Had Pope Innocent been the wholly wise man and inspired judge he claimed by right of his office to be, without prejudice or bias, nobly impartial, holding the balance in a steady hand, was not this the very case to test his powers? Had he helped the establishment of Philip in the empire and deprecated the introduction of a rival, a great deal of bloodshed might have been avoided, and a satisfactory result, without any injustice, if not an ideal selection, might have been obtained. All this was problematical, and depended upon his power of getting himself obeyed, which, as it turned out, he did not possess. But in this way, in all human probability, he might have promoted peace and secured a peaceful decision; for Philip's election was a _fait accompli_, while Otho was not as yet more than a candidate. The men were so equal otherwise, and there was so little exclusive right on one side or the other, that such facts as these would naturally have been taken into the most serious consideration by the great, impartial, and unbiassed mind which alone could have justified the interference of the Pope, or qualified him to assume the part of arbitrator in such a quarrel. He did not attempt this, however, but took his place with his own faction as if he had been no heaven-sent arbiter at all, but a man like any other. He has himself set forth the motives and reasons for his interference, with the fulness of explanation which he loved. The bull in which he begins by setting aside the claims of his own infant ward, Frederic, to whom his father Henry had caused the German princes to swear fealty, as inadmissible--the said princes being freed of their oath by the death of the Emperor, a curious conclusion--is in great part an indictment of Philip, couched in the strongest and most energetic terms. In this document it is stated in the first place that Philip had been excommunicated by the previous Pope, as having occupied by violence the patrimony of St. Peter, an excommunication taken off by the legate, but not effectually; again he was involved in the excommunication of Markwald and the other invaders of Sicily whom he had upheld; in the next place he had been false to the little Frederic, whose right he had vowed to defend, and was thus perjured, though the princes who had sworn allegiance to the child were not so. Then follows a tremendous description of Philip's family and predecessors, of their dreadful acts against the Popes and Church, of the feuds of Barbarossa with the Holy See, of the insults and injuries of which all had been equally guilty. A persecutor himself and the son of persecutors, how could the Pope support the cause of Philip? The argument is full of force and strengthened by many illustrations, but it proves above all things that Innocent was no impartial judge, but a man holding almost with passion to his own side.