Constance, King Roger’s daughter, had early made her choice for peace and safety by retiring into the veiled seclusion of the convent. But even the coif of the religieuse was no sure guard if the woman who wore it was an heiress, or of royal blood, and, the German alliance being needed after her father’s death, she was plucked forth by her brother, and in spite of her vows wedded to Henry of Hohenstaufen, son of Frederick Barbarossa, a man of such nature she must have hated him from the first. She bore him one son, and when her brother and her nephew—William the Bad and William the Good—were both dead without heirs, Henry Hohenstaufen immediately laid claim to the 251Sicilian crown in the name of his son. The Sicilians, however, had no mind to be ruled by the Germans, and chose instead Tancred, son of the House of de Hauteville, though with a bar sinister upon his shield. Tancred—a good and able sovereign—fought off Henry for five years, but then he too was dead, and only his widow and infant son stood between Henry, now Emperor of Germany, and the much-lusted-after throne of Sicily. Against the wish of Constance, who would have gladly abjured her rights, the German invaded the island and after incredible cruelties and ravagings reduced the widow and baby King to such straits that they negotiated an honourable surrender. But no sooner were they in Henry’s hands than the child was murdered, and there ensued a reign of abominable oppressions and furious revolts, stamped out each time with blood and fire, and followed by still bitterer injustice and plunderings. When matters had reached a stage of desperation Henry died suddenly while besieging a rebellious town. Now in the Middle Ages no charge was so frequently and lightly made as that of poisoning. Nearly all sudden deaths not wrought by cold steel were attributed to some secret malfeasance by drugs. The fear of it fairly obsessed the mediæval mind, and gave rise to legends of poisoned gloves and rings, deadly smelling-balls and pounce boxes, and fatal chalices. A whole series of myths grew around it. Modern bacteriological discoveries, and a knowledge of ptomaines, incline the modern mind to believe that many a poor wretch brutally done to death for the crime of poisoning really died an innocent martyr to medical ignorance. Yet Henry’s taking off was so welcome and so 252opportune, and that Constance had struggled to protect her fellow countrymen and kinspeople from his cruelties was so well known, it began to be breathed about that she was a second Judith who had reached out in agony to protect her people, even though the blow fell upon the father of her child. At all events, whatever the truth may have been, she, when she buried Henry with imperial pomp, cut off her magnificent hair and laid it in his tomb. Then, sending away the Germans, she ruled “in peace with great honour” until the son she had trained to mercy and virtue was ready to take her place.