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Rh had been to remain ever loyal to his king; and by that advice Henry steadily walked during the next six years. Otto III had no more faithful subject than his cousin of Bavaria, who twice accompanied him to Italy, and on the second occasion was instrumental, with Marquess Hugh of Tuscany, in saving him from the wrath of the Roman mob. Moreover, when the German magnates were scheming to dethrone the absent Emperor, Henry refused to take any part in their conspiracy. Until Otto's premature death opened to him the prospect of succession, he had been, as Duke of Bavaria, a just and vigorous ruler.

Of Henry's outward appearance nothing certain is known. Later tradition indeed gives him the attribute of "the Lame," and two varying legends profess to account for the supposed infirmity. A real hindrance, however, was the liability to severe attacks of a painful internal complaint; Henry was in truth a sickly man, and his bodily weakness may have sometimes interfered with his plans. His life and actions were regulated by a strict conscientiousness and by a piety sober and restrained. The Christian faith and its Founder, the saints and their sanctuaries, the German church and its officers, were the objects of his reverence; he punctually attended, and sometimes took part in, the ceremonies of the Church; he was the determined foe of ecclesiastical abuses; and if he shared the prevailing superstition in regard to relics, this was balanced by an ungrudging liberality to the poor and a splendid munificence in the founding and maintenance of religious institutions. With all this, Henry was no mere devotee. He was sociable, and took pleasure in the ordinary amusements of his day; he was not above playing a practical joke on a troublesome bishop, and once even incurred rebuke for encouraging a brutal form of sport. The chase was to him a welcome recreation. Henry was thus utterly unlike Otto III. He loved his ancestral land of Saxony; the glamour of Italy did not entice him away from his proper task as a German king; nor did he entertain any visionary idea of universal dominion under the form of a revived Roman Empire. The whole bent of his mind was practical; his undertakings were limited in scope and were pursued with caution. Prudence indeed was the quality by which he most impressed his contemporaries. Yet he was not without the kingly ideals of his day. He had a passion for law and order; and in his conception of the kingly office he was the guardian of the realm against attack from without and against disturbance within, the champion of the weak and the enemy of all wrongdoers, the defender of the Church and the promoter of its spiritual work. No king before him was more untiring in travel to dispense justice among his people; no ruler could be more stern on occasion in executing judgment on rebels and lawbreakers. In spite of his weak health he did not shrink from taking his full share in the dangers and hardships of a campaign. And with this courage there was joined a royal humanity which could shew mercy to the vanquished. Alike in the limitation of his aims and the steady persistency of his rule, he shewed no little resemblance