Still he did not hold the youth in the same utter detestation as before.
On the next day, Rodolph, following an ancient custom, began a tour through his dominions.
Germany now presented the spectacle of a country claimed by two kings.
To Gregory the party of the old king was heretical and odious--that of the new king pure and orthodox.

Though all his sympathies were with the latter, he still openly blamed and deplored the conduct of his legates, and refused to acknowledge Rodolph as king.

The Pope well knew what a delicate undertaking it was to depose a sovereign whom he had consecrated, and how fraught with danger such a precedent must be.

His interest evidently called him to receive Rodolph at once into his arms, and had he done this, the result of the contest would have been very different.

In the behavior of Gregory we discover, in addition to an insuperable aversion to countenance civil war, a disposition to endure the last extremity rather than dethrone a legitimate monarch, and perhaps a preference of Henry, for his parents' sake, to his rival.
Both kings prepared vigorously for the struggle which could not be long postponed.