n the 8th of
March, 1198, at Muehlhausen, their choice fell on Philip the Arabian,
who took the title of Philip II.

Many of the magnates had absented themselves from the diet at
Muehlhausen, and an irreconcilable band of partisans refused to be
bound by its decisions. Richard of England now worked actively for
Otto, his favorite nephew, and found support both in the old allies of
the Angevins in the Lower Rhineland and the ancient supporters of the
house of Guelf. Germany was thus divided into two parties, who
completely ignored each other's acts. Three months after the diet of
Muehlhausen, another diet met at Cologne and chose Otto of Brunswick
as King of the Romans. Three days afterward the young prince was
crowned at Aachen.

A ten-years' civil war between Philip II and Otto IV now devastated
the Germany that Barbarossa and Henry VI had left so prosperous. The
majority of the princes remained firm to Philip, who also had the
support of the strong and homogeneous official class of
_ministeriales_ that had been the best helpers of his father and
brother. Nevertheless, Otto had enough of a party to carry on the
struggle. On his side was Cologne, the great mart of Lower Germany, so
important from its close trading relations with England, and now
gradually shaking itself free of its archbishops. The friendship of
Canute of Denmark and the Guelf tradition combined to give him his
earliest and greatest success in the North. It was the interest of the
baronage to prolong a struggle which secured their own independence at
the expense of the central authority. Both parties looked for outside
help. Otto, besides his Danish friends, relied on his uncle Richard,
and, after his death, on his uncle John. Philip formed a league with
his namesake Philip of France. But distant princes could do but little
to determine the result of the contest. It was of more moment that
both appealed to Innocent III, and that the Pope willingly accepted
the position of arbiter. "The settlement of this matter," he declared,
"belongs to the apostolic see, mainly because it was the apostolic see
that transferred the Empire from the East to the West, and ultimately
because the same see confers the Imperial crown."

In March, 1201, Innocent issued his decision. "We pronounce," he
declared, "Philip unworthy of empire, and absolve all who have taken
oaths of fealty to him as king. Inasmuch as our dearest son in Christ,
Otto, is industrious, discreet, st