For the next six years the Lombard league was suffered to live in peace. On the death of the Antipope Paschal in 1168, a new pretender was set up, called Calixtus III. But for all practical purposes Italy was independent of the Emperor. Frederick’s last partisans in north Italy, the citizens of Pavia, and the Counts of Montferrat and Biandrate, were constrained to submit to the league. In Germany the ecclesiastical opposition grew under the guidance of the Archbishop of Salzburg, and Alexander became more and more generally recognised. Renewed efforts to win over Henry of Anjou to support the Antipope were unsuccessful, and the humiliation of the English king after Becket’s murder was a lesson to Frederick of the abiding might of the Church to control princes. The growing power of Henry the Lion excited the fears of the smaller barons and the jealousy of the Emperor. [Sidenote: Frederick’s fifth Italian journey, 1174–1177.] But Frederick sought to avert the inevitable conflict in order that he might revenge himself on the revolted Lombards. Meanwhile his agents strove to gain friends for him in central Italy, where the removal of all external control had fiercely divided the towns of Tuscany and Romagna. In 1174 Frederick made his fifth expedition to Italy. But the small army which he led in September over Mont Cenis was mainly composed of his personal vassals, the stronger princes remaining at home. Nevertheless, a revival of the imperial party followed the reappearance of the Emperor in Italy. After destroying Susa and capturing Asti, Frederick vigorously besieged the new city of Alessandria—the city of straw, as the imperialists called it. Meanwhile Christian, Archbishop of Mainz, won important successes for the Emperor in Tuscany and Romagna, but failed at the siege of Ancona. The siege of Alessandria lasted till April 1175, when the rectors of the league came to its relief. Both armies prepared for battle at Montebello, but at the very moment of the conflict negotiations were entered upon, at the instance of the Cremonese. Yet Frederick would not accept the hard conditions of the Lombards—the recognition of their liberties, acknowledgment of Alexander as lawful Pope, and the incorporation of Alessandria as a member of the league. The ‘Peace of Montebello’ was accordingly broken, and both sides prepared to fight to the end. [Sidenote: The battle of Legnano, 1176.]