Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/703

s.] of being present, either in person or through a representa tive, and that the chosen bishop, before being consecrated, should receive his lands and secular authority in fief of the crown. So far the advantage rested with the emperor; but the papacy gained by being recognized as a power which had the right of negotiating with the empire on equal terms, and by the acknowledgment of the claim of the church to nominate its own rulers. Notwithstanding this settlement Germany did not long enjoy peace, for a number of petty wars broke out which Henry was not strong enough to quell. He died at Nimegueti in, and with him was extinguished the Franconian dynasty.

1em  HENRY VI. (–), Holy Roman emperor, the son of Frederick I, was born in, and received the German crown in. When his father started for Palestine at the head of the third crusade, Henry was made imperial vicar, and he succeeded to the throne after the news of his father s sudden death reached Germany in. He shared the intellectual culture of his time, and was distinguished for the splendour of his political schemes ; but he was of a stern disposition, and in order to attain his ends was some times guilty of horrible cruelty. Henry the Lion, who had been banished to England by Frederick I., returned to Germany after the departure of the latter for the Holy Land. Henry resisted him, but on becoming the reigning sovereign he concluded peace, and hastened to Rome, where he was crowned emperor in. Through his wife Constantia he hail a right to the throne of Sicily ; but the Sicilian nobles had made Count Tancred, an illegitimate son of Constantia s brother, king. After receiving the imperial crown Henry advanced against Tancred, and the whole of southern Italy except Naples was quickly in his possession. Before Naples his army was struck by pestilence, and he was forced to return to Germany. There he suppressed various private wars, and compelled Henry the Lion to acknowledge his supremacy. The great ransom which he received from Richard I. of England enabled him to fit out a fine army, and with this he descended upon Italy in, and without much difficulty conquered the Sicilian kingdom. Tancred was dead, but he had left a number of relatives, who were so barbarously treated that the people were seized with terror, and not even a sentence of excom munication which the pope pronounced against Henry could induce any one to express dissatisfaction with his rule. On his return to Germany it was easy for him, with the prestige he had now acquired, to enforce submission ; and so great was his authority that, in, he made attempts to secure that the crown should be declared here ditary in his family. He might have succeeded had he lived some longer; but in he died at Messina. Before his death he was engaged in checking disorder which had arisen during his absence in Sicily ; and he even obliged the Byzantine emperor Alexius to pay him tribute.

1em  HENRY VII. (–), Holy Roman emperor, was born in. He was the son of Henry II., count of Luxembourg, and was elected king in, seven after the murder of Albert I. He owed his election partly to the fact that ho was comparatively unimportant, which led the electors to suppose that under him the powers of the princes would be exposed to no great danger. When he came to the throne Bohemia was subject to Henry of Carinthifi, whom the people extremely disliked. The king at once displaced him, and enriched his own family by granting Bohemia, at the request of the Bohemians themselves, to his son John, whose claims were rendered secure by his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of Wenceslaus II. For some time no German king had sought the imperial crown ; but Henry, who was of an imaginative temperament, could not forget the splendid dignities to which the wearer of the crown of Germany was entitled. He therefore resolved to revive the traditions which had begun to die out, and with a view to this result did what he could to compose the differences of the nobles and to gain their allegiance. At this time there were signs of rapid progress among the cities, and had a strong king devoted himself to their interests, he might have established his throne on a solid basis. Unfortunately the easiest way in which Henry could obtain immediate power for his plans in Italy was to ally himself with the princes against the cities ; and this was in most instances the course which he adopted. His visit to Italy was looked forward to with eagerness by the Ghibellins, whose hopes were expressed in words of glowing eloquence by Dante. He held aloof at first from both the great parties in the state, and was in consequence liked by neither. In he was crowned emperor in Rome, having previously received the iron crown in Milan. But while he was in Rome, Robert of Naples was there also with a strong army, and in order to obtain adequate support it was necessary for Henry to declare himself on the side of the Ghibellins. He then resolved to conquer Naples, but while advancing on this expedition he died at Buonconvento, on the 24th of August. It was generally believed at the time that he had been poisoned by a Dominican monk, but this is not proved by satisfactory evidence.

1em  HENRY I. (–), king of France, son of King Robert and Constance of Aquitaine, and grandson of Hugh Capet, came to the throne in. On his accession his mother, who favoured her youngest son Robert, allied her self with the chief feudal nobles, and drove Henry to take refuge at the court of Duke Robert II. of Normandy. With the duke s help he soon broke up her league. Con stance died in, and Henry, by granting him the duchy of Burgundy, secured the goodwill of Robert his brother, who thus became head of the first house of Burgundy. After the death of Robert &quot;the Devil,&quot; Henry, who had first supported William the Bastard, in and, tried to weaken the power of the Normans. Leaguing himself with the count of Anjon, and calling his brother Eudes into the field, he invaded Normandy from Evreux. When, however, Eudes had been defeated at Mortemer, Henry drew back in haste, and left the Normans to themselves. In he had his eldest son Philip crowned as joint-king, and died in. He was an active prince, with his sword rarely in the scabbard, being little more than a great feudal chief, who enjoyed the feudal pastime of petty war. Henry s acts and character did little to strengthen the monarchy in its relations with its feudal neighbours. His political horizon was very narrow. The Normans were independent of him, with their frontier barely twenty-five miles west of Paris ; to the south his authority was really bounded by the Loire ; in the east the count of Champagne was little more than nominally his subject. Henry s first wife (if indeed she was more than affianced to him) Maud, daughter (or niece) of Conrad the Salic, died childless ; his second, Anne, daughter of Jaroslav, grand-duke of Russia, bore him two sons, Philip his successor, and Hugh, count of Vermandois.

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