John and the Marquis Alberic enjoyed a splendid ovation at Rome, and it was probably at this date that the hand of Marozia was bestowed on Alberic. But the victory had its price. John had to surrender some of his patrimonies to the Duke of Gaeta and to confer the imperial crown on King Berengar for his assistance. When Berengar came to Rome, and promised to maintain all the rights and properties of the Papacy as other Emperors had done, and received the crown from the hand of the Pope, it must have seemed that a brighter day had dawned at last on Italy. But the restless factions murmured, and in a few years Rudolph II. of Burgundy was invited to come and seize the crown. Berengar brought the half-civilized Hungarians to his aid, and a fresh trail of blood and fire marred the face of Italy. He lost, and was assassinated (924); but Rudolph, who won only the crown of Italy, was not left long in peaceful possession of it, and the next movement of Italian politics shows John in a singular situation at Rome. An earlier chapter of this history was enlivened by the amours of Lothair of Lorraine and Waldrada. They left behind them an illegitimate daughter, Bertha, who had all the spirit and more than the ambition of her mother. There were many women of commanding personality (and, usually, little scruple) in the early Middle Ages, and the story of Theodora and Marozia must not be regarded as very exceptional. Bertha made vigorous efforts to win Italy for her favourite son, Hugh of Provence, and, when she died in 925, his sister, Irmengard, a fascinating woman who maintained the domestic tradition, won the bishops and nobles of Lombardy for him by an unsparing use of her charms. He was presently invited to come and drive the Burgundians out of Italy. John X. joined in the invitation and went to Mantua to meet him. It is recorded that the Pope made some obscure bargain with him at Mantua, and there can be little doubt that he asked Hugh's aid against Marozia. Theophylactus and Theodora were dead, and Marozia was at deadly feud with the Pope. Her first husband seems to have died about 925, and she had married Guido of Tuscany. Whether her quarrel with John began before her marriage we do not know, but Liutprand tells us that she and Guido wanted to depose the Pope. Both Liutprand and Benedict[192] make the cause of the quarrel clear. John had called his brother Peter to his side at Rome, and the power he gave to his brother, and therefore withdrew from the lay nobles, infuriated his earlier supporters. He turned, as so many Popes had done, to a distant prince, and his career soon came to a close.