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224 he and his adherents were spared the forfeiture of their lands. Bruno also was pardoned, and having later been ordained, became his brother's chancellor and eventually Bishop of Augsburg.

With the failure of this domestic revolt Henry was free for action abroad. The recovery of Italy and of Bohemia were equally urgent tasks; but the entreaties of certain Lombard magnates, including a special emissary from the Marquess Tedald and the faithful Leo of Vercelli, prevailed; and Henry, leaving the Saxons and Bavarians to hold Boleslav in check, started from Augsburg late in March at the head of an expeditionary force composed of Lorrainers, Franks, and Swabians, and after severe toil reached Trent on Palm Sunday, 9 April. In the face of this grave peril King Ardoin sent forward to secure the passes, while he himself gathered troops and took post as before in the plain of Verona. Henry thus found his advance checked along the Adige, and turning eastwards into the valley of the Brenta, seized a pass from the Val Sugana by surprise, and pitched camp on the left bank of the river. There he celebrated Easter (16 April). At the critical moment Ardoin had been deserted by most of the Italian leaders, and he had then no choice but to retreat hurriedly to the West. Henry entered Verona, and advanced thence by Brescia and Bergamo to Pavia, being joined at each stage of his march by successive groups of Italian magnates, of whom the Archbishops of Milan and Ravenna, and the Marquess Tedald, were the chief. At Pavia, on Sunday, 14 May 1004, he was elected King of the Lombards, and crowned in St Michael's the following day.

Henry had thus attained his object with surprising ease; and the ceremony he had just gone through, omitted as superfluous by his Saxon predecessors, was the formal annulment of Ardoin's coronation within the same walls two years before. The same afternoon a quarrel on slight cause arose between the Pavese and the Germans, and the citizens, rushing to arms, attacked the palace. Most of the German troops were quartered outside; but the royal partisans within the city rallied to Henry's side, and the assault on the palace was repelled. A furious conflict then ensued; and, as night fell, the royalists for their own protection fired the neighbouring buildings. The troops outside, attracted by the conflagration, stormed the walls in the face of a stiff resistance. The Pavese were now overpowered; numbers were cut down in the streets; and such as continued to fight from the housetops were destroyed along with their dwellings by fire. The slaughter was stopped by Henry's command, but not before many hundreds of the citizens had perished and a great part of their city had been consumed. The survivors were admitted to grace, and either in person or by hostages swore fealty to the king.

The fate of Pavia struck terror throughout Northern Italy. All thought of further resistance was crushed, except in the remote West, where Ardoin in his Alpine castle of Sparone was holding out manfully against a besieging force of Germans. The Lombards generally now made