p so carefully in Italy
crumbling rapidly away. In his despair he turned to France and Germany
for help against the audacious Guelf. Philip Augustus, though still in
bad odor at Rome through his persistent hostility to Ingeborg, was now
an indispensable ally. He actively threw himself into the Pope's
policy, and French and papal agents combined to stir up disaffection
against Otto in Germany. The haughty manners and the love of the young
King for Englishmen and Saxons had already excited disaffection. It
was believed that Otto wished to set up a centralized despotism of
court officials, levying huge taxes on the model of the Angevin
administrative system of his grandfathers and uncles. The bishops now
took the lead in organizing a general defection from the absent
Emperor. In September, 1211, a gathering of disaffected magnates,
among whom were the newly made king Ottocar of Bohemia and the dukes
of Austria and Bavaria, assembled at Nuremberg. They treated the papal
sentence as the deposition of Otto, and pledged themselves to elect as
their new king Frederick of Sicily, the sometime ward of the Pope. It
was not altogether good news to the Pope that the German nobles had,
in choosing the son of Henry VI, renewed the union of German and
Sicily. But Innocent felt that the need of setting up an effective
opposition to Otto was so pressing that he put out of sight the
general in favor of the immediate interests of the Roman see. He
accepted Frederick as emperor, only stipulating that he should renew
his homage for the Sicilian crown, and consequently renounce an
inalienable union between Sicily and the Empire. Frederick now left
Sicily, repeated his submission to Innocent at Rome, and crossed the
Alps for Germany.

Otto had already abandoned Italy to meet the threatened danger in the
North. Misfortunes soon showered thick upon him. His Hohenstaufen
wife, Beatrice, died, and her loss lessened his hold on Southern
Germany. When Frederick appeared, Swabia and Bavaria were already
eager to welcome the heir of the mighty southern line, and aid him
against the audacious Saxon. The spiritual magnates flocked to the
side of the friend and pupil of the Pope. In December, 1212, followed
Frederick's formal election and his coronation at Mainz by the
archbishop Siegfried. Early in 1213 Henry of Kalden appeared at his
court. Henceforward the important class of the ministeriales was
divided. While some remained true to Otto, others grad