Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/77

 T H T I 67 OTHO IV. (c. 1174-1218), Holy Roman emperor, the ; second son of Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, j of the house of Guelph, was born about 1174. After the banishment of his father to England in 1180, Otho was educated at the court of Richard L, whose sister Matilda was Otho s mother. Otho distinguished himself in the war between England and France, and in 1196 llichard I. made him duke of Aquitaine and count of Poitou. In 1197, when the majority of the German princes, disregarding the previous election of Frederick II., offered the crown to Philip of Swabia, a party in the Rhine country, headed by the archbishop of Cologne, set up Otho as anti-king, and he was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle. The result was a civil war which lasted about ten years, Philip being supported by most of the German princes and by the king of France, Otho by the kings of England and Denmark. For some time Pope Innocent hesitated to take part with either side, but at last he declared for Otho, who promised to make over certain fiefs claimed by the holy see. Notwithstanding the pope s aid, Otho s cause did not prosper; but in 1208 Philip was murdered by Otho of Wittelsbach, and then Otho IV. was universally acknow ledged as king. On the 27th September 1209, at Rome, he was crowned emperor by the pope, to whom he had made new and more important concessions. Otho gave deadly offence to Innocent by seizing Ancona and Spoleto, which had been united to the papal territories ; and, when the emperor, having conquered Apulia, was about to cross to Sicily, the pope excommunicated him, released the German princes from their oath of allegiance, and recognized the right of Frederick II. to the throne. In 1212 Otho returned to Germany, where he acted with so much vigour that he seemed to be capable of defying the papacy ; but he immediately lost ground when Frederick II., a youth of brilliant genius, appeared as his rival. After the battle of Bouvines (July 27, 1214), in which Otho, with King John of England, was defeated by the French, the discredited emperor had no chance of recover ing his position. He made some ineffectual attempts to assert his claims, but ultimately he contented himself with the principality of Brunswick, which he had inherited when the Guelphic territories were divided in 1202. On the 19th of May 1218 he died at the Harzburg. Sec Laugcrfeldt, Kaiser Otto IV~., 1872; Winkelmami, Philipp ron Schwaben und Otto IV., 1873. OTHO OF FREISING, German historian, was the son of Leopold IV., margrave of Austria, and of Agnes, the daughter of the emperor Henry IV. He became a priest, and was made provost of the monastery of Neuburg, which had been founded by his father. Soon afterwards he went to Paris to prosecute his studies ; and on his way back he joined the Cistercian order in the monastery of Morimont, in Burgundy, of which he became abbot. In 1137 he was elected bishop of Freising, and this position he held until his death on September 22, 1158. He was the author of two important works, a universal history, in which lie brought the record down to 1146, and a history of the reign of the emperor Frederick I. The first of these works was continued (to 1209) by Otho of St Blasien, the second by Ragewin. Otho was not a very accurate historian, but he was much more than a mere chronicler, his materials being clearly and effectively arranged, and his narrative giving evidence of a penetrating and philosophical judgment. A critical edition of his writings was presented for the iirst time in the Monumcnta Germanic, and this was afterwards separately published with the title, Ottonis Episcopi Frisingcnsis Opera, 1867. OTIS, JAMES (1724-1783), was born at Barnstable, Massachusetts, U.S., on February 5, 1724 (o.s.). He graduated with honours at Harvard in 1743, and for a year or two afterwards devoted himself to the study of literature before reading law. He had been a dozen years at the bar, and had risen to professional distinction, when in 1760 he published a Rudiments of Latin Prosody, a book long ago out of print as well as out of date, but of authority in its time. He wrote also a similar treatise upon Greek prosody; but that was never published, because, as he said, there was not a fount of Greek letters in the country, nor, if there were, a printer who could have set it up. These, however, were his first and last works upon any other subject than politics. As the long war between Great Britain and France drew towards its close in 1762, measures were taken to enforce anew, in the British colonies in America, the commercial laws which had been in a measure lost sight of. The relaxation had taught the colonists that the burden was heavier than they thought when they bent beneath it; now the war had given them confidence in their own power, and the time had come, therefore, when resistance was inevitable. A trade with the West Indies in colonial vessels had been specially developed. This was in violation of the navigation laws, and to break it up an order in council was sent from England in 1760 directing the issue of writs of assistance, which would authorize the custom-officers to enter any man s house on suspicion of concealment of smuggled goods. The legality of a measure which would put so dangerous a power into the hands of irresponsible men was questioned, and the superior court consented to hear argument. Otis was a law-officer under the crown, and it was his duty to appear on behalf of the Government. He refused, resigned his office, and appeared for the people against the issue of the writs. His plea was profound for its legal lore, fearless in its assertion of the rights of colonial Englishmen, and so fervid in its eloquence that it was said he &quot; was a flame of fire.&quot; Though it failed to convince a court where the lieutenant- governor, Hutchinson, sat as chief justice, Otis was from that moment a man of mark. John Adams, who heard him, said, &quot; American independence was then and there born. &quot; The young orator was soon afterwards unanimously elected a representative from Boston to the Colonial Assembly. To that position he was re-elected nearly every year of the remaining active years of his life, serving there with his father, who was usually a member, and often speaker, of that body. Of most of the important state papers addressed to the colonies to enlist them in the common cause, or sent to the Government in England to uphold the rights or set forth the grievances of the colonists, the younger Otis was the author. His influence at home in controlling and directing the movement of events which led to the revolution was universally felt and acknowledged ; and abroad no American was so frequently quoted, denounced, or applauded in parliament and the English press, as the recognized head and chief of the rebellious spirit of the colonies. 1 In 1765 Massachusetts sent him as one of her representatives to the first Continental Congress, where he was a conspicuous figure. Four years later his brilliant public career was brought to a close. In consequence of a newspaper con troversy with some Tory office-holders in Boston, he was attacked in a darkened room in a public coffee-house by a dozen men, and wounded by a blow upon the head from which he never recovered. His health gave way, and he was subject to frequent attacks of insanity. Hewas killed by lightning on the 23d May 1783. A biography of Otis by William Tudor appeared in 1823 ; and a much briefer one, by Francis Bowen, in 1844. 1 The political writings of Otis were chiefly controversial, and were published in the Boston newspapers. His more important pamphlets were A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, published in 1763 ; The lliyhts of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved, 1764; A Vindication of the British Colonies against the Aspersions of the Halifax Gentleman, in his Letter to a Rhode Island Friend, a letter known at the time as the &quot; Halifax Libel,&quot; 1765; Considerations on Behalf of the Colonists in a Letter to a Noble Lord, published in England the same year.