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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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BOOK
V.
CONRAD IV—WILLIAM—RICHARD.
CHAPTER II.
CONRAD IV. [1252—1254.
Conrad in Italy —Innocent and Brancaleone — Negotiations — Accusations and
Recriminations — Conrad’s Death — Affairs of Germany — William of Holland’s
Struggles — Affairs of Italy.
Manfred’s struggle, with the various difficulties
surrounding him, was cheered and supported by letters from Conrad, announcing
his early arrival. The young King, convinced by his brother’s assurances
of the urgent necessity for his presence in the Sicilies, determined to
visit them; and, in the winter of the year 1251, committing
the contest with the Anti-king in Germany, during his temporary absence,
to his father-in-law, the Duke of Bavaria, le set forward for the South.
His consort Elizabeth, being then in immediate expectation of presenting
him with the first fruit of their marriage, her accompanying him was
deemed too hazardous, and she likewise was left to the care and protection
of her father. Little would the royal imperial pair anticipate that, for
this world, their separation was final.
In December, Conrad reached Verona, where he was
received by his brother-in-law Ezzelino, with the accustomed magnificent
hospitality of that family, and with the most gratifying demonstrations of
loyalty. Some writers have charged the Signor di Romano, with, even at
this time, projecting his complete emancipation from
feudal subjection to the Emperor, and acting in all his
relations with Conrad, rather as the ally of a monarch, whose interests
were closely involved with his own, than as a vassal. That, after Conrad’s
death, he entertained such schemes, there is no doubt. They would be
encouraged, if not generated, by the circumstance that the sovereign who
then challenged his homage was an anti-king, set up by a detested
pope, in opposition to Selvaggia’s father and brother—Frederic II and
Conrad IV—for the avowed purpose of destroying those imperial connexions,
whose claims to his attachment and his duty he fully acknowledged. Such
schemes would be ripened, by the absolute want of all supreme controlling
authority, during the ensuing interregnum, which produced analogous
designs in princes, inferior to Ezzelino in the means of
executing them. To the Italian heir of these connexions, Manfred, who
never was even King of the Romans, he owed no allegiance but was a
faithful brother and ally. No act of Ezzelino’s is recorded, indicating
disloyalty towards Conrad.
At Verona, Conrad had interviews with the Magistrates
of the Ghibeline cities, and with Marchese Palavicino. They all
represented the condition and yet more the prospects of their party in Italy,
as good. Ezzelino’s dominions extended from the Venetian lagoons far
northward into the Tyrol, and westward to the vicinity of Milan; that
city, besides being much less Guelph than usual, was, like Guelph
Florence, at this time weakened by internal struggles for power between
the nobles and the people; and the only piece of ill fortune, that had
recently befallen the Ghibelines, was the subjugation of two or three
small towns by Guelph Genoa. There was in all this nothing to shake
Conrad’s predetermination, not to suffer any other interest, not the most
vital of Lombardy, or even of the Empire, to divert him from his present
object, namely the defence of his southern patrimony against Papal
usurpation. Having therefore confirmed and secured the attachment of the
Ghibeline Lombard vassals of the Empire, Conrad prosecuted his journey.
But Pesaro, Fano, Fossombrone, Jesi, and Ancona, had
formed a Confederation, which, if not avowedly against the young King himself,
was indisputably Guelph; and, when considered in connexion with the open
hostility of Bologna, and the doubtful- disposition of Rome,
then courting the return of the Pope, threatened all the
delay, inseparable from the necessity of forcing a passage.
He resolved therefore to proceed by sea; the Venetians offered him
the use of four galleys, to convey himself and his small escort; and,
accepting the loan, he embarked for Apulia. He landed at Siponto, where he found Manfred awaiting him.
Nothing could be more satisfactory than the meeting of
the brothers nothing could promise better. Manfred had prepared everything for the most
honourable reception of the Sovereign; again, with a discretion yet more
surprising at his age than his military and political skill and
energy, avoiding all that could bear the most remote appearance of
rivalry, or assumption of authority. The ex-Regent, in person, held his
royal brother’s stirrup. Conrad, on the other hand, gratified by the
unexpected progress that he found made in subjugating and pacifying the
kingdom, and not less so, perhaps, by the perfect propriety
with which the youthful and triumphant Regent sank into
his subordinate position, displayed the warmest fraternal affection
for him, constantly placed him by his side, and professed his
determination to be guided upon all points by his advice. Together the
brothers now traversed the continental portion of the realm, compelling to
submission not only all minor dissatisfied nobles and cities, but even the
powerful husbands of their two half-sisters; an object the more material,
as much of the land upon the Garigliano, the Apulian frontier against the
Papal territories, was the property of Caserta. Capua was now forced to
surrender, and only Naples still persevered in rebellion.
But, amidst all this success, Conrad, like Manfred,
knew the importance of a reconciliation with the Pope, if attainable; of which,
never having personally given offence, he saw no reason to despair. He
accordingly offered Innocent all the rights and privileges ever enjoyed by
Popes in Apulia and Sicily, under his Norman ancestors;
including even those wrested from the maternal anxieties of his dying
grandmother, the Empress-Queen, Constance. The arrogant pontiff did not
condescend to notice the proposal, but, treating
Conrad as incapacitated to succeed, both by his excommunication, and by
his father’s deposal, acted as sole, undisputed sovereign of the Sicilies.
Lavishly he granted fiefs to his creatures, or to those whom he wished
to make such, and, amongst others—Manfred having rejected his terms,
to wit, the grant of Tarento in Papal vassalage —he gave that principality
to one of the Frangipani, as a bribe, which would not only lure the whole
family from their grateful attachment to Frederic and his
posterity, but, through their conflicting claims to the possession,
produce hostilities between the grantee and the actual
holder. Nevertheless, when he saw how prosperously Conrad, supported
and guided by Manfred, was establishing his authority, he felt that his
own unaided power was insufficient to wrest the Sicilies from the lineal heir;
and, abandoning, however reluctantly, the idea of incorporating
this kingdom with the Estates of the Church, he looked out for a
substitute vassal-king, who should be able to supply the strength in which
he himself was deficient.
The Pope now proffered the crown of the Sicilies to
Charles, Earl of Anjou, brother of the absent royal Crusader. Charles was most
willing to accept the offered crown, how onerous soever, the conditions
upon which granted, how great and perilous soever, the obstacles to
be overcome, in gaining possession of the granted kingdom. He,
indeed, probably saw an advantage in the King’s absence; judging that he
might more easily obtain the assistance he wanted from his mother, the
Queen Regent. But Blanche, if something of a bigot, had
no inclination to be made the blind tool of a Pope. Neither had she
forgotten her eldest son’s obligations to the Imperial father of the King,
now to be despoiled; nor would she permit any of her other children to
risk implicating France in schemes of foreign conquest, whilst their King
and brother, still absent on his Crusade, involved in difficulties
and dangers, might at any moment need the undivided force of the realm.
She obliged Charles to refuse the proffered crown; and, when some French
knights and nobles accepted the Papal pay and the spiritual indulgences
promised to whoever should enlist under the banner of the Keys, she
sternly said, that those, who preferred the service of the Pope to that of
their own natural sovereign, the Pope might maintain; and confiscated
their fiefs. The great vassals followed the Queen’s example with
respect to the vavassors, and the Keys lost
their charm.
Innocent’s next offer was made to the opulent Earl of
Cornwall, brother to Henry III and to the deceased Empress Isabella. Earl
Richard does not appear to have felt any scruples of conscience, touching
the lawfulness of such a transfer of another man’s property, and of his
own nephew’s contingent birthright; but he clearly saw the difficulty
of effecting it, and required that the Pope should take upon himself a
share of the expense, giving him hostages and fortresses, as security for the
fulfilment of his engagement. The Legate expressed considerable
doubts of the Holy Father’s acceding to such unexpected demands; and the
Earl rejoined: “Then is his Holiness’s gift much like saying: I give you
the moon, you have only to reach it down”
This answer was most annoying to Innocent, the
disappointment producing a good deal of hesitation as to his next move. He
even thought of limiting his persecution of the Swabian dynasty to the two
active elder sons of the late Emperor, Conrad and Manfred, and
conferring the vassal kingdom upon their junior brother, Henry,
the nephew of the King of England. In order to reconcile this act of clemency to the interests of his family, if not
of his See, he thought of marrying the juvenile usurper to one of his
own nieces. He even proceeded so far with the scheme, as to have some of
the chief nobles, and the young Prince himself, sounded upon the subject.
But Henry, a fine boy about twelve years old, showed little inclination
to provoke a fratricidal war, and forfeit the affection of his family
and friends, for the chance of being able to usurp a crown, not merely in
vassalage but in absolute slavish dependence, upon a Pope, whom he had probably
been taught to abhor, as his father’s bitterest enemy. His virtual
tutor, Ruffo, moreover, remained loyal to Conrad, although envious of
Manfred; and the Barons spumed the idea of such a marriage, as derogatory
to the royal blood.
Innocent, again disappointed, abandoned this project,
and proposed the Sicilian crown to the King of England, for his second
son, Prince Edmund. The weak Henry III, unchecked by either conscientious
scruples or prudential considerations, snapped at the glittering bait. He at
once accepted the Pope’s offer, never afterwards gave the boy any
name but his Roitelet, (may
this diminutive of the regal title be Englished, Kingling) and transmitted to the Papal Court all
the money in his treasury, together with all that he could borrow of the
Earl of Cornwall and other wealthy individuals, or extort, either from
Jews, or, through the agency of unjust judges in the shape of
fines, from his natural subjects, to be employed in despoiling
the son of his late brother-in-law.
During these various inimical negotiations, Conrad had
remitted neither his efforts to accomplish a reconciliation with the
implacable pontiff, nor his military operations. The former have been seen
unavailing, and Innocent flattered himself, that pecuniary embarrassments
would insure the dispersion of the troops opposed
to him. But a loan, seasonably obtained by Conrad from the
merchants of Sienna, again foiled the Pope’s schemes; and, in
the autumn of 1252, the King, master of Capua, joined the corps
encamped before Naples. This city was still obstinately defended; every assault
was repulsed, and, as long as the sea was open,
the land blockade was laughed at. But the Marshal of Sicily, obedient to
the King as he had been the reverse to the Regent, brought his fleet to
perform the service required of him; and, obstructing the port, completed
the previously imperfect blockade. Famine now gradually rendered further
resistance impossible; and, upon the 10th of October, 1253, Naples surrendered at discretion.
Upon entering the pertinaciously rebellious city,
Conrad is, by most writers, allowed to have inforced the strictest discipline amongst his troops, and prevented individual
outrage. But he assembled his councillors and judges, to deliberate
concerning the punishment proper to be inflicted upon such obstinate
disloyalty, as Naples had exhibited; and this was decided to be, razing
the fortifications, as usual in such cases, imposing a heavy fine upon the
whole population, and selecting the ringleaders of the revolt to be dealt
with more severely. Of these a very few were executed, and the others
banished; but no distinction was upon this occasion made betwixt clergy
and laity, which from old chroniclers elicits the
observation, “Conrad acted as if there were no Pope in the
world.” Conrad is said by these writers, to have destroyed any good
effects that such moderation in punishment might have produced upon the
Neapolitans, by wanton, as indiscreet, mockery; he ordered the horse in the market-place, the emblem of the city, to be bridled.
Some writers lay a great degree of harshness, others of cruelty, towards
the vanquished Neapolitans, to his charge, which alienated the Apulians, and checked his prosperous career.
Conrad had by no means forgotten, nor was he likely to
be permitted to forget, that there was a Pope in the world; but, being now
master of his Italian kingdom, he felt himself in a better position, and
able to assume a somewhat loftier tone towards the intractable pontiff,
than he had previously dared to hazard. In a letter addressed to
the Cardinals, he says: “I am an orthodox Christian, and wish to put
an end to these hateful dissensions with the Pope. But let not his
Holiness fancy that he may venture to do whatever he pleases, or I must appeal
to God, to a future Pope, to an Ecumenic Council, to the Princes of
the Empire, to all kings and princes in the world; ay, and to all
Christian people.” This language he held, in the conviction that even
Innocent must, by this time, be willing to desist from hostilities with an
adversary, as successful as he was pacifically disposed; inasmuch as the Pope’s
position had been deteriorating during the time, though not quite in the
proportion, that his own had been improving. Whilst vainly striving to
acquire a kingdom, Innocent seemed more completely than before to have
lost the capital of the papacy.
The Romans, after repeatedly inviting the Pope to
return to the proper metropolis of Christendom, had subjoined to their last
invitation, or rather summons, such menaces of coercion in case of
refusal, as were by no means alluring to domiciliation amongst them.
Since then, they had again changed their tone. They had reelected Brancaleone d’Andalone sole Senator; whom his experience of their temper induced to decline the
appointment, except upon his own conditions. Of these, the first was that
the office should be secured to him, not for one year, but for three years; the
shortest term in which he thought anything could possibly be effected towards establishing the sovereignty of the law, and subduing the turbulence of either patricians
or plebeians. Moreover, as he foresaw that in his endeavours to accomplish
this great good, he must needs provoke much dangerous enmity, he required
that hostages for his safety should be sent to Bologna. Both conditions
were agreed to, and, when Conrad thus addressed the Cardinals, the
Senator was successfully inforcing law and
order, upon high and low, in republican Rome; where the Pope’s authority
was, henceforward, to be purely spiritual. The Romans seemed to feel
the improvement in their condition, to a degree which might have been
expected to give it stability.
But the advantages which the King should have derived
from the change in the relative positions of the Pope and self, he
forfeited by the weakness with which he allowed himself to be drawn into
the snares of those who studied their own interests exclusively. Already
had he thus, from hostile insinuations, imbibed distrust and jealousy
of the brother to whose abilities and energy he owed his success, and
who, had he wished to usurp his crown or his authority, would hardly, he
might have judged, have pressed him to come and take all power out
of his hands. Conrad now suffered himself to be impelled, as much
probably by these feelings, as by the advice of the individuals who had
insidiously instilled them into him, to acts of injustice towards Manfred
and his friends, alienating some previously active supporters. He
thus gradually chilled the zeal of his half-brother.
The most indefatigable underminer of the Prince of Tarento’s influence was the Marshal of Sicily. Upon
Conrad’s arrival, he had hastened over, to forestall the anticipated
accusations of disobedience to the Regent, and ingratiate himself with the
young King, whom he appreciated more justly, than he had his still younger
brother, the ex-Regent. He easily persuaded the monarch, that he had
withheld the succours demanded by Manfred, and refused to obey his
summons, not at the instigation of jealousy, but simply from a strong
sense of his own duty; the disturbed state of Sicily, of which the Prince
of Tarento could have no knowledge, prior to the insurrection at Messina
against Lancia, having made it indispensable to keep all the forces at his
disposal within the island, and to remain in person at his post. For refusing
to give the Lancias possession of the domains granted them, he had
likewise an excellent reason, to which he gradually induced Conrad to
listen. He knew, he asserted, that the the deceased Emperor had latterly
discerned and disliked the grasping disposition of the Lancias, who had,
since his decease, been coaxing fresh, immoderate grants, out of the
Prince of Tarento’s love for his mother, and
consequently for her family; wherefore he had judged it best to reserve
the whole matter for the decision of the King, when he should arrive.
Ruffo thus so thoroughly cleared himself in Conrad’s eyes, that he was created
Conte di Catanzaro as the reward of his services; and now proceeded to
attack Manfred himself. He dared not, indeed, impute selfish designs to
the rival he sought to overthrow the brother, to whom the King vividly
felt, that he owed a deep debt of gratitude; but to make the consciousness
of such indebtment—too often burdensome to ungenerous minds—galling,
and to excite jealousy of that brother’s popularity, was not difficult. In
these machinations Ruffo had a coadjutor, who, whilst far from wishing to
play into his hands, was actuated by similar motives. This
was Margrave Berthold of Hohenberg, or Hochberg, a relation of the
Bavarian Wittelsbachs, and the commander
of Frederic’s German legion, who, though he had frankly cooperated with,
and obeyed Manfred as Regent, and, having married a Lancia, might have
been expected to take his part, was, like the Marshal, envious of the
Prince’s influence over the King, and hoped, by rendering him an object of
jealousy, to supplant him.
Thus wrought upon, Conrad ascribed all the pecuniary
difficulties that had so cramped himself in Germany, and Manfred in
Apulia, to the late Emperor’s inconsiderate liberality; and was persuaded
that he might justifiably resume, what ought not to have been given. He
announced to Manfred, as a financial scheme, calculated to prevent the
recurrence of such annoyances, his intention of cancelling many of their
father’s latest grants, and requested him, in fraternal kindness, to facilitate
so unpopular a measure, by the voluntary surrender of his own bequest.
Manfred unhesitatingly complied, when his royal brother took from him the
counties of Monte, St. Angelo, Gravina, Tricarico, and Montescaglione,
leaving him only his principality of Tarento; and even this he
impaired, not only severing Brindisi from it, but, enforcing the
late Emperor’s laws against especial privileges and exemptions, such
as Tarento had hitherto enjoyed, he taxed this principality like the rest of
the kingdom, and sent a royal judge thither, to administer criminal
justice, leaving the adjudication of civil suits only, to the Prince’s
tribunals. Still Manfred quietly submitted, either in loyal
obedience, or from consciousness that family disunion must betray the
kingdom into the Pole’s hands; or, perhaps, impressed with a
statesman-like conviction, of the propriety of abolishing all exceptions from
the general law of the land. But his friends and kindred, who were
similarly deprived of what Frederic might, perhaps, too lavishly have
bestowed upon them, were less patient under what they deemed
his wrongs as well as their own. The Lancias, especially, with
indiscreet vehemence, resented the spoliation of the nephew in whom they
gloried, and whom they had expected to see loaded with additional, well-earned
honours and riches; they were, possibly, still more irritated by the
high favour which they saw their personal enemy, the new Conte di
Catanzaro enjoying. With imprudent vindictiveness, they gave utterance to
wishes that an illness, under which Conrad was then, during the siege of
Naples, labouring, might prove such as would seat him, who
as Regent had shown himself so well fitted to govern a kingdom,
upon the throne of the Norman monarchs; thus proposing to supersede Henry, the next heir, who had never given
them offence. The words were of course diligently reported to the
King, who instantly banished the whole Lancia family, as traitors. The
exiles betook them to the court of Vatazes, whose youthful consort, Anna,
being Manfred’s full sister, was their kinswoman, and where,
therefore, they were cordially received. But such was not the
exile that Conrad, whose mind had been so skilfully imbued with
hatred of his brother’s maternal relations, had intended. It irritated him; and
he authorized Margrave Berthold to inform Vatazes, that, although the King
of the Romans, of Jerusalem, and of Sicily, Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire, could not presume to dictate to the Emperor of Nicaea, who should
or should not be entertained at his court, he must look upon such a
welcome to traitors, banished for their treason, as a demonstration of
hostility. This kind of conduct had begun prior to the surrender of Naples, and became more decided when that event had
seemed to secure Conrad’s throne.
That Manfred was deeply offended, and his affection
for his royal brother cooled by this treatment of his mother’s kindred,
cannot be doubted, but he does not appear to have shown resentment
otherwise than by withdrawing from councils, swayed by his personal
enemies. And about this time Conrad, already suffering from the
fever, that ultimately, proved fatal, was softened towards
Manfred, by the loss of another brother. Henry the younger,
whom Ruffo appears, when he obeyed his sovereign’s summons, to have
brought with him from Sicily, died in December 1253, and his two,
unhappily alienated, brothers were reunited by their common sorrow for this,
the second family affliction, that had befallen them since the loss
of their father. Their nephew Frederic, the recently appointed Duke of Austria,
had preceded his youthful uncle to the tomb by a few months; dying not, as
might be supposed, in Austria, struggling for his duchy, but, at
his uncle’s court. Conrad’s genuine sorrow for young Henry’s fate,
appears in the very pathetic letter he wrote the lost boy’s uncle, Henry
of England, upon the occasion; although perfectly aware of that monarch’s
league with the Pope, against himself. The misfortune, that
revived the King’s fraternal affection for Manfred, likewise stimulated
him to fresh endeavours in behalf of
another brother, Enzio, whilst confidence in his present
regal position encouraged him to expect success, from the liberal
offers of ransom he pressed upon the Bolognese magistracy.
But, although he had given no offence to Bologna,
his proposals were as pertinaciously rejected as had been his father’s.
Whilst Conrad and Manfred were mourning over the death
of their younger and striving to effect the
liberation of their elder brother, their enemies were
industriously disseminating reports that the one or the other, or
both conjointly, had poisoned young Henry, now, as they had their
nephew Frederic, and perhaps his brother Henry, before. It may seem
wasting time to investigate charges unsupported by a shadow of even
presumptive proof, the only attempt at anything of the kind being by a
later historian, who, after stating that Conrad—Manfred he does not
accuse—committed this fratricide to avoid giving his brother the
vassal-kingdom bequeathed him by their father, proves his guilt by the
observation, that remorse prevented his ever again smiling after Henry’s
death. But the extraordinary manner, in which, a few years later, when
Manfred, by his splendid abilities and his success, had
monopolized Guelph and Papal hatred, such accusations were accumulated
upon him, must apologize for the desire to illustrate their frequent utter
groundlessness, by exhibiting upon the present occasion their
contradictory variety.
Conrad being at this moment the more important
personage, to him were there two supposititious murders imputed by Innocent,
and some contemporaneous annalists; and whilst they consider Fredericks
being the son of his elder brother—legally forfeited as was that brother’s
birthright—sufficient inducement for Conrad to stain his soul with his nephew’s
blood, a motive of anger was found for the supposed fratricide. It was
accounted for, under the Pope’s sanction, as is averred, by the following
anecdote. Henry, when accompanying his royal brother upon a sporting excursion,
was guilty of some blunder in his falconry, for which the King sharply
reproved him. The Prince returned an answer so pertly
petulant, that the offended monarch ordered him to be put to death. No one
asserts that the deed was done upon the spot in a moment
of irritation, and how effected, whether through the
instrumentality of the royal boy’s former guardian, Ruffo, or of
one Giovanni il Moro—of whom more hereafter—whether by poison or by
strangulation, are points upon which these annalists disagree. They do so likewise upon another point; to wit, whether Conrad
murdered only one nephew, Frederic, leaving his younger nephew, another
Henry, to inherit whatever rights made Frederic worth murdering, or
he extended the measure to Henry; concerning whom the probability seems to
be, though the date of this Henry’s death is very uncertain, that he
survived his supposed murderer. Of those who afterwards attributed
these crimes to Manfred, one relates that in 1238—when he, who in
1250 was only eighteen, must have been a mere child, more precocious in
guilt than even in argumentative eloquence—he poisoned both the sons of the
elder Henry, then sharing their father’s prison; another, that their
mother sent them to their uncle’s Court in 1251, why is not explained, and
that Manfred then perpetrated the atrocious, as to him unprofitable, deed;
and others again confine their inculpation to the murder of his elder
nephew and younger brother, the last of whom certainly did stand before
him in the line of succession.
During all this time, negotiations with the Pope were
still pending; Conrad still urgently pressing to be, at least, informed of
the terms upon which a reconciliation was attainable; to which request,
Innocent at length replied, by a statement of the reasons, that altogether
precluded reconciliation. These were six, being as many crimes,
of which he accused the King. The first, that, being excommunicated, he
had heard mass, compelling priests to celebrate this holy rite in his
presence, thus proving himself a heretic. The second, that he had
suffered heretical doctrines to be preached amongst his partisans in
Lombardy. The third, that he had poisoned his nephew Frederic. The fourth, that he had kept his brother Henry a prisoner (no
hint of fratricide, which, had the Pope believed the imputation, there
surely must have been—an observation equally applicable to the
alleged breach of capitulation at Naples). The fifth, that he
had appropriated church property, conferred benefices by his own
usurped authority, and withheld them from persons lawfully therewith
invested. The sixth, more vague, that he had
opposed the Church; had otherwise committed such atrocities in Apulia and
Sicily, as incurred the forfeiture of those Church fiefs; and had
attempted much, contrary to the dignity of the Holy Roman Empire.
To these six charges, the following six answers were returned.
To the first, that the King could not acknowledge an excommunication,
irregularly pronounced, without his hearing justification, and never
regularly notified to him; but he had never forced a priest to
officiate, though he had, as the duty of a good Christian,
attended mass: and he was ready to prove himself no heretic, by
a profession of his faith. To the second, that the King had always
opposed heresy in Germany, and would do so in Lombardy, when he should have
power to do so; but, must respectfully observe to
his Holiness, that, heresy was at least as publicly taught at Milan, and
in other Guelph cities, as at Verona. To the third, that superfluous
and derogatory to his character and station, as was a vindication from so
foul and notoriously groundless a charge, the King was ready to refute the
calumny in any and every the most formal and circumstantial manner. To
the fourth, that the King had never imprisoned Prince Henry, but had
always loved, and honourably treated him, and would have continued so to
do, had God not recalled him to himself. To the fifth, that the King had
done nothing of the kind had merely exercised his hereditary right
of administering the estates of vacant benefices; and even this he
was willing to resign, contenting himself with the rights enjoyed by the
Kings of France and England in such matters. To the sixth, that in his
hereditary kingdom the King had never wronged the Pope, or any of his own
subjects, always governing according to law, and had been equally careful of
the dignity of the Holy Roman Empire, which, as its legally elected
sovereign, he would maintain and defend against everyone. To these
specific answers, Conrad added a protest against the Pope’s right to call his conduct in question, as before a tribunal,
and an assertion, that his known character ought to be a sufficient
protection against the unsupported calumnies of individual slanderers.
These accusations, and somewhat retaliatory answers,
offered little promise of a reconciliation: but immediate actual war was
averted by the intervention of two great Guelph nobles, connected by
marriage with Conrad. These were the Earls of Savoy and Montfort, the last
of whom appears to have married a half-sister of Conrad’s mother, the
offspring of Jean de Brienne’s third marriage. But all that the
importunity of these powerful nobles could wring from the imperious Innocent,
was the delay of a few months. In compliance with their urgent
and repeated prayers, he gave Conrad till the J 9th of the following May,
for his complete vindication, or rather his final submission.
A respite from present annoyance was the only
advantage derived by Conrad from this concession. The fever that had attacked
him the preceding autumn had, from his frequent relapses, assumed so
alarming a character, that, his only child being an infant in arms, born
since he had left Germany, the regency during this heir’s long
minority, was now the chief, if not the sole, object of
interest amongst the royal Councillors and courtiers. There could be
but two pretenders to the office, namely, the paternal uncle of the future
King, the Prince of Tarento, whom the late Emperor had named to the one
regency, which alone he could anticipate, and this future
King’s remoter maternal relation, the Margrave of Hohenberg. Berthold,
it has been seen, had successfully undermined Conrad’s trust in Manfred;
but his policy appears to have been, not to alarm the royal invalid, by
any measure, that could awaken the idea of his being in danger. He had,
probably, sufficient experience of Italian antipathy to German officers,
even if no longer to a German or half-German sovereign, to perceive that
his appointment would, if opposed by a popular, compatriot Prince, be utterly unavailing. Therefore,
with a crafty cleverness, usually esteemed more congenial to the Italian
than to the Teutonic character, he sought, whilst strong in the reigning
monarch’s favour, to obviate the future contest that he dreaded. He
courted Manfred’s friendship, and, aided by the Prince’s placable temperament, easily re-established some
show of familiar intercourse: then, he one day inquired, professedly in
confidence, whether, upon his royal brother’s evidently fast approaching
dissolution, he intended to resume the regency, during his infant nephew’s
minority? The question did not take the Prince by
surprise; he had seen through the Margrave’s ambition, and marked the
manoeuvres by which, undermining him, he had removed an obstacle to its
gratification. Thus forewarned, and assisted by upwards of three years’
experience, since his father’s death had placed the helm of state in his
then boyish hands, he had maturely considered the prospects of
the kingdom, as affected by the impending demise of the crown. He
thought that, in the actual state of the relations with the Roman See, the
preservation of his little nephew’s patrimony, from the grasp of the Pope,
must mainly depend upon the fidelity of the German legion; and he too
well knew the attachment of the legion to its compatriot Commander, the
Margrave, to rely upon its fidelity in any struggle, even against a third
party, if the Margrave disputed his authority. His mind being, therefore,
made up, to avoid present contest, awaiting the chances of the future, he
at once replied, that so arduous a task required Margrave Berthold’s
experience and wisdom.
Thus secure against rivalry, the Margrave had no occasion
to disturb the repose of the dying King; who, upon the 21st of May 1254,
just two days after the expiration of the delay granted him by the Pope,
breathed his last, in the 26th year of his age. The length
and vacillations of Conrad’s illness might have been
supposed sufficient, young as he was, to prevent, in his case,
the habitual suspicion of poison. But few indeed were those who,
during the Middle Ages, ascribed the death of a king of five-and-twenty to
natural causes. That he was poisoned was the general opinion; the only
question being as to the poisoner; the Ghibelines denouncing Innocent,
upon the authority, as reported, of Conrad himself, who imputed his malady
to poison, administered at his instigation; the Guelphs, naming
Manfred. And one of these gives so circumstantial a detail of
the detection of his fratricidal purpose, long prior to its perpetration,
as might be calculated to gain belief, did not such detection seem, in the
first place, to render the perpetration impossible; and, in the second, did not
the chronicler betray an ignorance, as to the position of
the principal persons, little consistent with correct knowledge of the
facts. The story, which is worth relating, if only as a new illustration
of the perplexities besetting mediaeval history, is this. Manfred and the
Margrave of Brandenburg jointly addressed letters to the King
of England, in which they accused Conrad of the murder of his young
brother, Henry, the English monarch’s nephew, and of the intention of
murdering themselves; avowed their purpose of revenging Prince Henry, and
securing their own lives, by putting Conrad to death, and
asked whether, in case of failure, they might rely upon an asylum in
England. The messenger bearing these guilt-, danger-, and death-fraught
epistles, chancing to die at Verona, his despatches fell into the hands of
Marchese Palavicino, who immediately transmitted them to Conrad. He, on
his part, upon reading them, banished all the friends and relations of
Manfred, and surrounded him and the Margrave with spies, in the conviction
that, by being constantly informed of their every movement, he might
avert all mischief from their treasonable conspiracy. Finally, the Prince
and the Margrave, suspecting they were betrayed, instantly, in spite of the vigilance of the spies, opened a
negotiation with the royal physician, then attending the King for a slight
fever, and engaged him to make away with his patient. Upon this story, the
first remark is, that there was at the time no Margrave
of Brandenburg in Italy ; and, if it be urged that the name may be a
mere verbal mistake for Hohenburg by a supercilious
Italian, who could not trouble himself to distinguish one tramontane barbarian
appellation from another; the second remark is, that this Margrave, being
unconnected with Prince Henry, and, as Conrad’s prime favourite, having,
probably, more to lose than to gain by his death, was not very likely to
seek the office of his accuser and murderer, especially in conjunction
with his own chief rival, whom he must suppose that he had, by
his machinations, made his personal enemy; the third, that Verona
belonged to Ezzelino da Romano, not to Marchese Palavicino; and, finally,
that the exile of the Lancias preceded the death of Prince Henry. To say
nothing of spies, placed, as his only measure of defence, by a
fratricide, around criminals, against whom he had evidence
amply sufficient to justify their imprisonment, if not their execution;
and spies, who look idly on, whilst their employer’s death is plotted,
arranged, and effected, by those they are watching.
But, whether slain by poison or a fever, Conrad died;
and his corpse was conveyed, as that of his father had been, to Sicily;
where, far from being, as averred, rejected, and thrown into the sea by
the Messinese, as the dust of an excommunicated
enemy of the Church, the royal remains were reverently interred, and a
magnificent monument was erected to the memory of Conrad, King of Sicily
and of the Romans. This monument, with the church containing it, was
subsequently destroyed by fire. Great as were the ensuing calamities, the
death of Conrad IV can hardly be called a serious misfortune, since, though not destitute of talent and courage, he
must be held a degenerate Hohenstaufe. The
dissensions with the Pope would assuredly have been the same had he
survived, but the abilities and energies opposed to, and long
powerfully counteracting Papal aggression and intrigue, would
scarcely have been the same. Conrad has been taxed with
great cruelty; but nothing beyond the ordinary temper of the age
appears. No particular instances are commemorated, and
the historian, who so taxes him, makes this accusation in reference to his
other charge, namely, the alleged, violation of the Neapolitan
capitulation.
Material changes had taken place in Germany since
Conrad had crossed the Alps. Innocent had not been so absorbed in Italian
politics, as to forget that his antiking still needed
support from him; and had accordingly sought in various ways to strengthen
him. He endeavoured so to do, in the first place, by a matrimonial connexion;
to which end he had asked for him, successively, the hand of a Danish and
of a Saxon princess. But neither King nor Duke judged the pretender to a
crown, lawfully worn by another, a desirable son-in-law; and the
next application was made to the Duke of Brunswick. This prince was
the father of many daughters, and—notwithstanding the many years of peace and
apparent amity, that, suspending transient enmity, had seemingly
revived the old ties of kindred betwixt Welf and Hohenstaufen —was
still, at heart, the hereditary foe of the House of Swabia; and from him
William of Holland obtained a bride. His marriage with Elizabeth of
Brunswick was celebrated in January 1252, and attended by circumstances so
inauspicious, as to chill every Guelph heart. The curtains of the nuptial
bed took fire, and the just wedded pair hardly escaped in their
night-clothes, from the flames; in which some of their attendants
perished, and William’s crown and sceptre were consumed or lost. Not
the crown and sceptre of Charlemagne; the proper regalia, whether or not quite so ancient, being safe in Conrad’s
possession; but, that these had been
made expressly for the coronation of the Anti-king, rendered
their destruction yet more personally ominous.
For a while, however, the bridegroom’s ill luck seemed
to have expended itself in this disaster; for, whilst Conrad’s absence left
Germany more open to him, his marriage gained him some powerful partisans.
The uncles of the bride, the two joint Margraves of Brandenburg, now
first deserted the Imperial cause; and even the Duke of Saxony, who
had refused the Anti-king his own daughter, as the new Queen’s
brother-in-law, felt interested in the success of so near a connexion;
thus, by the month of July, the greater part of northern Germany had
acknowledged William as King. In this month he held a Diet at Frankfort,
which of course only his own party attended. The Diet, so constituted,
pronounced that Conrad had forfeited both his duchy of Swabia and his various fiefs,
by neglecting to obtain investiture of them from King William, and that
his adherents had, by the same neglect, similarly forfeited their fiefs.
All these forfeitures, with the exception of the duchy, which it seems to
have been judged wiser to break up, the Anti-king freely distributed as
rewards or as bribes; and it was upon this occasion, that the fulfilment of
former promises raised the Earl of Wurtemberg to
pre-eminence, above the great body of Swabian noblemen. The same penalty
of forfeiture was denounced, prospectively, against all vassals failing to
seek, within the year, investiture of their fiefs from William. It
was even proposed to denounce the ban of the Empire against the Duke of
’Bavaria, Rhine-Palsgrave; but he was a potent adversary, whom, already
hostile enough to his son-in-law’s rival, it was unadvisable further
to provoke: the majority deprecated the measure as rash. William would
fain have had the Diet pass a sentence of forfeiture against the Countess of
Flanders and Hainault, in whose civil war with some of her sons,
he had become more a principal than an auxiliary. This family war
requires a brief explanation.
Countess Margaret, born after the departure of her
father, Earl Baldwin, for the Crusade that made him an Emperor, was,
almost in her childhood, by the authority of her Suzerain, the French
King, married to her guardian, Bouquard d’Avesnes, a nobleman of Hainault. She was the mother of three children by
him when the fact, that d’Avesnes was in deacon’s orders at the
time of the marriage, was discovered. Joanna, enraged at having been
deceived into sanctioning an illicit connexion for her sister, insisted upon
the instant separation of the not really wedded couple, and the
restoration of Margaret to her care; whilst she applied to
ecclesiastical authority, to pronounce the nullity of the pretended
marriage. This last was a matter of no difficulty; but d’Avesnes resisted
the decision; whereupon Joanna imprisoned, and finally, but not till long after
her sister was again a wife, beheaded him. Margaret, upon the dissolution
of the bonds uniting her to d’Avesnes, was given in marriage by her sister
to Guillaume de Dampierre, a French nobleman; and of this marriage three
sons and two daughters w ere the fruit. She was a widow, when,
in 1244, upon the death of Joanna without children, she succeeded to
the counties of Flanders and Hainault; and immediately fierce quarrels for
her heritage broke out between the offspring of her two husbands.
The d’Avesnes, who had always protested against the sentence of nullity, claimed as her eldest, the Dampierres,
as her only legitimate, sons, and all parties appealed to the Pope and
the Emperor. Frederic II, and Innocent IV, concurrently, declared Jean
d’Avesnes the rightful heir, the nullity of a marriage contracted in good
faith not necessarily importing the illegitimacy of its issue.
To this sentence the Dampierres would not
submit, and civil war distracted the two counties. Margaret, offended by
the proceedings of her elder children, which implied a censure of her second
marriage, was gradually alienated from them; though she seems to have
always intended dividing her splendid principality, leaving Hainault
to Jean d’Avesnes, Flanders to Guillaume de Dampierre, respectively the
eldest of either of her two families. But still she inclined to favour the Dampierres, and Jean d’Avesnes strengthened
himself by marrying a sister of his mother’s refractory vassal, the Earl
of Holland. When his brother-in-law became Anti-king, so confident did he
feel in his support, that he called upon his mother, not merely to
acknowledge him her heir, but instantly to abdicate in his favour. He
armed to inforce his demand, and was cordially
supported by the Hainaulters, as his countrymen. King
William, by way of helping him, immediately required the Countess to do homage, for her Imperial fiefs, and to
leave the question of succession wholly to him, as Lord Paramount.
Margaret replied, that the Emperor’s right of
sovereignty over her dominions was doubtful; William’s to be Emperor,
still more so; and instead of her doing homage to him for
her principalities, he must do her the hitherto omitted homage, due
for the fiefs, held by the Earls of Holland under the Earls of Flanders.
This was the state of the quarrel when the angry William laid it before
his Diet; and easily obtained the sentence he desired, to wit,
that Margaret, by her refractory conduct, had forfeited all
her Imperial fiefs; of which, as an act of grace and favour, her
eldest son and heir, Jean d’Avesnes, might be permitted to take immediate
possession.
The haughty Countess, as might be expected, did not
submit to the sentence of a Diet she deemed illegal. She retaliated by
confiscating William’s Flemish fiefs; and raising an army, which she next
year sent, under her Dampierre sons, Guy and John (William was dead), to
seize and occupy these fiefs. The projected enterprise was betrayed
to those who were to have been surprised; and Jean d’Avesnes, with a Dutch
army, awaited his half-brothers. When their vessels made the coast of
Zealand, which was by far the most considerable of the fiefs
in question, he attacked them in the midst of the operation of
disembarking; and as the troops landed in small parties, easily defeated
them before the whole force could be arrayed in order of battle, making
prisoners of his two brothers. The victors now thought that Margaret might, by
threatening the lives of her favourite sons, be compelled to submit to
William, and in person ask his pardon. But not even thus was her lofty
spirit to be subdued; she refused to redeem her best-loved children at
such a price, addressing her refusal to Jean d’Avesnes, who had
the custody of his brothers, in words which, though scarcely an
unsuitable answer to a menace of fratricide, cannot, in the nineteenth
century, without great difficulty, be believed to have been, under any
provocation, or in any century, those of a mother. She is averred to have
written: “Not even to save my sons, will I yield! Slay thy
brothers, savage hangman as thou art! Boil the one with garlic, broil
the other with pepper, and devour them!”
The Dampierres were neither
eaten nor even slain, their value as hostages for the mother’s forbearance
being appreciated. Nevertheless, the wrathful matron, to purchase
a champion who might both avenge their capture and rescue them, in
the spring of 1254, offered Charles of Anjou the bequest of Hainault, as
the price of his vanquishing her rebellious sons, the d’Avesnes, and delivering
their captive brothers, the Dampierres. Charles
accepted the offer, invaded Hainault, and seemed likely, without rescuing
the prisoners, to possess himself of the county, earlier than the Countess intended. The Anti-king now interposed in behalf of his sister’s husband; but Charles refused
to give up any of his conquests; and in this posture of affairs,
the news of Conrad’s death arrived, to invigorate his competitor.
Negotiations ensued and lasted for some time; but as this quarrel will
hardly need to be again mentioned, the end, by a compromise, may be here
stated. Lewis IX obliged his brother to renounce conquests to which he
had no lawful claim, and Margaret, in compensation, asked a daughter
of Charles’s in marriage for her grandson, Robert de Dampierre, Guy’s
eldest son, and, as she now announced the prospective division of her dominions
after her death, the future Earl of Flanders. The reciprocal demands
of homage were tacitly dropped.
To return to the Frankfort Diet. As if indelibly to
brand himself and his party, the mere tools of an ambitious priest,
William sent all the decrees passed by this assembly to Innocent, for his
approbation and sanction. Thus laying the Imperial
throne prostrate, at the foot of the Popedom! But in fact only the support of the Church could make the Anti-king aught better than
a lawless rebel, at least during the life of Conrad. Innocent’s
approbation and sanction were of course promptly given; but not
even his vigorous support could breathe vigorous life into
his puppet’s prosperity.
The Anti-king’s father-in-law died during the sitting
of the Diet, and by his will divided his duchy betwixt his two sons, thus
making two insignificant Dukes, of Brunswick and of Luneberg respectively, instead of one tolerably powerful Duke of Brunswick. The
gradually increasing prevalence of such divisions, dictated, in
direct opposition to the spirit of feudalism, by paternal
affection, was a main cause of the innumerable, ludicrously
small principalities, into which the original five duchies crumbled,
weakening Germany by destroying every vestige of enlarged nationality. The
new Duke of Brunswick, indeed, supported by his brother, and acting in
conjunction with the Earl of Holstein, his neighbour, and with
the flourishing Free Imperial City, Lubeck, was well able to guard
his Slavonian provinces from Abel of Denmark; whose possession of them
would have been very detrimental to the interests of both Earl and town. But
the support, upon which the Anti-king had reckoned from his wife’s
family, was prodigiously reduced by the death of her father; and still
further, by the incessant feuds that arose between her connexions, the
Saxon and the Brandenburg descendants of Albert the Bear, leaving
them little leisure to attend to his claims upon them.
But yet more hurtful to William was the long-growing, and now
great dissatisfaction of the very author of his kingship. The Archbishop
of Cologne complained that the inferior prince, whom he had seated on the
imperial throne, was ungrateful for the benefits conferred upon him;
that his unpaid troops devoured the substance of the Cologne vassals; that
this dependent parsons-king, was more burthensome to his archiepiscopal
principality than had been the proudest Swabian Emperor. The Archbishop of
Mainz, who felt that his nomination to his see had saved William from
defeat and utter ruin at Oppenheim, joined loudly in these complaints. And
it was rumoured, that the Cologners even ordered
a house, occupied by the Anti-king, to be set on fire, at night, to
get rid of him by burning him in his bed, though the Legate, who
slept in the same mansion, ran the risk of sharing his fate. The example
of desertion set by these mighty ecclesiastical princes was quickly
followed. Such disorders broke out, that at Utrecht, even in the
Cathedral, William was struck on the head with a stone. His Queen
was attacked, near Oderheim, by a robber-knight,
named Hermann von Rittberg, seized, and obliged to ransom herself by the
surrender of all her jewels to her captor. Innocent’s bulls were as unavailing,
as William’s threats, to repress these outrages. The only efficient stand
against them, was made, not in support of his authority, but
in self-defence and for the protection of the makers’ trade, by the
Rhine League and its imitators, all staunch Ghibelines. So beneficial was the
opposition offered by these Leagues to the depredations and oppressions of
the robber-knights, felt to be, that the members of the associated cities
steadily increased; and, how offensive and insulting soever such burgher
presumption might appear to the inferior class of nobility, the great princes were
evidently beginning to look upon their operations with favour.
To counterbalance this deterioration of his condition,
the Anti-king gained the support of Bohemia, and about this time secured
that of Austria. The distractions of that duchy—drawing Bohemia into their
vortex—together with Ottocar’s opposition, had
long prevented Wenceslas from assisting the monarch whom he had helped to
place in the hazardous position of anti-king. They now seemed to
be subsiding; the Emperor Frederic’s testamentary appointment of his
grandson, as Duke, being generally satisfactory. But Duke Frederic had
died, probably at his uncle’s court, without receiving investiture. Upon
his death, Conrad again claimed the duchy as a lapsed fief, and all the
conflicting pretensions revived. The Duke of Bavaria limited the
assistance he afforded Conrad’s Lieutenant in Austria, the Earl of Gorz,
to conquering for himself the provinces west of the Ens, and Gorz was
speedily driven out of the duchy. The partisans of Gertrude had diminished
in numbers, and cooled in attachment, upon her Russian marriage, and
yet more when she transferred her own and her children’s rights to a
foreign king. Scarcely any one acknowledged Bela’s pretensions; but many
of those who disowned the Hungarian, felt coldly towards her son Frederic,
as a prince of Baden, whom no one knew; Margaret, therefore, whose accession
promised increase of strength and power by union with Bohemia, was now
the favourite candidate. In April of this same year, 1252, and prior
even to the death of her son, Duke Frederic, she had been induced, very
much by the influence of the Pope, to give her hand, at the age of
forty-six, to Ottocar of Bohemia, who had barely seen his twenty-second
birthday; and thus, to suffer herself to be brought forward as the rival
of her own child. In the course of the year, Ottocar made great progress
in possessing himself of the wedding portion that he had dearly purchased
with his liberty; and, in 1253, Innocent, who, in 1248, had pronounced
Gertrude the lawful heir, first required a solemn pledge from the King of
Bohemia and his son steadily to support William, and then proclaimed
Ottocar and Margaret, Duke and Duchess of Austria, commanding all Austrians to
acknowledge and do homage to them. In the bull so proclaiming them, the
Pope, as if in demonstration of his right thus to dispose of
principalities, entitled himself Vicegerent of the true God upon this
earth, presiding over the universal republic.
The duchy made no objection to an authority, which,
however arbitrary and usurped, was exercised conformably to the general
inclination; and the only remaining difficulty related to Styria. The new Duke
chose to consider this duchy as inseparably united to Austria, whilst
the Estates of Styria, alleging both their original independence, and
their legal severance by the late Emperor, Frederic II, exerted the
elective franchise, that he had confirmed to them, and chose Henry, second
son of Otho of Bavaria, and son-in-law of Bela of Hungary, for their Duke.
Henry hastened to take possession of his new duchy, and flattered himself that he might rely upon the support of his
wife’s father, as well as of his own. But the King of Hungary was
determined to acquire something, by Gertrude’s transfer of her pretensions to
him; and now, despairing of Austria, invaded Styria, which was fearfully
ravaged by Bavarians, Austrians, Bohemians, and Hungarians.
In November, the death of Duke Otho recalled Henry to Bavaria, to
assert his right, according to the testamentary dispositions of his
father, either to reign jointly with his elder brother Lewis, as co-dukes,
or to receive a share of the family dominions as a separate duchy.
Eventually, this last was the arrangement that the brothers
preferred; Lewis, as the eldest, took the palatinate of the Rhine with Upper
Bavaria, and Henry was Duke of Lower Bavaria. Whilst they had been
contending for their patrimony, Styria was left to be fought for by Bela
and Ottocar, till, in April 1254, they likewise made peace, Ottocar
leaving that duchy to the King of Hungary, and contenting himself
perforce with the acquisition of Austria.
Whilst these contests were going on the Mongols had
frequently harassed Moravia; but, being in small bands, the margraviate
was able to defend itself, repulsing the invaders without assistance; and
Ottocar, like the Antiking and the Imperialists, left
it to its own resources.
This was the situation of Germany when Conrad’s death
left the Empire for the moment without a lawful Head, whether King or
Emperor. This circumstance, without remedying the decided illegality of
the election, which allowed William of Holland to entitle himself
King of Germany and the Romans, induced a disposition to escape the
anarchy and bloodshed inseparable from a double or disputed election, by
acknowledging the Antiking. The only lawful convoker
of an Electoral Diet, the Archbishop of Mainz, as a patron of that
Anti-king, of course convoked none. The Confederation of the Rhine,
now including several Earls, at once owned him as the deceased monarch’s
lawful successor; and William, to whom the League transferred its civic
loyalty, delighted at such an accession of strength, instantly sanctioned
the League, as an institution essential to the peace of the Empire. The example
was influential and slowly followed.
In Italy, the power of the Lombard League died away
during Conrad’s short and troubled reign; in part, probably, from the absence
of the formidable power, as a counterpoise to which it had been created;
but in part, likewise, from the internal troubles of Milan, that
interfered with her domination over her neighbours. In this state of
Lombardy, most of the leagued cities were severally subjugated by individual
powerful nobles. The intestine broils, fettering the ambition of Milan,
still arose from the struggle of the city nobles to maintain
their prescriptive privileges against plebeian encroachment. When
Conrad passed through Lombardy, in the winter of 1251, the Guelph, Pagano,
or according to some writers, Guido, della Torre, at the head of the
popular party, was Lord of the city, by the title of Anziano della
Credenza, literally, Elder of the Council of Secrecy, which might
be modernized, President of the Privy Council; and savagely he
tyrannized over nobles and Ghibelines, polluting the sanctity of their
homes by his licentiousness. They naturally resisted his authority; and, in the course of the next year, the whole nobility,
Archbishop Leo at their head, were expelled. Martino della Torre, a
brother or nephew of Pagano’s, next reigned supreme as Podesta, the
first recorded native Podesta. He was an able man, but so was the Archbishop, who, with the nobles, again
obtained admission into Milan, and recovered the ascendancy: ere long
the popular party again triumphed; and thus they continued alternately to master each other, till the death of
Conrad.
The Regent of Savoy, having been at war with his
nephew’s vassals, was now a prisoner in their hands, from which the
promises of the Pope, and the personal exertions of his own brother-in-law,
Cardinal Ottobuono Fiesco, were unavailing to
rescue him. The Marquess of Montferrat was a minor; Palavicino, who—from an
origin so poor, that one of his eyes is said to have been picked
out by a cock, that found access to him, as he lay unattended in his
cradle—had, by his talents and energy, raised himself to the rank of a
Marquess, and whom Conrad, in 1253, made Imperial Vicar in Lombardy, was
master of several considerable cities, as Piacenza, Cremona, Tortona,
&c., being Podestà in some, Signore perpetuo in others. So that the powerful and affluent Tuscan, Conte di
Guido Guerra, was glad to obtain the hand of his sister: while the daily
expenditure of his household, independently of the meat and wine consumed,
the produce, probably, of the lands he had acquired, was estimated at 25
lb. of silver.
Ezzelino di Romano had, by this time, attained
well-nigh to the height of his power. He was Lord of almost all that,
subsequently, constituted the continental dominions of Venice, with the
southern or Italian part of the Tyrol. But, as his power increased, his
character seems gradually to have deteriorated; a desire for despotic
authority keeping pace with that increase. His despotism provoked rebellions
or rather plots for the assassination of the dreaded despot, the form
rebellion was apt to take in early times and in small states; whilst the
severity, with which such plots, when detected, were punished, provoked
new plots, till despotism became tyranny. Yet worse, perhaps, the base
adulation resorted to by many, in the hope of averting suspicion or
winning favour, inspired a contempt for mankind, that hardened
Ezzelino’s heart. And now his strict as vigorous administration
of justice, especially against robbery, and his abstinence from the
sensual excesses, then so prevalent, are said to have been the only good
qualities left to balance the ruthlessly sanguinary cruelty, staining the
once gallant, clement, magnificent, and cheerful husband, of a glorious
Emperor’s beautiful daughter. But Ezzelino himself appears, even upon
the testimony of his enemies, to have been convinced, that his cruelty was
simply inexorable justice. He held himself a second Attila, “the scourge
of God” saying: “The sins of the people call for the vengeance of
Heaven, and to inflict it are we sent into the world.” Again, hearing that
in a satire he had been called a hawk, whom doves had made their King, he
observed: “I am no hawk who devours his doves, but the father of a family,
who must clear his house of serpents, scorpions, and other noxious
reptiles?’ He was steadily loyal to his brother-in-law, Conrad; but, after his
death, persevering in the refusal to acknowledge William of Holland, and
no scion of the Swabian dynasty then claiming the Empire, he
felt that he had no Sovereign, and assumed independence.
BOOK V .CHAPTER
III.
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