1197-8] through his representatives at Cologne, threw all his influence into the scale. But Henry himself was absent in Holy Land, and it was felt that to leave the Empire without a head till his return might involve grave danger; his partizans, including Richard, therefore transferred their support to his brother Otto, whose life had been spent almost entirely in Normandy and England, at the court first of his grandfather Henry II and afterwards at that of his uncle Richard, and who was perhaps the more acceptable to the German electors because he neither held nor could claim any territorial possessions in Germany;[1243] his sole personal connexion with it was his marriage with a daughter of the duke of Louvain, one of the North German [Sidenote: =1197-8=] feudataries with whom Richard had made alliance in 1194. Otto was accordingly elected, and on July 12, 1198, he was crowned at Aix.[1244] One of the warmest advocates of the election of Otto was Count Baldwin of Flanders, chiefly because the king of England was known to be on the same side.[1245] The king of France, on the other hand, naturally took alarm at a choice which promised to strengthen the alliance between Richard and Baldwin and give to both these princes the countenance, if not the active support, of the greater part of the German feudataries and of their sovereign. There was one disappointed candidate for the imperial crown who openly refused to acknowledge the authority of his successful rival. This was Philip, duke of Suabia, the late Emperor’s brother. Between him and his royal French namesake an alliance was concluded on S. Peter’s day.[1246] It could, however, be of little avail to either of them against the coalition by which in a few weeks they were confronted. Henry of Saxony, returned from Holy Land, was welcomed by his English uncle at Les Andelys,[1247] and thence proceeding to his homeland gave his unqualified assent and approval to the election of his brother as Emperor.[1248] Before the end of August, the duke of Louvain, the counts of Brienne, Flanders, Guines, Boulogne, Perche, Blois, and Toulouse, with Arthur of Britanny (or rather the nobles who governed the duchy in his name) “and many others,” made a confederacy with Richard, swearing to him and he to them that neither they nor he would make peace with the king of France without the common consent of them all.[1249] On September 6 Baldwin of Flanders laid siege to St. Omer; its surrender, three weeks later, was followed by that of [Sidenote: _Sept. 27_] Aire and several other neighbouring towns.[1250] At the same time the truce was broken on the Norman border. One contemporary English writer represents Philip as the aggressor; but his story seems to be only a confused enlargement [Sidenote: =1197-8=] on the contents of a letter written by Richard in which there is no suggestion of any such thing. Richard, according to his own account, on Sunday, September 27, crossed the Epte by the