The princes, therefore, insisted upon a new election, for which Philip also now appeared as candidate. The votes were split between two rivals; the Ghibellines voting for Philip, A.D. 1198-1208, and the Guelph party for =Otto IV.= of Brunswick, A.D. 1198-1218. The party of the latter referred the decision to the pope. For three years he delayed giving judgment, then he decided in favour of the Guelph, who paid for the preference by granting all the demands of the pope, and calling himself king by the grace of God and the pope. The States of the Church were thus represented as including the Duchy of Spoleto, and in the election of bishops the church was freed from the influence of the state. By A.D. 1204, however, Philip’s power and repute had risen to such a pitch that even the pope found himself obliged to take into account the altered position of matters. A papal court of arbitration at Rome to which both claimants had agreed to submit, was on the point of giving its decision unequivocally in favour of the Hohenstaufen, when the murder of Philip by Otto of Wittelsbach, in A.D. 1208, rendered it void. Otto IV. was now acknowledged by all, and in A.D. 1209 he was crowned by the pope after new concessions had been made. But as Roman emperor he either would not or could not perform what he had promised before and at his coronation. He took to himself the possessions of Matilda as well as other parts of the States of the Church, and was not prevented from pursuing his victorious campaign in Southern Italy by the anathema which Innocent thundered against him in A.D. 1210. Then Innocent called to mind the old rights of his former pupil to the German crown, and insisted that they should be given effect to. In A.D. 1212, Frederick II., now in his eighteenth year, accepted the call, was received in Germany with open arms, and was crowned in A.D. 1215 at Aachen. Otto could not maintain his position against him, and so withdrew to his hereditary possessions, and died in A.D. 1218.