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Rh Herman, provost of Spires, to Strasbourg; another chaplain, Dietrich (Theodoric), Chancellor of Germany, provost of Aix-la-Chapelle, to Constance, where he had been a canon. Metz and Trèves, two sees important for Lorraine, were vacant: to the one Henry appointed Adalbero, nephew of the late bishop, to the other Henry, a royal chaplain and a Swabian.

Henry, now at Metz (July 1047), was thus busy with ecclesiastical matters and the Hungarian negotiations, when he was forced to notice the machinations of Godfrey. Adalbert of Bremen had become suspicious of the Billung Duke Bernard, doubly related to both Godfrey and Baldwin of Flanders. Much was at stake; so Henry quickly made terms with Andrew of Hungary, summoned the army intended for use against him to meet in September on the Lower Rhine, and then went northwards to visit Adalbert. Bernard had always dreaded Adalbert and now, when the Emperor both visited him and enriched him with lands in Frisia, formerly Godfrey's, his dread turned against Henry too. Thietmar, Bernard's brother, was even accused by one of his own vassals, Arnold, of a design to seize the Emperor, and killed in single combat; the feud had begun. Henry's power was threatened, and the succession was causing him further anxiety, so much so that his close friend Herman of Cologne publicly prayed at Xanten, whither Henry had come, for the birth of an heir (September 1047).

The Emperor had begun the campaign by a move towards Flushing, but a disastrous attack from Hollanders, at home in the marshes, threw his army into confusion, and then the rebels took the field. Their blows were mostly aimed at the bishops, but one most tragic deed of damage was the destruction of Charlemagne's palace at Nimeguen: Verdun they sacked and burnt, even the churches perished. Wazo of Liège stood forth to protect the poor and the churches; Godfrey, excommunicated and repentant, did public penance and magnificently restored the wrecked cathedral. In his own city, too, Wazo stood a siege; with the cross in his unarmed hand he led his citizens against the enemy, who soon made terms.

On the return from the Flushing expedition Henry of Bavaria died: after a vacancy of eighteen months his duchy was given to Kuno, nephew of Herman of Cologne. Early in October 1047 Pope Clement II died. Then in January 1048 Poppo, Abbot of Stablo, passed away, the chief of monastic reformers in Germany, who had given other reforming abbots to countless monasteries, including the famous houses of St Gall and Hersfeld.

Against Godfrey Henry held himself, as formerly against Bohemia, strangely inactive. To Upper Lorraine, Godfrey's "twice-forfeited duchy," he nominated "a certain Adalbert," and left him to fight his own battles. Christmas 1047 Henry spent at Pöhlde, where he received envoys from Rome seeking a new Pope; after consultation with his bishops and nobles he "subrogated" the German Poppo of Brixen, and to this choice