CHAP. XV.

OTHO OF BAVARIA.

443

April 20.

k

dangerous approximation had even then been made between Sifrid of Mentz, hitherto loyal to Frederick, who had condemned and denounced the rapacious quæstorship of Albert von Beham, and Conrad of Cologne, a high Papalist. This approximation grew up into an Anti-Imperialist League, strengthened as it was, before long, by the courageous demeanour, the flight, the high position taken by Innocent at Lyons; still more by the unwise denunciations against the whole hierarchy by Frederick in his wrath. Now the three great rebellious temporal princes-Otho of Bavaria, the King of Bohemia, the Duke of Austria-are the faithful subjects of Frederick; his loyal prelates, Saltzburg, Freisingen, Ratisbon, are his mortal enemies. Not content with embracing the Papal cause, they endeavoured by the most stirring incitements. to revenge for doubtful or mendaciously asserted wrongs, by the dread of excommunication, by brilliant promises, to stir up Otho of Bavaria to assume the Imperial crown. Otho replied, "When I was on the side of the Pope you called him Antichrist; you declared him the source of all evil and all guilt: by your counsels I turned to the Emperor, and now you brand him as the most enormous transgressor. What is just to-day is unjust to-morrow: in scorn of all principle and all truth, you blindly follow your selfish interests. I shall hold to my pledges and my oaths, and not allow myself to be blown about by every changing wind." Otho of Bavaria persisted in his agreement to wed his daughter with Conrad, son of Frederick. Every argument was used to dissuade him from this connection. Three alternatives were laid before him: I. To renounce the marriage of his daughter with Conrad, Frederick's son; if So, the Pope will provide a nobler bridegroom, and reconcile him fully with Henry, elected King of the Romans. II. To let the marriage proceed if Conrad will renounce his father. Albert von Beham was busy in inciting the unnatural revolt of Conrad from his father. III. The third possibility was the restoration of Frederick to the Pope's favour: he must await this; but in the mean time

Boehmer, p. 390. See citations.

bear in mind that the victory of the Church is inevitable." The King of Bohemia, the Dukes of Austria, Brabant, and Saxony, the Margraves of Meissen and Brandenburg, repelled with the same contemptuous firmness the tempting offer of the Imperial crown. At last an Emperor was found in Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia. Henry of Thuringia was a man of courage and ability; but his earlier life did not designate him as the champion of Holy Church." He was the brother-in-law of the sainted Elizabeth of Hungary, now the object of the most passionate religious enthusiasm, sanctioned by the Pope himself. To her, in her desolate widowhood, Henry had shown little of the affection of a brother or the reverence of a worshipper; dark rumours charged him with having poisoned her son, his nephew, to obtain his inheritance. He had been at one time the Lieutenant of the Emperor in Germany. Even Henry at first declined the perilous honour. He yielded at length as to a sacrifice: "I obey, but I shall not live a year."

Innocent issued his mandate, his solemn adjuration to the prelates to elect, with one consent, Henry of Thuringia to the Imperial crown. He employed more powerful arguments all the vast wealth which he still drew, more especially from England, was devoted to this great end. The sum is variously stated at 25,000 and 50,000 marks, which was spread through Germany by means of letters of exchange from Venice. The greater princes still stood aloof; the prelates espoused, from religious zeal, the Papal champion; among the lower princes and nobles the gold

m 66

Quia si omne aurum haberetis, quod Rex Solomon habuit, ordinationi Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, et divinæ potentiæ non poteritis repugnare, quia necesse est ut in omni negotio semper Ecclesia Dei vincat."-p. 120. The marriage took place, Sept. 6, 1246. The rhetorical figures in this address of Albert of Beham, if it came not from the Pope himself, were sufficiently bold: "The Pope would not swerve from his purpose though the stars should fall from their spheres, and rivers be turned into blood. Angels and archangels would in vain attempt to abrogate his deter

mination." "Nec credo angelos aut archangelos sufficere illi articulo, ut eum possint ad vestrum bene placitum inclinare."

"The Electors to the Kingdom of Germany were almost all ecclesiastics. The Archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, Trèves, Bremen; the Bishops of Wurtzburg, Naumbourg, Ratisbon, Strasburg, Henry (Elect) of Spires; Dukes Heury of Brabant, Albert of Saxony; with some Counts.-May 22.

See the very curious letter in Höfler, p. 195, on the determination of the Pope.

CHAP. XV. DEATH OF THE ANTI-EMPEROR HENRY.

445

A.D. 1246.

Aug. 5.

of England worked wonders. On Ascension Day the Archbishops of Mentz, Cologne, Treves, and Bremen, the Bishops of Metz, Spires, and Strasburg, anointed Henry of Thuringia as King of Germany at Hochem, near Wurtzburg. His enemies called him in scorn the priest king. The sermons of the prelates and clergy, who preached the Crusade against the godless Frederick, and the money of the Pope, raised a powerful army; King Conrad was worsted in a great battle near Frankfort; two thousand of his own Swabian soldiers passed over to the enemy. But the cities, now rising to wealth and freedom, stood firm to Frederick: they defied, in some cases expelled, their bishops. Henry of Thuringia attempted to besiege first Reutlingen, then Ulm; was totally defeated near that city, fled to his Castle of Wartburg, and died of grief and vexation working on a frame shattered by a fall from his horse.

Feb. 17, 1247.

Frederick was still in the ascendant, the cause of the Pope still without prevailing power. The indefatigable Innocent sought throughout Germany, throughout Europe: he even summoned from the remote and barbarous North Hakim King of Norway to assume the crown of Germany. At last William of Holland, a youth of twenty years of age, under happier auspices, listened to the tempting offers of the Pope; but even Aix-laChapelle refused, till after a siege of some length, to admit the Papal Emperor to receive the crown within her walls: he was crowned, however, by the Papal Legate, the Cardinal of St. Sabina.

Oct. 3, 1247.

From this time till Frederick lay dying, four years after, at Fiorentino, some dire fatality seemed to hang over the house of Hohenstaufen. Frederick had advanced to Turin; his design no one knew; all conjectured according to their wishes or their fears. It was rumoured in England that he was at the head of a powerful force, intending to dash down the Alps and seize the Pope at Lyons. The Papalists gave out that he had some dark designs, less violent but more treacherous, to circumvent

P Matt. Paris. Chronic. Erphurt. Ann. Argentin, apud Boehmer, Fontes. 9 Letter to William of Holland.

the Pontiff. Innocent had demanded succour from Louis, who might, with his brothers and the nobles of France, no doubt have been moved by the personal danger of the Pope to take up arms in his cause." Frederick had

succeeded, by the surrender of the strong castle of Rivoli to Thomas Duke of Savoy, in removing the obstructions raised by that prince to the passage of the Alps. The Duke of Savoy played a double game: he attacked the Cardinal Octavian, who was despatched by the Pope with a strong chosen body of troops and 15,000 marks to aid the Milanese. The Cardinal reached Lombardy with hardly a man; his whole treasure fell into the hands of the Duke of Savoy. Others declared that Frederick was weary of the war, and had determined on the humblest submission. He himself may have had no fixed and determined object. He declared that he had resolved to proceed to Lyons to bring his cause to issue in the face of the Pope, and before the eyes of all mankind. He was roused from his irresolution by the first of those disasters June, 1247. which went on darkening to his end. The Pope was not only Pope; he had powerful compatriots and kindred among the great Guelic houses of Italy. This, not his spiritual powers alone, gave the first impulse to the downfall of Frederick. In Parma itself the Rossi, the Correggi, the Lupi, connected with the Genoese family of the Sinibaldi, maintained a secret correspondence with their party within the city. The exiles appeared before Parma with a strong force; the Imperialist Podestâ, Henry Testa of Arezzo, sallied forth, was repulsed and slain; the Guelfs entered the city with the flying troops, became masters of the citadel: Gherardo Correggio was Lord of Parma.

Turning

point in

This was the turning point in the fortunes of Frederick; and Frederick, by the horrible barbarity of his Frederick's revenge against the revolted Parmesans, might seem smitten with a judicial blindness, and to have laboured to extinguish the generous sympathies of mankind

fortunes.

Matt. Paris. In the letters to Louis and to his mother Blanch the Pope intimates that they were ready to march an army not only to defend him in Lyons, but to cross the Alps.

Nicolas de Curbio, in Vit. Innoc. IV. "Causæ nostræ justitiam præsentialiter et potenter in adversarii nostri facie, coram transalpinis gentibus posituri."

Petr. de Vin. ii. 49.

CHAP. XV.

SIEGE OF PARMA.

447

Aug. 2.

in his favour. His wrath against the ungrateful city, which he had endowed with many privileges, knew no bounds. He had made about one thousand prisoners: on one day he executed four, on the next two, before the walls, and declared that such should be the spectacle offered to the rebels every day during the siege. He was with difficulty persuaded to desist from this inhuman warfare. Parma became the centre of the war; on its capture depended all the terrors of the Imperial arms, on its relief the cause of the Guelfs. Around Frederick assembled King Enzio, Eccelin di Romano, Frederick of Antioch, Count Lancia, the Marquis Pallavicini, Thaddeus of Suessa, and Peter de Vineâ. On the other hand, the Marquis Boniface threw himself with a squadron of knights into the city. The troops of Mantua, the Marquis of Este, Alberic di Romano, the martial Cardinal Gregory of Monte Longo at the head of the Milanese; the Count of Lavagna, the Pope's nephew, at the head of four hundred and thirty cross-bow men of Genoa and three hundred of his own, hovered on all sides to aid the beleaguered city. Parma endured the storm, the famine: Frederick had almost encircled Parma by his works, and called the strong point of his fortifications by the haughty but ill-omened name of Vittoria. After many months' siege, one fatal night the troops of Parma issued from the city, and surprised the strong line of forts, the Vittoria, which contained all the battering engines, stores, provisions, arms, tents, treasures, of the Imperial forces. So little alarm was at first caused, that Thaddeus of Suessa, who commanded in Vittoria, exclaimed, "What! have the mice left their holes?" In a few moments the whole fortress was in flames, it was a heap of ashes, the Imperial garrison slain or prisoners; two thousand were reckoned as killed, including the Marquis Lancia; three thousand prisoners. Among the inestimable booty in money, jewels, vessels of gold and silver, were the carroccio of Cremona, the Imperial fillet, the great seal, the sceptre and the crown. The crown of gold and jewels was found by a mean man, called in derision "Short-legs." He put the crown on his head, was raised on the shoulders of his comrades, and entered Parma, in mockery of the

Muratori, Annal, sub ann.

Feb. 18, 1248.