Brienne. Frederick, notwithstanding all this, by an agree ment with Kamel, sultan of Egypt, succeeded in making a ten years' truce, and acquired for himself Jerusalem, the holy places, all the country between Joppa, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Acre, and the important seaports of Tyre and Sidon.

von Wittelsbach; but Otho IV. displeasing the pope, In- | nocent himself called Frederick to the throne of Germany. In spite of all the efforts of the party of the Guelphs, Frederick arrived in Germany in 1212, and was received with open arms by the party of the House of Hohenstaufen. The possession of the crowns of Germany and Sicily inspired Frederick with hopes of making himself master of all Italy, subduing Lombardy, and reducing the power of the spiritual monarch to the dignity of the first bishop of Christendom. But he misunderstood the spirit of his age, which was far less enlightened than himself, and still cherished prejudices which he had overcome. If the conception of the plan was great, it was equalled by his prudence in gradually preparing to carry it into effect. In 1220 he caused his eldest son Henry to be chosen king of the Romans, and appeased the anger of the new pope Honorius III. by alleging that this measure was absolutely necessary before he could proceed to the crusade which he had undertaken, and by promising that he never would unite Sicily with the empire. Disregarding the refusal of the Milanese to place the iron crown on his head, he proceeded to Rome, was crowned emperor in 1220, and as such hastened to his hereditary dominions which he had left almost as a fugitive. It was there that preparations were to be made for the crusade, but first of all it was necessary to put an end to the internal troubles of the country. By the advice of Hermann von Salza, grand master of the Teutonie order, Frederick married Iolante, daughter of John of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, and assumed his father-in-law's title. Meantime the pope granted him a delay for undertaking the crusade; his chancellor, Peter de Vinci, compiled a new code of laws, the object of which was to settle the authority of church and state, to reconcile the nobility, clergy, citizens, and peasants, and to be adapted to many different nations, Romans, Greeks, Germans, Arabs, Normans, Jews, and French, respecting as much as possible all existing institutions. For the education of his subjects, he founded a university at Naples in 1224; and the medical school at Salerno was very flourishing. The belles lettres were cultivated at his court, and Frederick himself, some of whose juvenile poems in the Sicilian dialect, at that time the most cultivated, have been preserved to our times, may be considered as one of the first authors of the refined Tuscan poetry. Many eminent artists, Nicola, Masaccio, and Tomasi da Steffani, were patronised by Frederick; and the collections of works of art at Capua and Naples were founded.

The year 1227 being fixed for the crusade, Frederick proposed before he set out to call a general diet of the empire at Cremona, to satisfy himself of the sentiments of the Lombards and be crowned as their king. But the Milanese refused, renewed their antient league with fifteen cities, and intercepted the communication with Germany by occupying the passes of the Alps. For this they were put under the ban of the empire; but Frederick hastening to the crusade, left the management of the affair to the pope, who only proposed a general amnesty, and enjoined the Lombards to furnish 400 horsemen at their expense, for two years, to join the crusade. At this juncture Honorius died, and Cardinal Hugolinus, nephew of Innocent III., was chosen pope by the name of Gregory IX. He was then eighty years of age, and, as the emperor certifies, of unblemished character, equally distinguished by piety, learning, and eloquence,' and resembling, in the energy of his will, Gregory VII.: he urged the emperor, who received the cross for the second time from his hands, to fulfil his promise, and did not hesitate to censure the luxurious way of life of the emperor and his court. A great number of pilgrims had assembled in Italy, but pestilential diseases raged among them, and the emperor himself was ill when he embarked with Louis, landgrave of Thuringia. In three days Frederick grew worse, and was obliged to land at Otranto, where Louis Landgrave died. The fleet proceeded only to the coast of the Morea, and the crusade failed. Upon this Gregory excommunicated the emperor, and laid his dominions under an interdict. Frederick however, notwithstanding the death of his wife Iolante in child-bed, set out on a new crusade in 1228; but Gregory, who had not expected this, and thought it improper for a prince under excommunication to go to the Holy War, commanded the patriarch of Jerusalem and the three orders of knights to oppose the emperor in everything, and caused Frederick's hereditary estates to be occupied and laid waste by his soldiers and John of

The city of Jerusalem, where Frederick, on the 18th May, put the crown upon his own head because no priest would even read mass, was laid under an interdict, and Frederick was even betrayed to the sultan, who gave him the first infor mation of it. Frederick hastened back to Lower Italy, and after fruitless negotiations with Gregory re-conquered his hereditary estates and defeated all the intrigues of the pope, who was at length obliged (1230) to free him from the excommunication. The Lombards alone would not hear of any terms, prevented his son Henry from going to the diet at Ravenna, and were not deceived by Gregory's exhortation to peace. While Frederick at last reconciled the pope with the Romans, the latter secretly endeavoured to induce King Henry to rebel against his father, promising that he would be received by the Lombards with open arms. Henry's party in Germany too was already considerable; but Frede rick suddenly appeared, and Henry, quite abashed, fell at his feet and entreated forgiveness. When however the infatuated young man made a second attempt, he was sent with his wife and child to imprisonment for life at San Felice, in Apulia; then to Neocastro, in Calabria; and lastly, to Martorano, where he died unreconciled, in the se venth year of his imprisonment. On this event the emperor wrote to the states of Sicily, I confess that the pride of the living king could not bend me, but the death of the son deeply affects me; and I am not the first nor the list who suffered injury from disobedient sons, and yet wept over their graves.' It is indeed a striking contrast, that almost at the same time, when Frederick sent the son of his first wife to prison, and caused him to be formally deposed at the diet at Mentz (1235), he celebrated with much pomp his third marriage with Isabella of England In 1236 he made preparations at Augsburg for an expe dition against the Lombards, in which the friendship of Ezelino, sovereign of Verona, and that of the Ghibeli.te cities of Upper Italy, was to double the strength of his little army; but a contest, which was soon ended, against Frederick, duke of Austria, the last of the house of Babenburg, interrupted in 1237 the war which was already cummenced, and the election of Conrad, his second son, as king of the Romans. After the recommencement of the war against the cities of Upper Italy devoted to the party of the Guelphs, the victory of Corte Nuova, on the Oglic, on the 26th and 27th November, 1237, broke the power of the Lombards; all the cities, except Milan, Bologna, Pacenza, and Brescia, submitted; but Gregory became more enraged, especially when the emperor made his natural son. Enzio, king of Sardinia, and prepared to subdue the rest of Lombardy. On Palm-Sunday, 1239, Gregory again excommunicated Frederick, who continued the war, but sur tained much injury by the secret perfidy of Ezelino, et which he had no suspicion. To put a complete end to the he suddenly, in 1240, turned his arms against the pope himself, penetrated through Spoleto into the states of the Church, and made the pope tremble in his capital. Ruine would have proved an easy prey if he could have subdued the last remnant of superstition in his breast; but here, and in his edicts against heretics, we see the ties which still bound Frederick in the fetters of his times. Nor did he know the spirit of Gregory, when he thought he could compel him to make peace. He wished rather, without proceeding to the last extremities, to have his cause decided in an assemb of bishops; but finding that only his most determined ene mies were invited to it, he warned all prelates against gon to Rome; and at last, when all his admonitions avane nothing, he caused the Genoese fleet to be attacked and destroyed by his son Enzio, and above 100 prelates who were on board, on their way to Rome, to be taken to Naples as prisoners. This blow at length laid the invincible Gregus on his death-bed on the 21st August, 1241; but by his death, deprived the emperor of almost certain victory.

war,

While he was engaged in these enterprises, Fredera had not been able to contend in person with the Mongols, who had penetrated into Germany, but after their victory at Wahlstadt in 1241, and their defeat at Olmutz, turne i back. After the short reign of Pope Celestine IV. and a long interregnum, Frederick at length obtained the

election of a pope; but Sinibald Fiesco, who, when cardinal, had been his friend, became, as Innocent IV., the most formidable of his enemies. He continued Gregory's excommunication, and dreading the vicinity of the emperor in Italy, fled in 1244 to Lyon. Frederick had now the alternative, either to appear as a criminal before the judgmentseat of a priest, or to commence the unequal conflict with the superstition of the age. The pope renewed the excommunication and summoned a general council to Lyon. Thaddeus of Suessa, the emperor's chancellor, defended his cause before this council with overpowering eloquence and truth, and refuted the most malicious, as well as the most absurd accusations. Frederick, accused of heresy, in vain suffered himself to be examined respecting his faith; however religious and pure he appeared, he was guilty, because it was resolved he should be so, and the pope pronounced against him the most dreadful anathema-released all his subjects from their oath, declared him to be deprived of all honours and dignities, as a perjurer, peace-breaker, robber of churches, a profaner of sanctuaries, and heretic; and he also declared that those who remained faithful to the emperor should be included in the same sentence. But Frederick showed that he was still emperor: he justified himself, as became a great sovereign, before the princes of Europe; and while Innocent was labouring for the election of the landgrave Henry Raspe of Thuringia, to the imperial throne, he fought successfully against the Lombards, defeated a conspiracy at his court, and did not lose his courage even when his son Conrad was defeated by his rival Henry. Conrad in the sequel obtained the victory, and Henry died in 1247. But what most deeply wounded him was the conduct of Peter de Vinears, who had long wavered in his fidelity, and when he found himself discovered, attempted to poison Frederick. This plan being defeated he was cast into prison, where, in despair, he dashed his head against the wall and was killed. It is to be observed, that Raumer, in his History of the House of Hohenstaufen,' considers this story of the attempt to poison the emperor very doubtful, though he does not believe that Peter was entirely innocent. The emperor, who had become mistrustful of his friends, lost Parma by an insurrection, and being defeated in a camp which he had formed before it, he lost his army, his treasures, and his friend Thaddeus of Suessa. William of Holland, though only twenty years of age, was at the instigation of Innocent elected emperor by the three Rhenish archbishops; Enzio, his son, was made prisoner by the enraged Bolognese, and Ezelin joined his enemies. His own health now declined, and he desired to die in peace; but Innocent rejected the most reasonable terms of reconciliation. Frederick's spirit was again roused: he was victorious in Lombardy, and would perhaps have humbled Innocent himself had he not been surprised by death at Fiorentino, in the arms of his natural son Manfred, on the 13th of December, 1250, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the forty-first of his reign.

FREDERICK III., emperor of Germany, son of Ernest, duke of Austria, was born at Inspruck, on the 21st September, 1415. He was not yet of age, when, according to the fashion of those days, he went on an expedition to the Holy Land. In 1435, in conjunction with his brother Albert the Prodigal, he assumed the government of his dominions, the revenues of which did not much exceed 16,000 marks. Being elevated to the throne of Germany, in 1440, on the death of his cousin Albert II., he appeared destined to take a decisive part in the great affairs of his age; but he was averse to every thing that took him out of his own narrow sphere, and was especially deficient in attachment to the interests of Germany. It is true there were many circumstances in the state of Germany, and in his own situation, which partly excuse him. At the very commencement of his reign he was engaged in war with his brother Albert, who reigned in Upper Austria, and was in danger of losing all his hereditary dominions. In different parts of Germany troubles arose, which required a more vigorous hand than his to put them down. He called several diets, chiefly to put an end to the schism in the church, which was not effected till 1447, when Felix was persuaded to abdicate, and Nicholas V. was acknowledged as lawful pope. In 1452 Frederick went to Italy, where he received the imperial crown from the pope, as well as the crown of Lombardy, along with his betrothed consort Eleanora, sister of the king of Portugal. But he did not

thereby acquire a greater degree of moral energy, or an increase of political independence; nor did he recover any of the rights of the Empire which had been torn from it by various usurpers. In 1453 he revived the archducal title in his family, and busied himself with his botanical pursuits, while the danger on the side of Turkey became more threatening. He did not make any attempt against Milan, where, after the extinction of the male line of the Visconti, the usurper Sforza had established himself. How unfortunate and unstable he was in his external policy appears from his transactions with Hungary and Bohemia, and the manner in which, with a view to recover some crown lands of which the house of Austria had been deprived, he interfered in the internal disputes of the Swiss Cantons; but not having a sufficient force of his own, and not being supported by the Empire, he called in foreign troops from France under the Dauphin, which, having been taught a lesson by Swiss valour at St. Birs Jacob, in 1444, turned their arms in part against Germany and Austria itself. In Germany he was threatened with still greater danger. In 1449 he was entangled in a quarrel, on account of the succession to the Palatinate, with Frederick, the victorious brother to the deceased Louis, who demanded the Electorate for himself instead of his nephew Philip, and being opposed by Frederick, brought over Mentz, Treves, and a number of German princes to his side, and even held out to the Bohemian George Podiebrad a prospect of obtaining the imperial crown. When his ward Ladislaus died, without children, in 1457, Lower Austria came to Frederick, Upper Austria to Albert, and part of Carinthia to Siegmund of Tyrol; but Vienna remained to all of them in common. On this death, notwithstanding Frederick's pretensions to Bohemia and Hungary, he had the mortification to see George Podie brad preferred to him in the former, and Matthias Corvinus in the latter. Scarcely had he recovered from this cause of vexation, when, in 1462, his brother Albert raised an insurrection against him in his capital Vienna, and Frederick, being besieged there, was delivered by his opponent Podiebrad. In this distress he at length, for once, manifested resolution, and declared that the palace should be his grave before he would yield to rebellious subjects. For many years he was engaged in contentions respecting the duchy of Austria, of the whole of which he obtained possession by the death of Albert in 1463. In 1468 he again went to Rome, and had several conferences with Pope Paul II., as to the means of opposing the progress of the Turks: nothing, however, was done, and he suffered them to penetrate in 1469 to Carniola, and in 1475 nearly to Salzburg, almost without opposition. His wavering policy caused the kings of Bohemia and Hungary to quarrel; but afterwards both turned their arms against him, and Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, laid siege to Vienna in 1479, and was only prevailed on to retire by Frederick's renouncing all his own pretensions to Hungary, and granting him the investiture of Bohemia, with a sum of money. It is probable that he was rendered more indifferent to the fate of his hereditary dominions by the success of his plan for the aggrandizement of his family, by the marriage of his son Maximilian with Maria of Burgundy, the rich heiress of Charles the Bald, which did not take place till 1477, after the death of Charles. In 1485 he had a new quarrel with Matthias, who took from him Vienna and all Lower Austria. Frederick withdrew to his son Maximilian in the Netherlands. In 1486 Maximilian was chosen king of the Romans, but soon afterwards was entangled in a war with France, and even with the Netherlands, on account of the guardianship of his children. In 1488 Maximilian was taken prisoner, and Frederick resolved to hasten to his assistance. On the death of Matthias in 1490, Frederick recovered Austria, but was obliged to leave the Hungarian crown to Ladislaus of Bohemia. At length, after so many defeated plans, he died on the 19th August, 1493, as some report, from a disorder contracted by a surfeit of melons; according to others, in consequence of an amputation of the leg; leaving it to his son to realise the device inscribed upon his books and his palaces, A, E, I, O, U, by which he is generally supposed to have meant Austria est Imperare Orbi Universo. When it is considered that Frederick died in the 78th year of his age, after a reign of fifty-eight years in Austria, and fifty-three as Emperor of Germany, it is surprising how small a share he had in the important events of that long period, which is rendered memorable by the taking of Constantinople by the Turks

resolved to commence a war by sea against that power: he fitted out eight frigates which had been employed against Sweden, and sent them in 1680 to capture Spanish ships, and they actually took some rich merchantmen.

We have not space, nor is it necessary to detail the proceedings of this great prince in consolidating the prosperity of his dominions and the welfare of his subjects. He died in April, 1688, leaving to his son a well-cultivated, much enlarged territory, a well-filled treasury, and an army of 30,000 excellent troops. He was twice married; first in 1647 to Louisa Henrietta, princess of Orange, a most amiable and accomplished person, author of the celebrated German hymn, Jesus mein Zuversicht.' She died in 1667. In the following year Frederick married Dorothea, duchess dowager of Brunswick Lüneberg; but though an excellent and virtuous princess, she was not liked by the people, chiefly because she was on ill terms with her step-children, especially the crown-prince. The character of Frederick, both in public and private life, has always been highly esteemed. He was kind, generous, fond of society, and though rather quick in his temper, extremely placable. As a sovereign, he appears to have justly merited the surname of the Great Elector. Some writers have blamed his frequent changes of party; but it must be recollected that a weak state, surrounded by powerful neighbours, cannot always choose its own line of politics. FREDERICK I., king of Prussia after 1701, but as elector of Brandenburg, Frederick III., was born in 1657, at Königsberg, and on the death of his eldest brother became heir apparent; but being deformed, and of a very weak constitution, his education was neglected, and his step-mother even prevailed on the elector, his father, to make a will by which he bequeathed all the acquisitions of territory which he himself had made to be divided among the children of his second wife. But this disposition did not take place, and Frederick succeeded to the whole of his father's dominions in 1688. After the death of his first wife Elizabeth Henrietta, princess of Hesse Cassel, he married, in 1684, Sophia Charlotte, princess of Hanover, sister of George I., afterwards king of England. Immediately on his succession he agreed with William prince of Orange to assist him with 6000 men in his expedition to England. In 1689 he sent 20,000 men to join the imperial army against France, whose troops laid waste the Palatinate. In 1691 he joined the grand alliance between the emperor, Spain, Holland, and England, against France, and sent 15,000 men to the Netherlands, of whom King William had the chief command. He had an interview with that monarch, which did not prove very satisfactory to either party, the characters of the two sovereigns being essentially different. William, cold, simple in his manners, and solid in his views; Frederick impatient, entertaining a high opinion of his own greatness, and punctual in the observance of all points of etiquette. He also assisted the emperor with 6000 men against the Turks for a subsidy of 150,000 dollars. At the treaty of Ryswick, the conditions of the treaties of Westphalia and St. Germain, relating to Brandenburg, were confirmed. By negotiations with various powers, or by purchase, he obtained several additions to his dominions, and a prospect of others. In 1703 he took possession of the town of Elbing, which had been already mortgaged to the Great Elector for 400,000 dollars, which sum had not been repaid. The grand object of his ambition was to obtain the title of king of Prussia, that being the only part of his dominions of which he had the absolute sovereignty. He did not make known his design till the war of the Spanish Succession, when he made it a principal condition of his assisting the emperor, that he should be recognised king of Prussia, to which the emperor consented in a treaty, signed in November, 1700. For this he renounced the arrears of the subsidy due by Austria, and engaged to maintain 10,000 men at his own expense in the war of the Succession; in all the affairs of the empire to vote with Austria; at the election of an emperor, always to give his vote to an Austrian prince; and not to withdraw his German states from their obligation to the empire. On the 18th January, 1701, he put the crown on his own head, and also on that of his consort, who was not gratified with this elevation. On this occasion he founded the order of the Black Eagle. Frederick, as the ally of Austria, sent 20,000 men to the Rhine and 6000 to Italy, who distinguished themselves in the battles of Blenheim, Turin, &c. Frederick did not live to see the end of this war, as he died on the 25th of February, 1713, before

the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht. Though he was chiefly actuated by personal vanity to assume the royal dignity, his illustrious descendant speaks of this step as having eventually raised the house of Brandenburg to its independence of Austria. He was more justly to be blamed for his excessive love of external pomp, for the lavish manner in which he rewarded his favourites, and for having purchased the royal dignity on such humiliating conditions. It must be added in his praise, that in compliance with the wishes of his queen, he gave great encouragement to arts and sciences. He founded the University of Halle, and the Academy of Sculpture and Painting at Berlin. He enlarged his capital by adding to it the suburb called Friederichstadt, built the palace of Charlottenburg, in honour of his second wife, and founded in 1705 the Supreme Court of Appeal. Notwithstanding his failings and weakness, he was naturally of a kind disposition, and merits much praise for having been able, in those critical times, to preserve his dominions from the horrors of war. FREDERICK WILLIAM I., king of Prussia, son of Frederick I., was born in 1688. At a very early age he manifested a predilection for military exercises: at the age of five years he was sent to Hanover to be brought up with the electoral prince, afterwards George II. of England. The court of his grandfather, where the mode of living was strictly economical, simple, and without the restraints of rigid etiquette, pleased the young prince much more than the formal magnificence of his father's court. He served in the allied army against the French, and distinguished himself at the siege of Menin and the battle of Malplaquet. In 1706 he married the princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. His character being in many respects directly the reverse of that of his father, he commenced, immediately on his accession on the 25th February, 1713, to retrench the luxury that had prevailed in the preceding reign; he reduced the salaries of persons in office, limited their number, and endeavoured to introduce order into the finances. In his own person he set an example of the utmost plainness of apparel, and laid aside all the formalities of his station; while the queen and princesses were allowed to wear only dresses of the simplest kind. He devoted himself to public business, examined everything, was easy of access, and received and answered letters from the meanest of his subjects; but he was austere and arbitrary, and carried to the utmost extent his ideas of the divine right of kings. Tbough he repeatedly declared the republican constitution of Holland to be a model for all states, and boasted that he was himself a true republican, he was very far from allowing any check on his own power. His reforms in the finances and expenditure enabled him to gratify his most ardent wish, of keeping a great military establishment, and he laid the foundation of that strict discipline and regularity by which the Prussian troops have been since so greatly distinguished. His childish passion for tall soldiers is well known. No expense was spared in order to gratify it; men of gigantic stature were picked up in all the neighbouring states, and many were even kidnapped or forced into his service, by which he involved himself in many serious quarrels. This economy of his internal administration enabled him to repeople those provinces which were desolated by the plague, by means of colonies from other states, which he settled on very advantageous terms. He was liberal in rewarding the industry and ability of those who introduced any new art, and many of the richest manufac tories in the Prussian dominions owe their foundation to him. But he had a mortal aversion to all abstract sciences, and even to poetry and literature; and he expelled the celebrated philosopher Wolf for his metaphysical opinions. He erected many public buildings at a considerable expense, but built little, and with great economy, for himself and his court. He founded the Medico-Chirurgical College, the Charité, and the Foundling Hospital at Berlin, the Berlin Cadet Establishment, and the Orphan House at Potsdam; the emigrants from Salzburg and the Polish dissidents met with a favourable reception in his dominions. On the other hand the Berlin academy and the universities narrowly escaped dissolution. The details of his private life have been given at great length by his daughter, the Margravine of Baireuth; and his character is portrayed in a few happy touches by Voltaire (Mémoires, &c. écrits par lui-même). The public events of his reign were of no great importance. In the treaty of Utrecht, France and Spain recognised his