died, and was in his guardianship replaced by a monk of a very different character--Anthony, a schemer and intriguer--who would without doubt have been a Jesuit, if the Order had been then established. To Welf's utter dismay, this Anthony, one fine morning, informed his young charge that in the interest alike of the Guelph family and of the Church he, a youth of eighteen, must forthwith marry Gregory VIIth's friend, Matilda of Canossa, Spoleto, &c., the persecutress of Henry IV., a Guelph herself, the widow of Godfrey the Hunchback of Lorraine, very rich and very powerful--_nobilissimi ac ditissimi marchionis Bonifacii filia_--but mannish--_femina virilis animi_--accustomed to leading her own men in battle, scheming, ugly, ill-tempered, and forty-three to boot. Hers were splendid possessions--Parma, and Mantua, and Ferrara, and Spoleto, and Reggio, and Lucca, and Tuscany. But all these riches were as nothing in the eyes of Welf, who had made up his mind that he must marry Bertha, aged sixteen, or no one. A little plot was quickly concocted, and one fine night Welf, in disguise, might be seen slyly escorting Bertha, likewise in disguise, and accompanied only by her private maid, Francisca, through the forest down to Lindau, on the border of the lake, where a boat was in readiness to bear the fugitives across to Constance. From that place, Welf said--probably thinking of his mother's connections with our country--"we will make our way straight to England, where a Guelph's arm and sword are sure to be welcome and to find employment." The lake was reached, and the oars splashed briskly over the smooth surface--when all of a sudden, at half-way, over goes the boat, capsizing, and Bertha sinks down to the bottom, to be seen no more. Diving, and swimming, and calling proved all in vain. Thoroughly unhappy, indifferent to anything that might happen, Welf consents to wed the elderly Matilda, with whom he settles down to live at Spoleto, sullenly resigning himself to his fate. One day a nun begs to be allowed to see him. She turns out to be Francisca, the maid, driven by qualms of conscience to make a frank confession of a horrid crime committed. Bribed by Monk Anthony, she said, she had on that disastrous night drugged poor Bertha with a handkerchief--then, when she was thoroughly drowsy, on the sly tied a stone to her feet--whereupon Anthony, disguised as a boatman, had overturned the boat. Anthony had told her that there was no sin in all this, it was an act _ad majorem Dei gloriam_; but her conscience would leave her no peace. Next day, at her own wish, Francisca was executed as a murderess, and Welf left his wife--who turned out to have been a party to the conspiracy--in anger and disgust, vowing to see her no more, and formally repudiating her before long--_nescio quo interveniente divorcio_, says the monkish chronicler.