seems to have accepted the conditions willingly and to have intended
to keep them. His ambition and the unexpected prospects thus opened to
him led him on regardless of consequences.

[Sidenote: Otto's failure.]

Frederick's move was perfectly successful. Otto rushed back to
Germany, and the death of his wife Beatrice did away with any
obligations of loyalty which the partisans of the Hohenstaufen might
have felt towards him. Frederick was elected and crowned (December,
1212), and renewed the old Hohenstaufen league with France. Otto
turned for help to his uncle, John of England. John was excommunicate,
but now made his peace with the Pope. Philip, at first encouraged by
Innocent to attack England and then after John's submission forbidden
to go, turned his arms against Flanders. A coalition was formed
against him, and was joined by John and by Otto; but Philip's victory
at Bouvines (July, 1214) broke up the coalition and put an end to
Otto's hopes. For the four years of life which remained to him his
power was confined to Brunswick.

[Sidenote: Frederick's acceptance.]

Meanwhile Frederick had, as it were, put the crown upon his work of
submission to the Papacy. By the Golden Bull (July, 1213), he repeated
the promises which Otto had made at Neuss in 1201 with the additions
of 1209. In 1215 he went through a second and more formal coronation
at Aachen, and took the cross in conjunction with a number of German
nobles. In 1216 he further promised, in a formal deed, that in return
for the imperial crown his son Henry should become King of Sicily,
entirely independently from himself and under the supremacy of the