That is why we did ordain that, if there should appear against him a proper accuser, within a certain time, there should be appointed him a day for clearing himself, according to the form pointed out in our letters, reserving to ourselves the delivery of a definitive sentence thereupon: in all which the procedure hath not been according to our orders.

We wot not, therefore, on what ground we could yet grant to others his dominions which have not been taken away either from him or from his heirs; and, above all, we would not appear to have fraudulently extorted from him the castles he hath committed to us, the will of the Apostle being that we should refrain from even the appearance of wrong." But Innocent III.

forgot that, in the case of either temporal or spiritual sovereigns, when there has once been an appeal to force, there is no stopping, at pleasure and within specified limits, the movement that has been set going and the agents which have the work in hand.

He had decreed war against the princes who were heretics or protectors of heretics; and he had promised their domains to their conquerors.

He meant to reserve to himself the right of pronouncing definitive judgment as to the condemnation of princes as heretics, and as to dispossessing them of their dominions; but when force had done its business on the very spot, when the condemnation of the princes as heretics had been pronounced by the pope's legates and their bodily dispossession effected by his laic allies, the reserves and regrets of Innocent III.