It was a favourite boast of the Roman Curia to have “the ears and eyes of many” at its disposal. It was not long before the Pope was apprised of Otto’s intentions. The Pope confessed: “the sword we fashioned for ourselves deals us dire blows.” Now from the Welf side he saw arise the eternally recurrent nightmare of a German-Sicilian fusion, and well knowing that the bare possession of the Church’s fief was at stake, he began at the first symptom of danger cautiously to lay his snares. From his base in the Lateran he put himself at once in touch with Otto’s enemies. His first step was to send an encyclical to the German bishops, informing them of the Emperor’s intentions. His letter began with the scriptural phrase: “it repenteth me to have created man,” and concluded with the exhortation immediately to release all vassals from their oaths of fealty in the event of the Emperor’s being excommunicated. Innocent issued no direct command, but he gave the clearest instructions as to his wishes and their future line of conduct towards the Emperor. The bishops must have set to work at once to influence the secular princes, for it was easy to foster opposition to Otto, if it did not already exist, and there was only a question of working up a useful counter-party.
Innocent followed up his letter to the bishops by another to the King of France, the Capet, Philip II “Augustus”. He had always been the declared enemy of the Welf, for Otto, as nephew of his great foe, the English King, John Lackland, was always in alliance with England and had frequently threatened to make war on France. The King of France had therefore been hostile from the first to a Welf Empire, and the Pope had striven to mediate between the two rulers. Innocent now wrote in no peace-making spirit. He regretted he had not been so quick as Philip Augustus to see through the Welf, told him what he had written to the German bishops, and skilfully wove into the end of his letter a few remarks that Otto had made. He had said—the Pope averred—that he could not sleep at night for very shame while the French King was still in possession of lands belonging to his uncle, John of England: and so forth.
In this case also Innocent refrained from making positive suggestions, but he felt fairly sure of the ultimate effect of his poison, temperately administered. Philip Augustus was not slow to understand. With great precaution he proceeded to get into touch with the German princes of the opposition party, and by September 1210 Philip of France, Innocent III, and a considerable number of Middle German princes were at one on the vital issues.
Innocent could now take action. Kaiser Otto, having completed his preliminaries in the autumn of 1210, set out on the march to Apulia. Just as he invaded the Tuscan Patrimonium he was excommunicated by the Pope as agreed upon—after the mockery of a fruitless negotiation—and his subjects were released from their oath. For the moment this upset Otto very little: within a few weeks he was in possession of considerable portions of Apulia, and the course of the following year ought to have seen the southern half of the Italian peninsula in his hands.
The most pressing and immediate danger now threatened the young Sicilian King. The Pope had indeed warned him of Otto’s plans, but how was Frederick to withstand the powerful emperor? He was not even master of his internal enemies; almost the whole of the feudal nobility of Sicily had voluntarily sworn obedience to the invader. He could trust no one in his ruined and neglected kingdom, not even, as it seemed, his nearest entourage, for when the news came of the treachery of the continental barons under the leadership of Diepold—whom Frederick had himself nominated Lord Chief Justice of Apulia—he was obliged to depose his Bishop-Chancellor, Walter of Palear. Innocent promptly forbade such a step—the Chancellor was of course also a bishop—with the phrase “this is not the time for boyish pranks,” but Frederick did not revoke his action. The Chancellor was related to the rebel barons and on terms of the closest intimacy with them, and in view of Walter’s well-known adaptability in political matters—which Frederick was in a better position to assess than the Pope—his retention in so influential a post was certainly not without risk. The threatening danger was, however, not appreciably lessened by the Chancellor’s fall.
During 1210, while Otto was still busy with his preparations, and even in the early months of the following year, while Aversa—encouraged to resistance by the Pope—stemmed Otto’s advance for a time, Frederick still enjoyed some prestige in Catania and Messina, and when he passed through these towns he must have striven to secure, as a last relic of his realm, the north-east corner of the island, the first of his conquests. But the Welf continued almost unopposed his career of conquest in the Sicilian mainland; towns like Barletta and Bari in Apulia surrendered to him, and thereupon the two provinces of Calabria and the Basilicata—the two nearest to the island—declared for the Emperor. Even the Saracens of the Sicilian highlands invited Otto to cross the sea, promising him their support: it looked as if Frederick might well give his whole kingdom up for lost except the city of Palermo.
Robbed of his towns, his castles, his lands, the regulus non rex seemed face to face with inevitable ruin. Frederick, however, had not lost his pride. In imitation of the Emperor he chose this juncture to insert in the royal seal of Sicily the figures of the sun and moon, symbols of world sovereignty. But even he could scarcely cherish a serious hope of salvation. In the spring Frederick had sought to enter into negotiations with Otto, had declared himself ready to renounce all Swabian claims, which he had just verified in the Swabian monastery records, and had finally offered the Emperor several thousand pounds of gold and silver—which it is unlikely that he possessed (for he had had to pledge the county of Sora to Innocent to reimburse him for the expenses of the regency). All had been in vain. The impetuous Welf hearkened to nothing; he “spat upon” the tenders of Pope and King, who indeed offered only what he already held or proposed to seize. Now, in September 1211, he was in Calabria, about to cross the narrow river Faro. He was merely awaiting the arrival of the Pisan fleet which had set sail from the Arno that same month. Meanwhile Frederick had fallen into such straits that he kept a galley ready at anchor near the fort of Castellamare in Palermo to secure his flight to Africa when the ultimate need should come.
At this very moment of maximum danger the incredible happened. Otto relinquished his certain prey, abandoned the entire campaign, and in sudden haste took his departure from the kingdom: the incessant machinations of the Pope had begun to take effect. Innocent had watched Otto’s progress with acute anxiety. Negotiations, in which the Pope was prepared to offer up his “recuperations” in Central Italy in return for the Emperor’s recognition of Sicily as a papal domain, had produced only a momentary wavering. Nothing had been achieved; the Welf could only be overthrown by indirect methods. So Pope Innocent set once more in motion all the intrigue and diplomatic art at his command, strongly reinforced by edicts of excommunication; he poured out letters to the German princes, to the Italian clergy, to the King of France; threats of the papal ban against the adherents of Otto, words of encouragement to Otto’s enemies… all to one end—to undermine the Emperor’s position in Italy and even more in Germany. Now, at the eleventh hour, success attended the cumulative effect of his exertions.
After lengthy secret negotiations the anti-Welf German princes, not uninfluenced by the King of France, assembled in September 1211 in Nuremberg, declared the excommunicated Emperor deposed, and further—also at the instigation of Philip Augustus, a pro-Staufen of earlier days—chose as rival King Frederick of Sicily, the last of the Hohenstaufens. There was in Germany no lack of wealthier and more powerful princes than the Sicilian boy, but it was realised that for this anti-Welf campaign there lay more might in the Hohenstaufen name than in the wealth and weapons of other men. The glory of the great Staufen emperors lingered yet, and a scion of this house was secure of a far wider general support than any Thuringian or other prince could at short notice hope to win. Nor was the original choice of Henry’s son without its weight. Thus it came that the assembled princes unanimously despatched from Nuremberg an express messenger to the Pope for his acquiescence in, and to
Frederick for his acceptance of, their election.
Friends of the Welf sent likewise warning to their master: all Germany was in revolt, a rival king was chosen, Otto should return with speed, his rule in Germany was at stake. Kaiser Otto was still in Calabria when the German messenger arrived, accompanied by Milanese and men from other friendly Lombard towns. They urgently implored him to break off the Sicilian campaign at all costs and to return to save his Imperium. Their exaggerated reports did ill service to the emperor. A speedy conquest of the island would have been the shortest road to the possession of his royal rival’s person, but the long-legged Welf was aghast at the shameful treachery of the German princes. He completely lost his head, and, “shaken to the marrow,” he quitted Sicily and hastened north. Moreover, a dream had added to his panic: a young bear had mounted the imperial bed; larger and larger it grew with every moment, till at last it filled the entire space and pushed him from his couch. In Lodi Otto IV held one last brilliant court on Italian soil, then crossed the Alps, in midwinter, and in March 1212 he was once more in Frankfurt.
*
Frederick of Sicily was saved. And more. Immediately after the stampede of the Welf the envoy from Nuremberg appeared, a Swabian nobleman, Anselm of Justingen, to announce to the boy his election as Roman Emperor and the summons of the princes. Beyond the bounds of possibility it seemed: just now prepared for flight, scarcely hoping to escape with his life… and now—without transition—offered the imperial diadem, the crown of all the Christian world. To his dying day Frederick held it to be a miracle. Later, when he spoke of his being directly singled out as an instrument of Divine Providence, he always quoted this as the first clear call from God, a sign from heaven “against all the probabilities or hopes of men.” In Palermo every one sought to dissuade him from accepting the election, his wife Queen Constance above all. (She had just given birth to her first and only son, Henry.) The nobles of Sicily seconded her in seeking to restrain their barely seventeen-year-old king from the vague and unpromising adventure. They scented danger for him; they mistrusted the bona fides of the Germans, one of whom, Diepold, had just betrayed him. These misgivings were assuredly not without excuse. Apart from the perilous journey and the impoverished impotence of the King, what assurance had Frederick that the German princes, faithless and capricious, might not have changed their minds before his arrival? That conjecture struck home. For when Kaiser Otto reappeared in Germany a number of princes veered from Staufen to Welf again, playing the “princely game” of “hither and thither” as Walther phrased it. And—most vital question of all—what guarantee had Frederick that the Pope, now that Sicily was secured for St. Peter, would enter the lists to ensure the elevation of a Hohenstaufen, and the Sicilian Hohenstaufen at that? For the Pope’s ways were dark: he would first cut down a Staufen to exalt a Welf, and when successful would cast down his Welf again in favour of a Hohenstaufen. This procedure was far removed from papal immutability, and the best minds of the time were at a loss to reconcile themselves to the methods of the Curia. Walther von der Vogelweide writes bitterly of papal arrogance in his Reichssprüche:
For God makes kings of whom he will…
This word fills simple men with hope—
But then again priests say it is the Pope.
Tell us in sooth,
Which is the truth?
Two voices in one mouth—it likes me ill.
The procedure least in accord with the whole trend of papal policy would be the elevation of the Sicilian King to the imperial throne. But Philip Augustus of France confronted Innocent practically with a fait accompli, and to hunt round for another pretender—especially as the princes had been unanimous in their choice of Frederick—would have been a waste of time. Facts, for once, rode roughshod over papal politics. Or did Innocent dream that perchance the elevation of Frederick—his ward and vassal—might even be made to subserve his own omnipotence, for would not the Roman Emperor be in fact the vassal of the Holy See? Frederick II believed that the Pope acted under the direct compulsion of Providence, since “God, contrary to human knowledge, had miraculously preserved for the governance of the Roman Empire” the last of the Hohenstaufen. So interpenetrated was Frederick by the fatefulness of this call to the “last survivor” that he turned a deaf ear to shrewd and prudent warnings. He recognised his mission. He accepted his election. A joyful pride in his own uniqueness informs the words in which he confirmed his acceptance: “since no other was to be found, who could have accepted the proffered dignity in opposition to us and to our right… since the princes summoned us and since from their own choice the crown is ours. …” The miraculous call was followed by a not less miraculous fulfilment.
A rare and amazing luck—savouring of fairy tales and dreams—and his own peculiar charm of personality, enabled Frederick to reach his journey’s end in safety despite unnumbered ambushes and pursuits. Without men, without money, without an effective knowledge of German, at the mercy of the Pope’s support, banking on the probable good faith of a few German princes and on the magic of his name, he set out, following the star, from Palermo to Messina, to conquer the Empire for himself. With the long reddish-blond curls of his family, his boyish appearance, his “fair and gracious countenance: merry the brow and merrier yet the sparkle of the eyes,” the sunburnt Sicilian boy looked less like the “chosen Roman Emperor” that he styled himself, than a fairy prince or an adventurer in tatters. For “as torn and ragged as a beggar boy” he boarded a foreign vessel in the middle of March 1212 and with a handful of retainers quitted his hereditary home.
At the Pope’s request Frederick’s infant son, Henry, was crowned King of Sicily before his father’s departure—for Innocent was again striving to forestall the new danger of the fusion of the two kingdoms—and the Regency was entrusted to the Queen. Frederick had also been obliged to renew in writing his mother’s Concordat with the Pope and was presently to reconfirm it in person. Hence Rome was his immediate goal. He was held up nearly a month in Gaeta, probably because the Pisan fleet, faithful to the Welfs, was lying in wait for him. He did not arrive in Rome till the middle of April. He was received with the utmost honour by Pope Innocent and the Cardinals, the Senate and the People of Rome, who, according to ancient Roman custom, recently revived, “collauded” him as Roman Emperor. For the first and only time Innocent and Frederick met face to face, but little has been put on record of this memorable interview between the rising and the setting suns.
As King “by the grace of God and of the Pope” Frederick presented his credentials to his erstwhile guardian, to whom, under God, he owed all power. Further he had, according to the custom of the Norman Kings of Sicily, to do homage and take the oath of fealty. This done the interests of Pope and Hohenstaufen were one. Innocent spoke words of encouragement and gave what help he could. He took on himself the expenses of Frederick’s brief stay in Rome, and sent him on his way after a few days, equipped with a sum of money. In later years Frederick liked to recall his departure from the City of Cities, to celebrate it in a peculiar and symbolic way: “Not the Pope, not the German princes, but the Populus Romanus, yea glorious Rome herself, had sent him forth, as a mother sends her son, to scale the highest heights of Empire,” and it may have been in that supreme moment that he felt “the august spirit of the Caesars take possession of the boy,” as he triumphantly expressed it in a later document.
Little, however, of the ancient glory of the Caesars just then surrounded the Staufen prince. The land journey was too unsafe on account of Otto’s garrisons, and so, on a hired Genoese ship, the “Son of the Church” (the Pope’s phrase), the “Priestling-Emperor,” to quote his opponents, continued his journey and arrived on the 1st of May at Genoa, a town that in rivalry with Welf-loving Pisa clung to the Staufen house. Here and everywhere he was received with honour and hailed with delight. But weeks passed and still the impatient lad was held up in Genoa because all the roads were unsafe. This proved, however, to be the last serious interruption to hi
s journey. In exchange for a mass of promises that bore the quaint postscriptum “valid for the day when I am Emperor,” Frederick extracted money from the Genoese for his maintenance, whilst Pavia shouldered the expenses for his journey from Rome to Genoa. In the middle of July the King set out for Pavia with a few friends and a Genoese escort. The direct road was held by forces from the Welf towns, so Frederick made a détour via Asti and thus at last arrived circuitously at Pavia. Clergy, knights and populace received him as if he were already the crowned Emperor, and carried over his head the canopy “as the custom of imperial majesty demands.”
The crucial test lay still ahead. To reach Cremona Frederick must fight his way through hostile country. Piacenza lay across his path. Any serious circuit would take him too near Milan. Besides, the people of Milan and Piacenza had already got news of his journey and of his plans, and had armed themselves in great wrath and excitement and had brought forth their standard-bearing chariot for the fray. The loyal folk of Pavia had publicly made oath to convey their future Emperor to safety by force or guile, and to this end had made a compact with the Cremonese to meet them half way at the river Lambro. The Milanese, however, marched south to the same rendezvous, while the Piacenzans held up every ship sailing down the Po and searched it thoroughly to find the Staufen boy.
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