The rival emperor Otho, elected by the Guelf party, was the son of Henry the Lion, the nephew of Richard Plantagenet of England the Coeur de Lion of our national story, and of a family always devoted to the Church. The two men were both young and full of promise, equally noble and of great descent, related to each other in a distant degree, trained in a similar manner, each of them quite fit for the place which they were called to occupy. It seems to the spectator now as if there was scarcely a pin to choose between them. Nor was it any conflict of personal ambition which set them up against each other. They were the choice of their respective parties, and the question was as clearly one of faction against faction as in an Irish village fight. These were circumstances, above all others, in which the arbitration of such an impartial judge as a Pope might have been of the greatest advantage to the world. There never was perhaps such an ideal opportunity for testing the advantage and the possibility of the power claimed by the Papacy. Otho was a young gallant at Richard's court expecting nothing of the kind, open to all kinds of other promotions, Earl of Yorkshire, Count of Poitou--the first not successful because he could not conciliate the Yorkshiremen, perhaps difficult in that way then as now: but without, so far as appears, any thought of the empire in his mind. And Philip had the right of possession, and was the choice of the majority, and had done no harm in accepting his election, even if he had no right to it. The case was quite different from that of the similar struggle in which Gregory VII. took part. At the earlier period the whole world, that was not crushed under his iron foot, had risen against Henry IV. His falsehood, his cruelty, his vices, had alienated every one, and nobody believed his word or put the smallest faith even in his most solemn vows. The struggle between such an Emperor and the head of the Church was naturally a struggle to death. One might almost say they were the impersonations of good and evil, notwithstanding that the good might be often alloyed, and the evil perhaps by times showed gleams of better meaning. But the case of Philip and Otho was completely different. Neither of them were bad men nor gave any augury of evil. The one perhaps by training and inclination was slightly a better Churchman than the other at the beginning of his career; but, on the other hand, Philip had various practical advantages over Otho which could not be gainsaid.