Page:Cambridge Medieval History Volume 3.pdf/342

Rh by sending special missi to places needing them. His enemy Godfrey had fled before a rising of the "plebs," and had naturally gone to join Baldwin of Flanders. Late in May Henry was at Florence, where, along with Pope Victor II, he held a synod. Here too he met Beatrice and her daughter the Countess Matilda. For her marriage to a public enemy she was led captive to Germany, and with her went Matilda. Boniface, her son and heir to Tuscany, "feared to come to Henry" and a few days later died. On his way homewards at Zurich, Henry betrothed his son Henry IV to Bertha, daughter of Otto of Savoy and of Adelaide, Countess of Turin, and widow of Herman of Swabia, brother to the Emperor.

In Germany Henry had to suppress a conspiracy in which Gebhard of Ratisbon, Kuno, Welf and others were probably concerned: according to other accounts it was their knights and not the princes themselves who conspired. But Kuno died of plague, and Welf after deserting his comrades also died. In Flanders Baldwin, now joined by Godfrey, was besieging Antwerp, but was defeated. Death was now removing friends as well as foes, and the loss of Herman of Cologne (February 1055) was a real blow to the Emperor. His successor was Anno, a man not of noble birth, a pupil at Bamberg and Provost at Goslar. At Ivois (May 1056) the Emperor met for the third time his namesake of France, and the matter of Lorraine made the meeting a stormy one, so much so that Henry of France challenged Henry of Germany to single combat. On this the Emperor withdrew in the dead of night. But in Germany itself the disaffected were returning to obedience; not only those who had conspired but Godfrey himself made submission. On the North-East the Lyutitzi were again in arms, and even as Henry was turning northwards against them a great defeat on the Havel and Elbe had made the matter serious, the more so as the Margrave William had been slain. To disaster was added famine, and when all this had to be faced Henry was smitten with illness. Hastily he tried to ensure peace for his son: he compensated all whom he had wronged: he set free Beatrice and Matilda: all those at his court confirmed his son's succession and the boy was commended to the special protection of the Pope, who was at the death-bed. Then 5 October 1056 Henry died: "with him," said men afterwards, "died order and justice." His heart was taken to its real and fitting home in Goslar, while his body rested beside Conrad's at Spires.

The East and North-East throughout Henry's reign had called forth his full energy, and their story is in very large part the story of two men – the Slav Duke Godescale and the Bohemian Duke Břatislav.

The Bohemian duke was the illegitimate son of Duke Udalrich. When still quite young, "most beautiful of youths and boldest of heroes," he had shewn energy in his reconquest of Moravia from the Poles, and romance in his carrying off the Countess Judith, sister of the Franconian Margrave Otto the White of Schweinfurt, of royal blood.