Incidental allusion has been made above to the application of these methods in the cases of Ezzelin da Romano and Uberto Pallavicino, and we have seen their efficacy even in the tumultuous lawlessness of the period as one of the factors in the ruin of those powerful chiefs. When the crusade against Ezzelin was preached in the north of Europe he was represented to the people simply as a powerful heretic who was persecuting the faith. Even more conspicuous was the application of this principle in the great struggle on which all the rest depended, which in fact decided the destiny of the whole peninsula. The destruction of Manfred was an actual necessity to the success of the papal policy, and for years the Church sought throughout Europe a champion who could be allured by the promise of an earthly crown and assured salvation. In 1255 Alexander IV. authorized his legate, Rustand, Bishop of Bologna, to release Henry III. of England from his crusader's vow if he would turn his arms against Manfred, and the bribe of the Sicilian throne was offered to Henry's son, Edmund of Lancaster. When Rustand preached the crusade against Manfred and offered the same indulgences as for the Holy Land the ignorant islanders wondered greatly at learning that the same pardons could be earned for shedding Christian blood as for that of the infidel. They did not understand that Manfred was necessarily a heretic, and that, as Alexander soon afterwards declared to Rainerio Saccone, it was more important to defend the faith at home than in foreign lands. In 1264, when Alphonse of Poitiers was projecting a crusade, Urban IV. urged him to change his purpose and assail Manfred. Finally, when Charles of Anjou was induced to strive for the glittering prize, all the enginery of the Church was exerted to raise for him an army of crusaders with a lavish distribution of the treasures of salvation. The shrewd lawyer, Clement IV., seconded and justified the appeal to arms by a formal trial for heresy. Just as the crusade was bursting upon him, Clement was summoning him to present himself for trial as a suspected heretic. The term assigned to him was February 2, 1266; Manfred had more pressing cares at the moment, and contented himself with sending procurators to offer purgation for him. As he did not appear personally, Clement, on February 21, called upon the consistory to declare him condemned as a contumacious heretic, arguing that his excuse that the enemy were upon him was invalid, since he had only to give up his kingdom to avert attack. As but five days after this, on February 26, Manfred fell upon the disastrous field of Benevento, the legal proceedings had no influence on the result, yet none the less do they serve to show the spirit in which Rome administered against its political opponents the laws which it had enacted against heresy.[205]