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ALEXANDER and inclined to listen to the wicked suggestions of avaricious persons". The "flatterers" and "avaricious persons" referred to were those who induced the new Pontiff to continue Innocent's policy of a war of extermination against the progeny of Frederick II. now reduced to the infant Conradin in Germany and the formidable Manfred in Apulia. Many an historian at the present day agrees with the shrewd chronicler, that it would have been far more statesmanlike and might have averted the disasters that were in destiny for the Church, the Empire, and Italy, had Alexander firmly espoused the cause of Conradin. Deterred by the precedent of the infant Frederick, the "viper" that the Roman Church had nourished to become its destroyer, and persuaded that iniquity was hereditary, in the whole brood of the Hohenstaufens, he continued Innocent's dubious policy of calling in French or English Beelzebubs to cast out the German Lucifers. On 25 March, 1255, he fulminated an excommunication against Manfred and a few days afterwards concluded a treaty with the envoys of Henry III of England by which he made over the vassal kingdom of the Two Sicilies to Edmund of Lancaster, Henry's second son. In the contest for the German crown which followed on the death of William of Holland (1256) the Pope supported the claims of Richard of Cornwall against Alfonso of Castile. The pecuniary assistance which these measures brought him was dearly bought by the embitterment of the English clergy and people against the exactions of the Roman See. Manfred's power grew from day to day. In August, 1258, in consequence of a rumour spread by himself, that Conradin had died in Germany, the usurper was crowned king in Palermo and became the acknowledged head of the Ghibelline party in Italy. Alexander lived to see the victor of Montaperti (1260) supreme ruler of Central as well as Southern Italy. In the north of Italy he was more successful, for his crusaders finally crushed the odious tyrant Ezzelino. In Rome, which was under the rule of hostile magistrates and in alliance with Manfred, the papal authority was all but forgotten. Meanwhile the Pope was making futile efforts to unite the powers of the Christian world against the threatening invasion of the Tartars. The crusading spirit had departed. The unity of Christendom was a thing of the past. Whether the result would have been different had a great statesman occupied the Papal Chair during these seven critical years, we can only surmise. Alexander IV ruled the spiritual affairs of the Church with dignity and prudence. As Pope, he continued to show great favour to the children of St. Francis. One of his first official acts was to canonize St. Clare. In a diploma he asserted the truth of the impression of the stigmata. St. Bonaventure informs us that the Pope affirmed in a sermon that he had seen them. In the violent controversies excited at the University of Paris by William of St. Amour, Alexander IV took the friars under his protection. He died, deeply afflicted by the sense of his powerlessness to stem the evils of the age.

2em  Alexander V,, b. c. 1339, on the island of Crete (Candia), whence his appellation, Peter of Candia; elected 26 June, 1409; d. at Bologna, 3 May, 1410. A homeless beggar-boy in a Cretan city, knowing neither parents nor relations, he became the protégé of a discerning Capuchin friar, from whom he received an elementary education and under whose guidance he became a Franciscan in a Cretan monastery. The youth gave promise of extraordinary ability, and was sent to enjoy the superior educational advantages of Italy. He studied later at Oxford and finally at Paris where he distinguished himself as professor, preacher, and writer. He is the author of a good commentary on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard. During his stay at Paris the Great Schism (1378–1417) rent the Church, and Philarghi was ranged among the partisans of Urban VI (1375–89). Returning to Italy, he found a place in the court of Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, Duke of Milan, where he acted as tutor to his sons and ambassador on important missions. Through the favour of the Visconti he was made successively Bishop of Piacenza, in 1386; of Vicenza, in 1387; of Navoya, in 1389; and finally Archbishop of Milan, in 1402. In 1405 Pope Innocent VII made him Cardinal, and turned his ability and his friendship with the Visconti to advantage by confirming him as papal legate to Lombardy. Henceforth his history becomes a part of that of the Schism. The Cardinal of Milan was foremost among the advocates of a council. To this end he approved of the withdrawal of the cardinals of Gregory XII from their obedience, sanctioned the agreement of the rival colleges of cardinals to join in a common effort for unity, and negotiated with Henry IV of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury to secure England's neutrality. He thus incurred the displeasure of Gregory XII, who deprived him of the archbishopric of Milan, and even declared him to be shorn of the cardinalitial dignity. At the Council of Pisa (25 March, 1409) Cardinal Philarghi was the leading spirit. He preached the opening sermon, a scathing condemnation of the tenacity of the rival popes and presided at the deliberations of the theologians who declared these popes heretics and schismatics.

On 26 June, 1409, he was the unanimous choice of the cardinals to fill the presumably vacant Papal Chair. His stainless character, vast erudition, world-wide experience, and tried administrative ability, together with the fact that he had neither country nor relations in the riven Catholic world to favour, gave promise of glory to the Papacy and peace to the Church. Alexander V soon found all nations in sympathy with him, save Spain and Scotland and some Italian cities whose interests were bound up in the legitimacy