widowed Beatrice promised to marry him and at the same time gave her
consent to a betrothal between Matilda and Godfrey's hunchback son, who
also bore the name of Godfrey. This marriage with an unfriendly prince,
after so many years of imperial favor, and this attempt at a
consolidation of power for both present and future, so angered Henry
that he insisted that Beatrice must have yielded to violence in this
disposition of her affairs. Finally, in spite of her repeated denials,
she was made a prisoner for her so-called insubordination, while Matilda
was compelled to find safety in the great fortress at Canossa. In the
meantime, Godfrey had gone back to Lorraine, more powerful than ever, to
stir up trouble in the empire.

In this same year, 1054, Henry III. died, and his son, Henry IV., won
over by the prayers of Pope Victor II., made peace with Godfrey and
restored Beatrice to liberty. They, being more than grateful to Victor
for this kindly intervention, invited him to come to their stately
palace in Florence and tarry with them for a while. From this time on,
in the period when Matilda was growing into womanhood, the real seat of
the papal power was not in Rome, but in Florence, and Godfrey's palace
became an acknowledged centre of ecclesiastical activity.

Matilda was a girl of a mystic temperament, credulous, it is true, and
somewhat superstitious like all the other people of her time, and yet
filled with a deep yearning for a greater knowledge of the secrets of
the universe. Her ideal of authority was formed by intercourse with the
various members of her own circle, who were all devoted heart and soul
to the cause of the Holy See, and it was but natural that, when she
became old enough to think and act for herself, all her inclinations
should lead her to embrace the cause of the pope. While it is beyond the
province of the present volume to describe in detail the exact political