he stood, cold, hungry, and mocked by vain hope. And yet a third day dragged on, from morning to evening, over the unsheltered head of the discrowned king. Every heart was moved, except that of the representative of Jesus Christ. Even in the presence of Gregory there were low, deep, murmurs against his unapostolic pride and inhumanity. The patience of Henry could endure no more. He took refuge in an adjacent chapel of St. Nicolas, to implore, and with tears, once again the intercession of the aged abbot of Cluny. Matilda was present; her womanly heart was melted; she joined with Henry in his supplications to the abbot. "Thou alone canst accomplish this," said the abbot to the countess. Henry fell on his knees, and, in a passion of grief, entreated her merciful interference. To female entreaties Gregory at length yielded an ungracious permission for the king to approach his presence. With bare feet, still in the garb of penitence, stood the king, a man of singularly tall and noble person, with a countenance accustomed to flash command and terror upon his adversaries, before the pope, a gray-haired man, of small unimposing stature, bowed with years."
The terms imposed on Henry were characteristic of the unfeeling, inexorable, tyrant; he acted in this matter more like a fiend incarnate than a human being. Finding that the royal penitent was brought so low, that any terms would be accepted, he forced him to drink the bitterest dregs of humiliation. We need not trouble the reader with his lengthy stipulations. Such demands had never been made or heard of before in the annals of mankind. But his one grand object was the consolidation of his own elaborated scheme of papal authority. Having placed his foot on the neck of the greatest monarch in the world, he attempted the establishment of the pontiff's right, in the face of Europe, to judge kings, dispose of kingdoms, and absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance to excommunicated kings. This gave the pope enormous power over the whole outer world. It constituted rebellion against a lawful sovereign a sacred duty to the church and to God.