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284 tery at Gorze wrote very shortly before to his friend Abbot Poppo of Stablo, who possessed the confidence and respect of Henry, urging him even at the eleventh hour, and at risk of a possible loss of the king's favour, to do all that he possibly could to prevent it. Neither Poppo, nor Bishop Bruno of Toul (later Pope Leo IX), to whom Siegfried addresses still more severe reproaches, nor Henry himself, paid much heed to these representations. The marriage plans went on without let or hindrance: twenty-eight bishops were present, at the ceremony at Besançon.

Not only the consanguinity of Agnes with the king, but also her nationality, aroused misgivings in the mind of this German monk. He cannot suppress his anxiety lest the old-time German sobriety shewn in dress, arms, and horse-trappings should now disappear. Even now, says he, the honest customs of German forefathers are despised by men who imitate those whom they know to be enemies.

We do not know how Agnes viewed the alleged follies and fripperies of her nation, thus inveighed against by this somewhat acid German saint. She was pious, sharing to the full and encouraging her husband's devotion to Cluny; she favoured learned men; her character does not however emerge clearly until after Henry's death. Then, in circumstances certainly of great difficulty, she was to shew some unwisdom, failing either to govern the realm or to educate her son.

After the coronation at Mayence and the wedding festivities at Ingelheim, Henry brought Agnes to spend Christmas in the ancient palace at Utrecht, where he now proclaimed for the North the "Indulgence" already proclaimed in the South. So with a peace "unheard of for many ages" a new year opened. But in the West a tiny cloud was rising, which would overshadow the rest of the king's reign. For, in April 1044, old Duke Gozelo of Lorraine died.

Gozelo had eventually been staunch and faithful, and had done good service to Henry's house; but his duchy was over-great and the danger that might arise from this fact had been made manifest by his hesitation in accepting, certainly the election of Conrad, and also, possibly, the undisputed succession of his son. The union of the two duchies of Upper and Lower Lorraine had been wrung by him from the necessities of the kings: Henry now determined to take this occasion again to separate them. Of Gozelo's five sons the eldest, Godfrey, had already during his father's lifetime been duke in Upper Lorraine, and had deserved well of the Empire. He now expected to succeed his father in the Lower Duchy. But Henry bestowed Lower Lorraine on the younger Gozelo, "The Coward," alleging a dying wish of the old duke's that his younger son might obtain part of the duchy. Godfrey thenceforth was a rebel (sometimes secretly, more often openly), imprisoned, set at liberty, deprived of his duchy, re-installed, humbled to submission, but again revolting, always at heart a justified rebel. If, in spite of its