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Rh adherence to Duke Arnulf's invasion. In central Italy he could root out the ancient dynasts, but could not implant loyalty to himself. On Lambert's deposition he had given the march of Tuscany to his full brother Boso, once a count in Provence, who in turn vanished in his prisons in 936. Soon after Theobald I of Spoleto died and was replaced by Anscar, son of Adalbert of Ivrea and Hugh's half-sister Ermingarde of Tuscany. This was such a risky appointment in view of the wrongs which Hugh had done to Ermingarde's family that the chronicler Liudprand explains it as intended to remove Anscar from his powerful friends in the north. In any case rumour said that the king stirred up against the new Marquess of Spoleto a Provençal, Sarlio, Count of the Palace, who had married Theobald I's widow. In 940 Anscar was slain in battle, and Hugh then turned on Sarlio whom he forced to take the cowl. The king by now seemed to be finding surer instruments in his own bastard children, of whom the eldest Hubert, Marquess of Tuscany in 936, Marquess of Spoleto and Count of the Palace c. 942, kept a firm hand on central Italy, while others were designed for ecclesiastical preferments.

Hugh's astute perfidy alarmed the Italian nobles more and more and especially their greatest remaining chief, Anscari's half-brother, Berengar, Marquess of Ivrea. Everything conspired to make Berengar dangerous and alarmed. He was heir through his mother of the Emperor Berengar I, his wife Willa was daughter of the fallen Boso of Tuscany, his march of Ivrea gave him command of the western gates of the kingdom, and its extent and Anscari's fate pointed him out as Hugh's next destined victim. The story goes that Hugh intended to seize and blind him, but that the Marquess was forewarned by the young co-regent Lothar II, and with his wife fled to Duke Herman of Swabia by whom they were conducted to the German king, Otto the Great. Otto, while he did not actively assist the exile, would not give him up in spite of the redoubled presents of King Hugh, and Berengar was able to plot with the malcontents of Italy for a rebellion. In the meantime Hugh, feeling his throne shake under him, made feverish efforts to recover his vassals' loyalty. Berengar's great domains were distributed among leading nobles: the counts Ardoin Glabrio of Turin, Otbert and Aleram are henceforward in the first rank of magnates; and an unusual number of royal diplomas were issued in 943. But Saracen and Hungarian marauding did not increase Hugh's hold on his subjects. It is clear that besides lay plotters the great prelates and his own kin were ready to revolt. When Berengar saw the time was come, in the mid-winter of 944-5, he made his venture over the Brenner towards Verona, the Count of which, Milo, an old adherent of Berengar I, was in his favour. The decisive, moment came when Manasse of Arles, who was in charge of the frontier bishopric of Trent, deserted his uncle. A general defection was headed by Archbishop Arderic of Milan, and Hugh at Pavia could do nothing better than send in April the unhated Lothar II to Milan to appeal to