Early in 1037 Konrad was called again to Italy by complaints of the despotic rule of the local governors, especially of the Archbishop Heribert of Milan. This prelate resisted his authority, incited the people of Milan to support his pretensions, and became, in a short time, the leader of a serious revolt. The Emperor deposed him, prevailed upon the Pope, Benedict IX., to place him under the ban of the Church, and besieged Milan with all his forces; but in vain. The Bishop defied both Emperor and Pope; the city was too strongly fortified to be taken, and out of this resistance grew the idea of independence which was afterwards developed in the Italian Republics, until the latter weakened, wasted, and finally destroyed the authority of the German (or "Roman") Emperors in Italy. Konrad was obliged to return home without having conquered Archbishop Heribert and the Milanese. In the spring of 1039 he died suddenly at Utrecht, aged sixty, and was buried in the Cathedral at Speyer, which he had begun to build. He was a very shrewd and intelligent ruler, who planned better than he was able to perform. He certainly greatly increased the Imperial power during his life, by recognizing the hereditary rights of the smaller princes, and replacing the chief reigning Dukes, whenever circumstances rendered it possible, by members of his own family. As the selection of the bishops and archbishops remained in his hands, the clergy were of course his immediate dependents. It was their interest, as well as that of the common people among whom knowledge and the arts were beginning to take root, that peace should be preserved between the different German States, and this could only be done by making the Emperor's authority paramount. Nevertheless, Konrad II. was never popular: a historian of the times says "no one sighed when his sudden death was announced." [Sidenote: 1039. HENRY III.] His son, Henry III., already crowned King of Germany as a boy, now mounted the throne. He was twenty-three years old, distinguished for bodily as well as mental qualities, and was apparently far more competent to rule than many of his predecessors had been. Germany was quiet, and he encountered no opposition. The first five years of his reign brought him wars with Bohemia and Hungary, but in both, in spite of some reverses at the beginning, he was successful. Bohemia was reduced to obedience; a part of the Hungarian territory was annexed to Austria, and the king, Peter, as well as Duke Casimir of Poland, acknowledged themselves dependents of the German Empire. The Czar of Muscovy (as Russia was then called) offered Henry, after the death of Queen Gunhilde, a princess of his family as a wife; but he declined, and selected, instead, Agnes of Poitiers, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine.