Thus had the house of St. Arnulf at last reached the summit of its ambition, and the Frankish race once more obtained a king whose busy brain and strong right hand could make a reality of the title which for four generations had been but a vain name, while borne by the last effete Merovings. [Sidenote: Pippin as king, 752-768.] Raised on the shield by the Austrasian counts and dukes, anointed by the Apostle of Germany, blessed by the Roman pontiff, Pippin went forth conquering and to conquer, into lands where the Frankish banner had not been seen for many generations. Charles Martel vindicated the old frontier of the realm, his son was destined to extend its bounds into regions where no Frankish king had ever obtained a permanent footing. The doings of Pippin the Short during the seventeen years of his kingly rule fall into three main heads. First and most important are his dealings with the popes and the kings of the Lombards, leading to his two great campaigns in Italy. Of secondary moment are his conquests from the Saracens and the Aquitanian dukes in the south of Gaul. His wars against the Saxons are of minor importance only. In giving his blessing to the accession of king Pippin pope Zacharias had kept in view the aid which the Franks might grant him in his quarrels with his Lombard neighbours. Zacharias died ere he had time to demand a return for his complaisance, but his successor Stephen soon claimed the gratitude of the newly-crowned monarch of the Franks. [Sidenote: The Lombards and the Papacy.] The old Lombard king Liutprand had died in 744, and his nephew Hildebrand, who succeeded him, had held the throne for no more than a few months. The Great Council of the Lombards deposed him for vicious incompetency, and elected in his place Ratchis, duke of Friuli. The new king, a man of mild and pious disposition, kept the peace which Liutprand had made with the Papacy till 749, when, for reasons to us unknown, he advanced to attack Perugia, one of the few places in Italy which still adhered to the empire. Pope Zacharias visited his camp to plead with him in behalf of peace, with the unexpected result that Ratchis not only raised the siege, but laid down his crown and retired into a monastery, stricken, like his contemporary Carloman, with the sudden horror of secular things which occasionally fell upon the Teutonic monarchs of the seventh and eighth century.