THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
French domination in 12S2, chosen Peter III of Aragon as king, and thus dissolved the feudal connection with Rome. Peter's son and heir, James II, showed himself ready to abandon Sicily after Aragon had fallen to him by the death of his elder brother. Another brother, however — Frederick — stepped in and assumed the Sicilian crown, and neither repeated papal anathemas nor an armed league against him could make him renounce it; in 1302 he obtained favorable terms of peace, and in 1303 papal recognition. Boniface also intervened in the strife between the Blacks and 'Whites of Florence, in favor of the former, and sent a legate to Tuscany. From the sojourn of Dante in Rome as the ambassador of the Bianchi dates the bitter hatred which he displays for Boniface VIII. In agreement with the Neri, Boniface brought Charles of Valois to Tuscany in 1301 as governor; but his five months' rule accomplished nothing but the alienation of the last sympathizers of the pope there. Boniface had real power only in the south of Italy and some central cities. Charles II of Naples became the obedient servant of the Curia, while Pisa, Velletri, Orvieto. and Terracina chose Boniface as their ruler. But a hostile party was forming in Rome, led by the two Colonna cardinals, who disapproved of the close alliance with Charles II and secretly supported the pretensions of the house of Aragon in Sicily. In 1297 the pope stripped them of all their ecclesiastical dignities ; and on the same day they formally renounced their allegiance to him, declaring Celestine's abdication to have been invalid and appealing to a general council. Boniface deprived the whole family of their possessions, one after another, and soon Palestrina alone held out against the papal army. The Colonna submitted in 1298; but when, the next year, Boniface destroyed Palestrina, contrary, they asserted, to a promise of ultimate restitution, they took up arms once more against him. Again they were defeated, and their estates divided between their enemies, the Orsini and the Gaetani.
Soon after his accession, Boniface became involved in complications beyond the boundaries of Italy. Eric VIII of Denmark had imprisoned
the archbishop of Lund in 1294,
Denmark, really to extort money from him, but
Hungary, nominally on the ground of con-
and spiracy. In 1295 Boniface sent a
Poland, legate to demand his release on pain
of excommunication and interdict. These penalties were imposed in 1296, but Eric held out until 1302, though even then the pope did not succeed in restoring the deposed archbishop. In the contest for the throne of Hungary, on the ground that he had been " set over princes and kingdoms, to put down iniquity," and that Hungary belonged on special grounds to the Apostolic See, he claimed the deciding voice; in 1300 he sent Charles Robert, grandson of Mary of Sicily, to the Hungarians as their king; but they first clung to Andrew III, and after his death elected the son of Wenceslaus II of Bohemia as Ladislaus V. At the moment of Boniface's death, Wenceslaus was preparing to unite with Philip the Fair against him, and his
interests clashed with the pope's in another place as well — in Poland, which had elected Wenceslaus in 1300, to take the place of the deposed King Ladislaus. Again Boniface claimed suzerain rights supported the exiled king, who had sought his aid and forbade Wenceslaus to assume the crown without the papal sanction; but, as in Hungary, his words were not heeded.
He met with somewhat greater success in Germany. The undertaking given by Adolf of Nassau, in the Treaty of Nuremberg (Aug. 21, 1294,), tc support Edward I of England against Philip IV, displeased the pope, who wished
Germany, to see peace between France and England. He wrote to Adolf forbidding him to take up arms, and reproaching him for not having announced his election to him. Adolf returned a submissive answer, and received some privileges in return, but the papal legates were bidden still to insist on peace. He even went so far as to impose a year's truce on all three kings (1295), which, at its expiration, he renewed for another two years. In 1296 he commanded them to submit their differences to his decision; but only Adolf sent his representatives to Rome. On June 27, 1298, Boniface decided that neither Philip nor Adolf must overstep his boundaries, and that these must be restored where they had been violated. Adolf never heard of this decision; four days before it was rendered, he had been deposed by the electoral princes, and on July 2 he fell in battle against his rival Albert of Austria. Boniface took a lofty tone with Albert, summoning him to appear within six months and submit his claims to the throne, since it belonged to the pope to examine the person chosen king of the Romans, and reject him if unsuitable. Albert delayed until he made his position secure in Germany, and then sent his ambassadors (Mar., 1302) with liberal promises and the required evidence. Boniface needed his help against France too badly to raise any objection, and recognized him as king of the Romans and future emperor. Albert, in return, renounced his alliance with Philip, and made all possible theoretical and practical concessions.
But a more stubborn obstacle was found in the
king and parliament of England. When Edward I
had conquered Scotland for the second time in
1298, Boniface claimed that country
England, also as a fief of the Holy See, and summoned Edward before his tribunal for having ventured to lay hands upon it. Edward laid the bull before Parliament in 1301; the reply of the English people was that Scotland had never been a papal fief, that their king should not answer the summons, and that, even if he wished to, they would not permit it. On May 7 Edward informed the pope that he would not give up Scotland; and Boniface was obliged to be content with the answer, because in the mean time the memorable conflict with France had broken out.
Philip the Fair was a ruler after the very pattern of Macchiavelli's later description, knowing no law but self-interest, and sticking at nothing to accomplish his ends. His relations with Boniface had at first been friendly, but he was probably