Excerpt from Matthew Paris's English History, Vol. 2: From the Year 1235 to 1273 The emperor gains the friendship of several princes and bles. About the same time, namely whilst the pope was staying at Gea, the Milanese and the Ligurians, as well as some Italians and Romans, and many of the bles of Germany, conspired together, at the instigation of the pope, and one of the most powerful chiefs of the latter country, whom they call the landgrave, was encouraged to assume the imperial dignity, until he should be regularly elected, and, relying on the manifold assistance of the prelates and bles, to make war against the tyrant Frederick, as a declared and general persecutor of the Church. His good name was blackened in slight degree, and it was asserted that he did t walk with a firm step in the law of the Lord, being a confederate of Saracens, keeping Saracen harlots as his concubines, and doing other things unfit and too numerous to mention. But when the said landgrave was about to make this attempt, and was deliberating with his fellow-bles, who had been summoned together for the purpose, as to what they should do, his friends told him that it would be rash to attempt it, and to trust himself to dubious chances when he w enjoyed peace and tranquillity, twithstanding whatever the pope's party promised him. And whilst their opinions were thus hanging in the balance of suspense, the emperor, by making a rapid journey, came suddenly amongst them, with only a few attendants, who knew of these occurrences, and by his arguments diverted the effeminate mind of the said land grave from his intentions, and before they parted, he and the landgrave became the closest friends and allies, and they mutually exchanged presents. Having thus managed this affair, then the emperor went away as secretly and suddenly as he had come. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
