excommunicative Hildebrand), has impressed itself on all memories!
Poor Henry rallied out of that abasement, and dealt a stroke or
two on Hildebrand; but fell still lower before long, his very Son
going against him; and came almost to actual want of bread, had
not the Bishop of Liege been good to him. Nay, after death, he lay
four years waiting vainly even for burial,--but indeed cared
little about that.

Certainly this Son of his, Kaiser Henry V., does not shine in
filial piety: but probably the poor lad himself was hard bested.
He also came to die, A.D. 1125, still little over forty, and was
the last of the Frankish Kaisers. He "left the REICHS-INSIGNIEN
[Crown, Sceptre and Coronation gear] to his Widow and young
Friedrich of Hohenstauffen," a sister's son of his,--hoping the
said Friedrich might, partly by that help, follow as Kaiser.
Which Friedrich could not do; being wheedled, both the Widow and
he, out of their insignia, under false pretences, and otherwise
left in the lurch. Not Friedrich, but one Lothar, a stirring man
who had grown potent in the Saxon countries, was elected Kaiser.
In the end, after waiting till Lothar was done, Friedrich's race
did succeed, and with brilliancy,--Kaiser Barbarossa being that
same Friedrich's son. In regard to which dim complicacies, take
this Excerpt from the imbroglio of Manuscripts, before they go
into the fire:--

"By no means to be forgotten that the Widow we here speak of,
Kaiser Henry V.'s Widow, who brought no heir to Henry V., was our
English Henry Beauclerc's daughter,--granddaughter therefore of
William Conqueror,--the same who, having (in 1127, the second year
of her widowhood) married Godefroi Count of Anjou, produced our