son, Henry, had been crowned King of Germany as long ago as 1168.
Frederick was now anxious to secure for him the succession to the
imperial title, and hoped to find the Pope willing to crown Henry as
his father's colleague in the Empire. But although Lucius III,
Alexander's successor (1181-5), had been driven from Rome, and was
dependent on the Emperor's help, it was impossible for him or for any
Pope to agree to Frederick's wish. Two emperors at once were a
manifest absurdity, and Frederick was not likely to accept the Pope's
suggestion that he should resign in favour of his son. Moreover, there
lay between Pope and Emperor the still unsettled question of the
inheritance of the Countess Matilda. It was clear that the quarrel
must shortly be renewed. By the nature of the respective claims there
could never be more than a temporary truce. Lucius died, but his
successor, Urban III, was yet more irreconcilable. Meanwhile Frederick
had resolved on an act which would make the breach between Papacy and
Empire irreparable. The King of Sicily was William II "the Good." His
marriage to a daughter of Henry II of England (1177) had proved
childless, and the succession seemed likely to fall to Constance,
daughter of King Roger and aunt of the reigning King. She was over
thirty years of age. Frederick's defeat in 1174 had been due to his
failure to divide his enemies. Now, however, he had his chance. The
Lombards, having got all that they wanted, were quite favourable to
him. He planned to win Sicily also by a marriage between his youthful
son Henry and the almost middle-aged heiress Constance. A party in
Sicily helped him; and the marriage and the coronation of the happy
pair as King and Queen of Italy took place at Milan in January, 1186.
Not only had the Emperor knocked away the staff upon which the Papacy
had been disposed to lean its arm for more than a century; but he had
actually picked it up and proposed to use it in the future for the
purpose of belabouring the Popes. Moreover, he had really secured his