No more of Barbarossa's doings need here be chronicled, except what he deemed a brilliant stroke of diplomacy, by which he hoped to unite the crown of the Two Sicilies with the Imperial crown on the head of his son, Henry, and through him on the heads of a long line of Hohenstaufens. The Empire had always asserted a claim to Southern Italy, but its claim had never been made good except during the temporary occupation of an Imperial army; and since the Normans had established their kingdom, Southern Italy had not only been lost to the Empire, but had become the chief prop of the Empire's enemy, the Papacy. If the Empire could acquire Southern Italy, it would hem in the Papacy both south and north, and crush it to obedience. Frederick's son Henry was married to the heiress of the Norman kingdom (1186); and the good Emperor, happy in the prospect before his Imperial line, but happier in that he could not foresee truly, took the cross and led his army towards the Holy Land. He died on the way (1190), leaving behind him a reputation for honour and chivalry, inferior to none left by the German Emperors. FOOTNOTES: [10] _Storia d'Italia_, Cappelletti, pp. 99, 100. CHAPTER XII TRIUMPH OF THE PAPACY (1198-1216) Gregory VII was well named the Julius Caesar of the Papacy. His great conception of a sovereign ecclesiastical power, supreme over Europe, was destined to be realized. For in the fulness of time came Innocent III, the Augustus Caesar of the Papacy, who ruled the civilized world of Europe more after the fashion of the old Roman Emperors than any one, except Charlemagne, had done. But in the interval between these two famous Popes, there was a period of reaction in which it looked for a time as if the Empire would plant the Ghibelline flag on the papal citadel. The Popes of this period were men of no marked ability, whereas the young king, Henry VI, had inherited the forceful temper of Barbarossa as well as his theories of Imperial rights, and displayed great vigour, energy, and resolution. Despite the opposition of the Popes, who as feudal suzerains of Sicily were most averse to the alliance, he had married the heiress of the Norman line, and despite the fierce opposition of the Sicilians,--part Arabs, part Greeks, with Italians and Normans mingling in,--he established his authority in the island. Henry was horribly cruel, but he was efficient. He was King of Germany, King of Italy, and King of the Two Sicilies, and had compelled a reluctant Pope to crown him Emperor. He determined to be Emperor in Italy in fact, and to accomplish what his father had failed to do. He undertook to check and suppress the communes by reviving the old feudal system. He reinstated old duchies and counties, and enfeoffed his loyal Germans. Matters looked black for the Guelfs, when, to their great good luck, the fiery young Emperor died, leaving an incompetent widow and a helpless baby (1197). By one of those occurrences, in which Catholics