his private enemies, and that
with the Emperor's consent. But Halberstadt, which took part in one of
these plundering expeditions, suffered a terrible vengeance at the
hand of the enraged Guelf. In one destructive blaze the city, churches
and all, was reduced to ashes. In the war that he was now waging Henry
did not hesitate to call in even the Wends to his aid, but Westphalia
was soon lost to him, and only in East Saxony was he able to maintain
himself.

At a diet held in Wuerzburg in January, 1180, the Emperor laid the
question before the princes what was to be done to one who had
refused, after having been three times summoned, to come before the
imperial tribunal. The answer was that he was to be deprived of all
honor, to be judged in the public ban, and to lose his duchy and all
his benefices. Thus was final sentence passed on the chief man in
Germany next to the Emperor himself.

An imperial army was now raised and several fortresses were besieged.
No battle took place, but the fact that Frederick had a large force at
his command was sufficient to cause defection in the ranks of Henry's
allies. In 1181 the Emperor's army marched as far as Lubeck, which
city, Henry's proudest foundation, was forced to submit. The whole
region north of the Elbe followed Lubeck's example, and Henry was soon
forced to confess that his cause was hopeless. He laid down his arms,
and was summoned to a diet at Erfurt to learn his fate. Here he fell
on his knees before Frederick, who, with tears in his eyes, raised him
and kissed him in token of peace.

He was made to surrender all his possessions with the exception of
Brunswick and Luneburg. He was to go into exile, and to bind himself
by an oath not to return without the Emperor's permission. He soon
afterward passed over to Normandy, where he stayed for two years with
his father-in-law, Henry II. He then passed over with the latter to
England.

The years immediately following the Congress of Venice were, strange
to say, the most brilliant period of Frederick's reign. It was, after
all, only his ideals that had suffered, and a time of prosperity now
settled down upon the nation.

With Alexander the Emperor remained on friendly terms; but the Pope in
1181 died in exile, having been forced by the faithless Romans, as
Gregory VII had been a century before, to flee the holy city.

The peace with the Lombard towns was signed at Constance within the
six years agreed upon, on June 23, 1