THE THIRD CRUSADE AND THE REIGN OF HENRY VI.[24] (1187–1197)
Europe in 1187—Preparations for the Third Crusade—Crusade and Death of
Frederick Barbarossa—Destruction of the German Army—Crusade of
Philip II. and Richard I.—Truce with Saladin—The Reign of Henry
VI.—Henry’s Coronation and first Italian journey—First attack on
Apulia—German troubles—Captivity of Richard I.—Conquest of Apulia
and Sicily—The Hereditary Empire and the Conquest of the East—Death
of Henry.
[Sidenote: The state of Europe after the fall of Jerusalem.]
In the second half of the twelfth century limits had already been set to
the worst forms of feudal anarchy, and strong and well-ordered states
ruled by powerful kings had replaced the chaos of the Dark Ages.
Frederick Barbarossa, if no effective lord of the world, exercised a
very real authority over Germany, and even over Italy. Louis VI. and
Louis VII. had put the resources of the French monarchy on a solid
basis, and Philip Augustus was now preparing the way for still greater
triumphs. Henry II. had bound together his vast but heterogeneous empire
so firmly that the power of Anjou was able to survive the blind
knight-errantry of his successor. Even in the remoter parts of Europe
the same tendency manifested itself towards the growth of strong
monarchies. The kingdoms of the east and north, barely redeemed from
barbarism, saw rulers like Valdemar of Denmark and Ottocar of Bohemia.
The kingdoms of divided Spain, the Norman dominion of Sicily, show the
universal drift of the tide. Even the greater feudatories of the larger
kingdoms were making themselves centres of an authority that was not far
from being national. States like Toulouse and Provence, representing the
growing national feeling of the south French nation; opulent and
manufacturing Flanders, cutting itself apart from France and Germany
alike, and even mere dynastic powers, like the house of Champagne and
Blois, show how authority was becoming concentrated into few hands. If
the unity of the German kingdom was still rather illusory, the dukes,
counts, and margraves, who ruled over its larger subdivisions, were
making themselves, like the great French feudatories, centres of a local
feeling and of a local order, which, in days when the strongest king’s
arm did not reach very far, were real securities for peace and
prosperity.
When the terrible news that Jerusalem was once more in the hands of the
infidel spread throughout Europe, the result of this development was
seen in the shape taken by the movement to re-establish the Christian
power in the East. In the eleventh century the Popes had preached,
organised, and directed the Crusades. A hundred years later the Papacy
had certainly not declined in influence. But it was no longer the only
strong power in Europe. Absolutely it was what it had been in the days
of Gregory and Urban. Relatively it was much less, since instead of a
Henry IV., or Philip I., or a William Rufus, it had to deal with a
Barbarossa, a Philip Augustus, a Henry of Anjou. Even the leadership of
the Church, as St. Bernard’s career shows, was not necessarily given to
the reigning Pope. While the First Crusade was the work of Urban II.,
and the Second Crusade sprang from the efforts of St. Bernard, the Third
Crusade was due to the prompt action of the great kings of Europe, and
above all to Frederick Barbarossa. In the First Crusade the leadership
of the Christian host fell to the lesser feudal princes, like the Count
of Toulouse or the Count of Flanders. In the Second Crusade the Emperor
and the King of France took the lead, but they went with insufficient
resources, and left their dominions in disorder and anarchy. In the
Third Crusade the three chief monarchs of Europe appeared at the head of
well-equipped and fairly disciplined armies. However little successful
they were, their failure was as much due to their taking with them on
their pilgrimage their Western rivalries, as to their military
insufficiency for their task. In each case they left their dominions
well cared for and well governed, and in no case did their long absence
from their homes stop the orderly development of their states.
The absorption of the Western monarchs on their own territorial
aggrandisement seemed for a time to lessen the force of the crusading
impulse, and certainly during the thirteenth century led to the gradual
decay of the crusading ideal. Europe was now breaking up slowly but
surely into the great nations of modern times, and was inevitably losing
a good deal of her consciousness of unity in the process. Even Frederick
Barbarossa, filled as he was with his dreams of reviving the power of
Rome, had been, as we saw, obliged to adopt a different policy in
Germany and Italy, and had attained his greatest successes in proportion
as he acted most fully as a German national king. To kings like Philip
Augustus and Henry of Anjou, the Empire was a mere name, and they were
conscious of no lord over them save God Himself. Such unity of feeling
as remained in Europe was rather the result of common chivalrous and
martial ideals, and the steady and persistent international influence of
the Catholic Church, than of any ideal unity of the Christian state
under the Roman Emperor. The kings of the West had too much work at home
to give them much leisure to look abroad. If ambition, restlessness, or
principle compelled them to take interest in the affairs of their
neighbours, they had not yet attained sufficient strength to make their
intervention a reality.
[Sidenote: Preparations for the Third Crusade, 1187–1189.]
It was harder to bring about a combined European movement in the days of
Barbarossa than it had been in the days of Urban II. But the news that
the infidel was once more lording it over the Holy Sepulchre so
profoundly stirred up the mind of Europe that all difficulties in the
way of continued action were rapidly surmounted, and within three years
of the fall of Jerusalem the best organised of the Crusades was already
started. The Papacy proved true to its noblest traditions. It was
universally believed that the fall, or the prospect of the fall, of the
Holy City had proved Urban III.’s death-blow. His successors, the
enthusiastic Gregory VIII. and the conciliatory Clement III., strove, at
great sacrifices, to heal the feuds of Pope and Emperor, and to assuage
the rivalries of the monarchs of Europe, so that all might turn their
resources to the Holy War. Within a few weeks of the receipt of the
fatal news, orders were issued from Rome, calling on the faithful to
unite to free Jerusalem from the infidel, enjoining public fasts and
prayers, and offering ample indulgences and spiritual encouragements to
such as would take the cross. The Cardinals talked of living on alms,
and devoting their property to the Crusade, while they wandered through
Europe, preaching the Holy War. Italy, so little moved as a rule by the
crusading impulse, and so accustomed to make a heavy profit from the
necessities of Northern and Western pilgrims, was all aglow with
enthusiasm. The first succour sent to the East came from a Norman fleet
from Naples and Sicily, which took up the work of Bohemund. William of
Sicily turned to the succour of Antioch and Tyre the army which he had
collected to attack Constantinople. Not much behind the Sicilians were
the Scandinavian peoples, who were now for the first time brought within
the range of the crusading movement. If Norway, torn asunder by civil
war, contributed but few Crusaders, thousands took the cross in Sweden
and Denmark. But the individual efforts of the smaller states soon
subordinated themselves to the action of the three greatest princes of
Europe. Richard of Aquitaine was the first of Western rulers to take the
cross in 1187. His father and Philip of France received the cross from
the Archbishop of Tyre in the early part of 1188. But though England and
France could agree to levy a ‘Saladin tithe,’ to equip the crusading
host, the hostility of their sovereigns postponed the Crusade until
after Henry II.’s death. When, in 1189, Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur
de Lion made themselves the leaders of the Third Crusade in the West,
Frederick Barbarossa, with his German host, was already on his march for
the East. Round these three monarchs groups the history of the Crusade.
[Sidenote: Crusade and death of Frederick Barbarossa, 1089–1191.]
Frederick Barbarossa was the first to start. In the spring of 1189, the
German Crusaders gathered together at Ratisbon. Great pains were taken
to provide money and equipment as well as men, and every precaution to
avoid the swarm of unarmed pilgrims and penniless fanatics, who had
destroyed the discipline and military efficiency of earlier crusading
armies. In May the German host started on the dangerous land route
through Hungary, Greece, and Asia Minor. The friendship of Bela III. of
Hungary made the first part of the journey easy. Much time was wasted
through the treachery of the Eastern Emperor, Isaac Angelus, yet Isaac
dared not face the open hostility of the Germans, and at last made his
submission. Winter was now at hand, and Frederick thought it prudent to
rest at Adrianople. In March 1190 the Germans resumed their march. April
saw them in Asia, on the borders of the kingdom of Roum, where Kilidj
Arslan proved as plausible and as treacherous as Isaac. But, like Isaac,
the Sultan feared provoking their direct hostility, and after many
delays and difficulties, the Christian army was allowed to proceed. By
June the Crusaders were descending the passes of the Taurus into
Cilicia, then part of the Christian kingdom of Armenia. On reaching the
banks of the Salef, the old Emperor, against the advice of his
followers, sought refreshment and the shortening of his journey by
swimming over the river. But the swift current swept him away, and the
sorrowful warriors could only rescue his lifeless body from the stream.
Up to this point the German expedition had been decidedly successful.
But the utter consternation that fell upon it after the Emperor’s death
did more for Islam than the tricks of Kilidj Arslan and the deserts and
defiles of Asia Minor. Many knights hastened to the coast and took ship
home. Duke Frederick of Swabia, Barbarossa’s second son, assumed the
command of the dispirited remnant, which, after resting a while in the
friendly land of the Armenians, entered Syria. [Sidenote: Destruction of
the German Army.] The reins of discipline were now hopelessly relaxed.
The army broke up into various bands, and the disconnected fragments
were so severely handled by the Saracens that German slaves were cheap
for many a day in every market of Syria. Duke Frederick at last reached
Antioch, where he buried the perishable parts of his father’s body in
the church of St. Peter. The plague now decimated the much tried host,
and only a miserable remnant followed Duke Frederick to join in the
siege of Acre. Before long the Duke of Swabia died, and the Germans were
now so utterly demoralised that they lost the sacred bones of their
Emperor, which they had preserved in the hope of giving them a worthy
tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The great German army was of
less account in Palestine than the scattered bands that came from Lower
Germany by sea and finally got to Acre after doing good service against
the Moors in Spain, or the little host that had sailed from Brindisi
under the Landgrave Louis of Thuringia, and also reached Syria in
safety.
The German Crusade had already been undone when the kings of France and
England met at Vézelai and marched thence to Marseilles. A gallant army
accompanied them, conspicuous among the leaders of which were Hugh, Duke
of Burgundy, Theobald V. of Blois (the son and successor of Theobald the
Great), Henry II., Count of Champagne (the Count of Blois’ nephew), and
Philip of Alsace, the aged Count of Flanders. [Sidenote: Crusade of
Philip Augustus and Richard I., 1190–1192.] In September 1190 both kings
had reached Sicily, where they passed the winter, detained by the
critical state of the island. William the Good had died in November
1189, and his throne should have passed to his aunt Constance’s husband,
the new king of the Romans, Henry VI. But the rule of the northerners
was not popular in Sicily. [Sidenote: Tancred of Sicily and Isaac of
Cyprus, 1189–1191.] Despite the efforts of Walter Archbishop of Palermo
to keep the Sicilian grandees true to their oaths, the national party,
headed by the chancellor Matthew, passed over Constance, and gave the
throne to Tancred, Count of Lecce, a young, vigorous, warlike, and
popular prince. Tancred was a bastard son of Duke Roger, King Roger’s
eldest son, who had died before his father. As the determined foe of the
Hohenstaufen, Richard bore no ill-will to Tancred, and, with a little
more statecraft, would have seen the wisdom of gaining his friendship.
But Richard often neglected policy for adventure, and was perhaps seized
by a wild desire to conquer Sicily. Tancred had rashly imprisoned King
William’s widow, Joanna, who was Richard I.’s sister, and had deprived
her of her dowry. On Richard’s arrival, King Tancred released the lady,
but still kept her lands. But Richard took Messina by storm, ‘quicker
than a priest could chant matins,’ and forced Tancred to surrender his
sister’s portion. He stayed in Sicily all the winter, and at the time of
the spring passage, Richard and Philip set sail for the Holy Land. On
the way Richard conquered Cyprus, then ruled by the Comnenian prince
Isaac, who was called Emperor of Cyprus, and had won an ill name for his
ill-concealed alliance with Saladin and his bad treatment of Frankish
pilgrims.
[Sidenote: Capture of Acre, 1191.]
The affairs of the Christians in Palestine seemed utterly desperate. Guy
of Lusignan [see pp. 193–195], who had been released by Saladin on
promising to relinquish the crown, had been absolved from his oath by
the clergy, and now again called himself King of Jerusalem, though
Conrad of Montferrat held Tyre against him, and the Christians were
hopelessly divided. Nevertheless Guy, with the help of the first
Crusaders, had undertaken the siege of Acre, the most important of the
Saracen conquests after Jerusalem itself. But the Saracens, who came to
the relief of Acre, were themselves strong enough to besiege the
besiegers, who were soon in a terrible plight. The constant arrival of
fresh Crusaders, and the need of dividing Saladin’s army to deal with
Barbarossa, enabled Guy to hold his own until the spring of 1191, when
Saladin renewed his blockade. In despair Guy hurried to Cyprus and
begged for Richard’s help. Philip reached the camp in April, and Richard
early in June. Saladin now retired, and the siege of Acre was renewed.
In July the standard of the Cross again floated over its walls.
The Western army had taken with them to Palestine their national
jealousies, and the quarrels of the rival claimants for the throne of
Jerusalem brought these animosities to a crisis. Philip looked upon
Richard with deadly hatred as his most formidable rival, and Richard’s
insulting repudiation of his long-plighted faith to Alice, Philip’s
sister, and his marriage with Berengaria of Navarre at Cyprus, would
have irritated a colder man than the French king. Conrad of Montferrat
was urged by the great nobles of Palestine to claim the throne, since
Sibyl and her children were already dead, and Guy’s title to the throne
had entirely disappeared. [Sidenote: Rivalry of Guy of Lusignan and
Conrad of Montferrat.] Isabella, Sibyl’s younger sister, now repudiated
her husband, Henfrid of Toron, married Conrad, and transferred to him
her claims to the succession. While these disputes were raging the army
remained inactive, but at last a compromise was patched up by which Guy
kept the royal title but shared his power with Conrad, who was appointed
his successor. No sooner was this done than Philip Augustus started
home. Freed from his presence Richard marched against the infidel, and
performed prodigies of valour. But his army was breaking up through
sickness, death, and desertion. Many of the French had gone back with
Philip. The plague had carried off Theobald of Blois and Philip of
Alsace. Hugh of Burgundy, who died in Palestine in 1193, and Henry of
Champagne, were now the chief French Crusaders. Despite the arrangement
between Guy and Conrad their rivalry burst out afresh, and Conrad became
so strong that Richard acknowledged him king. Soon after, Conrad’s
murder by the emissaries of the ‘Old Man of the Mountain’ renewed the
troubles, though they were for a time satisfactorily settled when
Isabella, Conrad’s widow, married Henry of Champagne, who was now
accepted as king, both by the Crusaders and the Syrian Franks.
[Sidenote: Henry of Champagne King of Jerusalem, 1192.] Richard
magnanimously compensated Guy by handing over Cyprus, where the house of
Lusignan reigned as kings until the latter part of the fifteenth
century. At length the war with Saladin was renewed. But the Crusaders
were decimated with sickness and weary of their enterprise, while the
elaborate courtesies, now exchanged between the Christian and Mohammedan
armies, showed that the long intercourse of Frank and Saracen had
destroyed the bigotry and acerbity that had marked the earlier dealings
of the two hosts. [Sidenote: Truce with Saladin, and end of the Third
Crusade, 1192.] In September 1192 a truce was made by which Jaffa was
left in Christian hands and free access to Jerusalem was allowed to
pilgrims, though the Holy City remained ruled by the Mohammedans. In
October Richard left Palestine, and next year Saladin died. With the
passing away of the two mighty antagonists the great epoch of the
Crusades ended. Even before this the Third Crusade had shown that a
Europe, broken up into rival states, whose kings carried their
animosities with them even when they fought as soldiers of the Cross,
was less capable of upholding the Frankish power in the East than even
the tumultuous throngs of feudal chieftains and adventurers, who had
first established it. Yet the Third Crusade had given a new lease to the
Christian power in Syria. Acre now became what Jerusalem had been in the
twelfth century, and the Latin kingdom of Cyprus afforded a good basis
for future operations against the infidel, and bound the East and West
together as they had never been bound before. If the Third Crusade
marked the end of the heroic period, it made easy the regular flow of
bands of armed pilgrims, every spring and autumn passage, on which the
future destinies of the Latin East depended.
[Sidenote: Henry VI., 1190–1197.]
The short but most important reign of Henry VI. brings out clearly that
intimate interconnection of all Western and Eastern politics which the
Crusade had already strikingly illustrated. The puny frame and delicate
constitution of the young king stood in marked contrast to the physical
strength and vigour of his father. But his strong features expressed
sternness and determination, and his mental gifts and character were in
no wise inferior to those of Barbarossa. He was as good a general, as
active and strenuous a politician, as the old king. His policy shows a
daring originality to which his father could make no claim. But the
broader, nobler sides of Barbarossa’s character were but little
represented in that of his son. He carried out ambitious schemes with
cold-blooded selfishness, ruthless cruelty, and greedy treachery. Yet
his general objects were far-reaching, and not wanting in nobility, and
he ever showed a rare self-restraint. The inheritor of his father’s
great work, the husband of the heiress of Sicily, Henry had visions of a
power which was not limited to Germany and northern Italy. He dreamt of
an Empire as universal as the Empire imagined by Otto III. Like Otto, he
strove to make Italy rather than Germany the centre of his power. Like
Otto also, he reigned too short a time to carry out his ideals. But,
unlike Otto, he strove to realise his ambitions in a thoroughly
practical and masterly way. In his reign of eight years he had only one
failure.
[Sidenote: Return of Henry the Lion, 1190.]
From the moment that the departure of Barbarossa had left King Henry the
virtual ruler of Germany, grave difficulties encompassed his
administration. Henry the Lion returned, Lübeck opened its doors to its
founder, and was soon in a position to dispute the supremacy of Saxony
with the bishops and barons who had divided his ancient powers. In the
summer of 1190, the mediation of the Archbishops of Cologne and Mainz
concluded the Treaty of Fulda, by which the king allowed Henry the
Lion’s restoration, and gave him half the revenues of Lübeck. It was
worth while to buy off opposition when the news of the recognition of
Tancred by the Pope required Henry’s immediate presence in Italy to
vindicate the claims of his wife Constance to the Sicilian throne.
Hardly less alarming was the news of the long sojourn of Richard of
England in Messina, and of his treaty with the usurper Tancred. It
seemed as if Richard, the brother-in-law of Henry the Lion, and the
strenuous supporter of the Guelfs, was becoming the bond of union
between the enemies of the Hohenstaufen in northern Germany and southern
Italy. The news of Barbarossa’s death now further complicated the
position.
[Sidenote: Henry VI.’s Coronation and first Italian journey, 1191.]
Early in 1191 Henry VI. crossed the Alps to Italy. The mutual rivalries
of the Lombard cities made it improbable that he would have much
difficulty with the north. He prudently sought the friendship of both
the rival leagues, whose feuds were now distracting Lombardy. He won the
support of Pisa and Genoa, which alone had fleets strong enough to
convey him to Sicily. In his anxiety to isolate Tancred, he strove to
conciliate Clement III., who had been allowed to live in Rome on the
condition of recognising the autonomy of the city. [Sidenote: Celestine
III., 1191–1198.] But in March 1191 the pacific Clement died, and his
successor, the Roman Cardinal Hyacinth, who took the name of Celestine
III., was a weak and petulant old man of more than eighty years of age,
who feared both the union of the Empire and Sicily, and an open breach
with Henry.
Henry demanded his coronation as Emperor, and Celestine strove to defer
it by postponing his own consecration as Pope. Henry now marched to the
neighbourhood of Rome, and took possession of Tusculum, which, in its
bitter hatred of the Romans, had implored for an imperial garrison. He
resolved to hasten his coronation by winning over the Romans, and with
that object he treacherously handed over Tusculum to them. The Romans
wreaked a hideous vengeance on their hated enemy. Tusculum was so
absolutely demolished that no later attempt was ever made to repeople
it. In later times Frascati, lower down the hill, became a populous
town; but the ruins of Tusculum still testify to the completeness of the
Romans’ vengeance. Henry’s stroke of policy met with immediate success.
On April 14th Celestine was consecrated, and next day he crowned Henry
and Constance.
[Sidenote: Failure of the attack on Apulia, 1191.]
Triumphant over the Papacy, Henry now marched against Tancred. At first
he was conspicuously successful, and Naples alone still held out for
Tancred. It was besieged by Henry on the land side, while the galleys of
Pisa and Genoa blocked all access to it by sea. The strenuous resistance
of Naples soon shattered the Emperor’s hopes. The Sicilian admiral,
Margarito, drove away the Pisans, and re-opened communication between
Naples and Sicily. The south Italian summer brought plague and fever
into the German host. A fierce national reaction against the Northerners
swept through southern Italy. Baffled and beaten, Henry raised the siege
and returned to Germany.
Henry of Brunswick, the eldest son of Henry the Lion, who had
accompanied the Emperor to Italy as a hostage, escaped from the imperial
camp, and established an alliance between Tancred and the Guelfs. During
the king’s absence in Italy, Henry the Lion had broken the Peace of
Fulda, and was waging war against his Saxon enemies. On the king’s
return to Germany, a struggle between the Guelfs and the Hohenstaufen
seemed inevitable. [Sidenote: Renewed German troubles, 1191–1194.]
However Henry VI. still made it his main object to conquer Naples and
Sicily, and Henry the Lion was too old and too fearful of fresh
banishment to risk everything once more. Accordingly, negotiations were
entered into between the two, and a reconciliation seemed likely to
ensue. But the German magnates were more afraid of the Guelfs than the
Emperor, and pressed him to go to war against Henry the Lion. [Sidenote:
The Saxon troubles and the Liége succession, 1192.] At last, in 1192,
Henry took the field against the Guelfs. A new complication followed.
There had been a disputed succession to the see of Liége, which had
given Henry a chance to annul the two rival elections, and appoint
Lothair of Hochstaden as bishop. It was a glaring violation of the
Concordat of Worms, and a direct defiance of the spiritual power. The
stronger of the wronged claimants, Albert of Brabant, appealed to the
Pope, and obtained his recognition. Unable to get hallowed as bishop by
his own metropolitan at Cologne, Albert went to Reims, to seek
consecration from a foreign prelate. Three knights, vassals of Liége and
servants of the Emperor, followed Albert to Reims, and murdered him, in
November 1192. A great sensation was created by the dastardly deed,
which in many ways recalled the murder of St. Thomas of Canterbury
twenty-two years before. But Henry managed to escape direct
ecclesiastical censure, though the murderers afterwards received fiefs
from him in Italy. [Sidenote: The revolt of the Rhineland, 1193.]
However, the barons of the Rhineland, already disaffected at Henry’s
masterful policy, and resenting his neglect of the magnates for his
faithful officials, took the opportunity to revolt, and, joining the
rebellious Guelfs, raised up a formidable opposition to the Emperor, and
talked of transferring the crown to their leader, the Duke of Brabant.
But fortune was on Henry’s side. At the same time as the news of the
rebellion came the joyful tidings that Richard of England, returning in
disguise from the Holy Land, had been captured by Leopold, Duke of
Austria, who brought a series of charges against him, and handed him
over to the Emperor. [Sidenote: Captivity and ransom of Richard I.,
1192–1194.] Philip of France, and John, Richard’s brother, pressed the
Emperor to keep the captive as long as he could, and Richard remained
more than two years in prison, but the delay was due to his
unwillingness to accept the hard conditions imposed upon him. At last
Richard was forced to agree to the Emperor’s terms, and in June 1193
purchased his release in the Treaty of Worms. Richard was forced to pay
a vast ransom and to renounce his alliance with Tancred. But the hardest
condition was the surrender of the English crown to the Emperor, which
in February 1194 Henry formally handed back to Richard as a fief of the
Empire. Some compensation was given to Richard’s wounded feelings by a
grant to him of the kingdom of Arles, which had some importance as a
fresh declaration of hostility against Philip of France. Moreover, Henry
cleverly used Richard to procure peace in Germany. Henry the Lion
yielded to his brother-in-law’s pleadings, and again made his
submission. Even the barons of the lower Rhine were not unmoved by his
appeals. Richard’s departure left Germany at peace with the Emperor, and
his ransom made easy a fresh expedition against Tancred.[25] Henry of
Brunswick, Henry the Lion’s eldest son, was married to a cousin of the
Emperor, Agnes, daughter of Conrad, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and the
Emperor’s uncle. The Emperor promised him the succession to the
Palatinate, and Henry promised to join in the Sicilian expedition. In
1195 Henry the Lion ended his long and turbulent career. The Emperor was
now free to turn his attention to Italy. His self-restraint and his good
luck had carried him over his difficulties in Germany. His greatest
merit was that, however proud he was of his mighty position, he never
left out of sight the necessity of subordinating all minor aims to his
desire to win Naples and Sicily. His moderation against Henry the Lion,
his reconciliation with Richard, his rejection of the tempting offers of
France, and his vast concessions to the German nobles, now attained
their object.
[Sidenote: Henry’s Italian policy, 1191–1194.]
During Henry’s absence in Germany, the imperial cause in Italy had
declined. Nevertheless Henry had kept up constant communications with
his Italian partisans, and had observed a very careful policy with
regard to the Lombards. He has often been accused of striving to restore
his father’s schemes of supremacy in Italy by violating the Treaty of
Constance and seeking again the abasement of the Lombards. But the
charge is no more just than the one of extravagant hostility against the
Guelfs. As a matter of fact, Henry strove to postpone all other troubles
in order to get his hands free to secure his wife’s inheritance. He saw
that Lombardy, after Constance, had fallen back into her ancient feuds,
and that two leagues, one headed by Milan, the other by Cremona, had
arisen, both equally indifferent to the Empire, and both equally willing
to invoke its aid to crush the local enemy. Henry strove to make
treaties with both confederacies, while he cheerfully replenished his
coffers from the treasuries of both Milan and Cremona, and did his best
to end the war. He established his brother Philip in Tuscany. Genoa and
Pisa again provided him with ships. The Norman kingdom, isolated from
its wonted allies, had to meet him single-handed, save for the timid
support of Celestine III.
Tancred prepared manfully for the struggle. He obtained in 1192 the
formal investiture of Apulia and Sicily from Celestine III. He procured
the coronation of his young son Roger as joint-king, and negotiated a
marriage for him with Irene, daughter of the Greek Emperor Isaac
Angelus. [Sidenote: Conquest of Apulia and Sicily, 1194.] He strenuously
and successfully held his own against the Emperor’s lieutenants. But all
his hopes were destroyed by the young King Roger’s death, and soon after
Tancred himself died. The national party set up his eldest surviving son
as King William III., but in May 1194 Henry again reached Italy, and
invaded the defenceless south. There was a mere show of resistance. By
November Palermo was in the hands of the Emperor, and on Christmas Day
he received the Sicilian crown in the cathedral. The young King William
was sent, blinded and mutilated, to die obscurely in a German convent.
The last upholders of the national power, including the Admiral
Margarito, soon perished in gloomy dungeons. The very family of Tancred
now secured its patrimonial possessions by a timely recognition of the
rival. At Easter 1195 Henry was able to return to Germany, leaving
Constance as regent, with the tried court official, Conrad of Urslingen,
now Duke of Spoleto, as her chief adviser. The officials from the lower
German nobility, who had served Henry so well in Germany, were intrusted
with the administration of his new inheritance, and soon abased the
great Norman houses.
[Sidenote: Henry’s triumph and further projects, 1194–1197.]
Never was an Emperor stronger since the days of Charlemagne. All Italy
was directly under his rule. The Pisan and Genoese fleets conquered
Corsica and Sardinia in his name. His troops occupied the patrimony of
St. Peter, and his officer Markwald of Anweiler was lord of Ancona and
Romagna. His alliance with the Roman Senate kept Celestine III. from
doing any mischief. Germany was obedient. The King of England was his
vassal, and the heir of the Guelfs his follower and supporter. To add to
his triumph, Constance, the day after his coronation at Palermo, bore
him the long-prayed-for heir, the future Frederick II., called Frederick
and Roger after his two famous grandfathers. Before long the kings of
the East sought his friendship and support. The Lusignan King of Cyprus
boasted that he was the vassal of the Latin Empire. The King of Armenia
received his ambassadors. Henry’s brother, Philip of Swabia, now made
Marquis of Tuscany and lord of the inheritance of the Countess Matilda,
married young Roger’s widow Irene, an alliance that made Isaac Angelus
the close connection of his Western rival. Three great ambitions
henceforth possessed Henry’s soul. He would make the Empire hereditary
in his own house, and unite for ever the German and the Sicilian
thrones. He would rule Europe from Italy as a centre. He would make
himself lord of the East, setting on foot a Crusade that would conquer
the schismatic Greeks, and establish the Latin power in the whole East
under his control. Wild as his schemes seemed, his extraordinary
successes made them not altogether visionary.
[Sidenote: The hereditary Empire.]
On returning to Germany, Henry sought to persuade the princes to agree
that the Empire, like the French monarchy, should henceforth descend
from father to son. At the Diet of Würzburg, in April 1196, more than
fifty of the princes agreed to his proposals. But the strenuous
opposition of Adolf, Archbishop of Cologne, and the conservative
magnates of Saxony taught Henry that it was no time to persevere in an
unpopular request. He contented himself for the moment with procuring
the election of the two-year-old Frederick Roger as German king at
Frankfurt, and in winning over many of the German nobles to his Eastern
projects.
Before the end of 1196 Henry was again in southern Italy. The very Pope
was now on his side. Celestine, delighted at the prospect of a new
Crusade, forbore to press Henry to discharge the long-deferred homage
which every Sicilian king had paid to the Papacy. During his absence the
tyranny of the German officials had proved too grievous to be borne, and
a formidable Sicilian conspiracy had been formed against them. Henry now
stamped out all opposition with incredible brutality and harshness.
Fresh from the hideous tortures of his victims, Henry now threw himself
with all his might into his schemes of Eastern conquest. The new Greek
Emperor, Alexius III., was summoned to surrender all provinces east of
Thessalonica as part of the Sicilian inheritance, and cheerfully agreed
to pay a heavy tribute to avert the threatened attack. Meanwhile a vast
swarm of German warriors had collected in Sicily and Apulia under the
pretence of the new Crusade. [Sidenote: The Conquest of the East.] In
September the first ships sailed from Messina to Acre. But in the moment
of the realisation of his ambitions a sudden fever cut down the great
Emperor. [Sidenote: Death of Henry VI., 1197.] On 28th September Henry
VI. died at Messina when he was only thirty-two years of age. Before his
ashes were laid beside his Sicilian ancestors in the cathedral at
Palermo, his brilliant schemes were hopelessly shattered.