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Truth Triumphant - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

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day of the Holy Roman Empire in the West was<br />

about to dawn. John Dowling presents an accurate<br />

picture of conditions at that time as he writes:<br />

In the year 740, in consequence of the pope<br />

refusing to deliver up two rebellious dukes, the<br />

subjects of Luitprand, king of the Lombards, that<br />

warlike monarch invaded and laid waste the<br />

territories of Rome. In their distress, their fear of<br />

the resentment of the emperor forbidding them to<br />

apply to him for the assistance they urgently<br />

needed, they resolved to apply to the celebrated<br />

Charles Martel. ...<br />

It is certain that he turned a deaf ear to these<br />

pathetic appeals of the pope; till the latter,<br />

despairing of gaining his help by appealing to his<br />

piety or superstition, attacked him in a more<br />

vulnerable part, by appealing to his ambition. This<br />

Gregory did by proposing to Charles, that he and<br />

the Romans would renounce all allegiance to the<br />

emperor, as an avowed heretic, and acknowledging<br />

him for their protector, confer upon him the<br />

consular dignity of Rome, upon condition that he<br />

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