Page:Cambridge Medieval History Volume 3.pdf/201

158 the rebels. The assembly was moved and declared the youth sole king, but, when Hugh tried to escape to Provence with his treasure, Berengar in fear of a new invasion had him intercepted and reinstated in August as nominal joint king. In this humiliating position Hugh remained till April 947 when somehow he gained leave to abdicate and retire to Provence with the treasure with which he still hoped to engineer a fresh invasion. But he died on 10 April 948.

Meanwhile Berengar was ruling, in the name of Lothar II, as "chief councillor of the realm." He seems to have done his best to promote his clerical partisans, but his main reliance was on his fellow magnates. Although no doubt he recovered much of his own domains, he was evidently obliged to buy support by consenting to alienations like that of Turin to Ardoin Glabrio. Even Hubert was left unmolested in Tuscany, if a new Marquess was appointed to Spoleto. How little Berengar was master of the kingdom was shewn when he nominated Manasse of Arles to the see of Milan. The Milanese townsmen elected a rival Adalman, Manasse obtained adherents in the countryside, and the two competitors fought for five years without decisive result. It was, however, in foreign affairs that Berengar's weakness was most obvious. Hugh had been in relations with all his neighbours, Berengar shrank into isolation; Byzantium neglected him, Provence submitted to Conrad of Jurane Burgundy, the protégé of Otto the Great, Germany loomed ever more formidably in the north, the Hungarians under their chief Taxis proved in 947 by ravages which reached Apulia that Italy was no better defended than before. Weakness and the greed of wealth which belonged to Berengar's own character brought unpopularity which was exemplified in the accusations that he made a large profit out of the tax levied for blackmail to the Magyars, and that he was the deviser of the sudden death of Lothar II in November 950. Berengar still had sufficient following to secure the election of himself and his son Adalbert as joint kings on 15 December 950, but the disaffected were numerous. Lothar left no son, and his widow Adelaide of Jurane Burgundy with her rich dower was the centre of an opposition in which the bishops, who had suffered under Berengar's exactions, took the leading part. Berengar II's expedient was to ride rough-shod over the ex-queen's rights. Her dower was seized on, she was ill-used and imprisoned, if we may trust later tradition she was required to marry the young King Adalbert. She only gained safety by an adventurous escape to the protection of Bishop Adalard of Reggio, who according to a credible later story consigned her to the impregnable castle of his vassal Adalbert-Atto at Canossa.

This was in August 951, but a champion was already near at hand, whose advent shows that Adelaide's persecution at the hands of Berengar II was not unprovoked. Germany, the most powerful of the kingdoms which arose from the shattered Carolingian Empire, had prospered under the Saxon dynasty and neither her King Otto the Great nor the dukes