nto Italy, he did not succeed in pacifying the country,
nor in delivering it from the Saracens. He was equally unfortunate in
Gaul and in Germany against the Norsemen, who in 886-887 besieged Paris.
The emperor appeared before the city with a large army (October 886),
but contented himself by treating with them, buying the retreat of the
invaders at the price of a heavy ransom, and his permission for them to
ravage Burgundy without his interfering. On his return to Alamannia,
however, the general discontent showed itself openly and a conspiracy
was formed against him. He was first forced to dismiss his favourite,
the chancellor Liutward, bishop of Vercelli. The dissolution of his
marriage with the pious empress Richarde, in spite of her innocence as
proved by the judicial examination, alienated his nobles still more from
him. He was deposed by an assembly which met at Frankfort or at Tribur
(November 887), and died in poverty at Neidingen on the Danube (18th
January 888).

See E. Dummler, _Geschichte des ostfrankischen Reiches_ vol. iii.
(Leipzig 1888).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] This surname has only been applied to Charles since the 13th
century.

CHARLES IV. (1316-1378), Roman emperor and king of Bohemia, was the
eldest son of John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, and Elizabeth, sister
of Wenceslas III., the last Bohemian king of the Premyslides dynasty. He
was born at Prague on the 14th of May 1316, and in 1323 went to the
court of his uncle, Charles IV., king of France, and exchanged his
baptismal name of Wenceslas for that of Charles. He remained for seven
years in France, where he was well educated and learnt five languages;
and there he married Blanche, sister of King Philip VI., the successor
of Charles IV. In 1331 he gained some experience of warfare in Italy
with his father; and on his return to Bohemia in 1333 he was made
margrave of Moravia. Three years later he undertook the government of
Tirol on behalf of his brother John Henry, and was soon actively
concerned in a struggle for the possession of this county. In
consequence of an alliance between his father and Pope Clement VI., the
relentless enemy of the emperor Louis IV., Charles was chosen German
king in opposition to Louis by some of the princes at Rense on the 11th
of July 1346. As he had previously promised to be subservient to Clement
he made extensive concessions to the pope in 1347. Confirming the papacy
in the possession of wide terri