Conrad was a gallant knight, liberal, attractive, and popular, but he had little statecraft, and no idea how best to establish his position. The preaching of the Second Crusade soon called him from the dull and ungrateful work of ruling the Germans to adventures more attractive to his spirit of knight-errantry. At Christmas 1146 he took the cross from Bernard of Clairvaux in the cathedral of Speyer. Next spring he proclaimed a general peace, and procured the coronation of his little son Henry as joint king. Between 1147 and 1149 he was away from Germany on Crusade. With him went his gifted nephew Frederick, who, in 1147, had succeeded on the death of his father, the elder Frederick, to the Duchy of Swabia. The Crusade was a failure, and the long absence of the monarch still further increased the troubles of Germany. [Sidenote: The eastward advance of the German kingdom.] The crusading spirit rose so high under Bernard’s preaching that those who could not follow Conrad to the Holy Land organised fresh Crusades against the heathen who, despite the work of Norbert and Lothair, still closely fringed the Empire on the east. The Saxons naturally took a prominent share in this Crusade. But the rivalry of Albert the Bear and Henry of Saxony, whom men now began to style Henry the Lion, prevented any very immediate results flowing from these movements. Yet the definitive conversion of Pomerania, and the acquisition by Albert of Brandenburg, were important steps forward in the Germanisation of the lands between Elbe and Oder. From the victories of Albert the Bear begins the history of that Mark of Brandenburg, which in nearly every after-age was to take so prominent a part in German history. In later years, when the strong rule of Frederick Barbarossa kept local feuds within bounds, Albert the Bear and Henry the Lion vied with each other as pioneers of German civilisation in the north-east. At the moment it was enough for Henry the Lion to consolidate his power in Saxony. When Conrad came back from Syria he found that Count Welf, a kinsman of Henry the Lion who had returned early from the Crusade, had raised a rebellion. When this was suppressed, Henry the Lion again claimed Bavaria and prepared for revolt. The young King Henry, in whose name the country had been ruled during his father’s absence, now died prematurely, and on 15th February 1152 Conrad followed him to the tomb.