954-987 962-965 of the law, when Count Odalric's son lost his 53. An excellent opportunity had offered for asserting those sovereign prerogatives, on an occasion when their enforcement redounded equally to the honour of the Crown and the Realm's stability. Upon the resignation made by Arnoul-le-Vieux in favour of his Son, Baudouin-le-Jeune, Lothaire did not take any notice of the transaction: and, when Baudouin died, Arnoul-le-Vieux reverted to his former authority, construed by Lothaire as having been merely suspended during his Son's brief reign, though exercised in the name and on behalf of the grandson. The demise of Arnoul-le-Vieux having ensued, Lothaire treated the Fief as open; p. 697). Lo- and insisted, as he was fully justified in doing, that Arnoul-le-Jeune was bound to render homage :but the ill-advised youth refused. 965Upon the decease of Arnoul-le Vieux, (see thaire de mands the homage of Arnoul-leJeune. For the purpose of annoying Richard-sansPeur, Lothaire had gladly allied himself with Flanders, yet no real friendship could subsist between the Kings of France and Lideric the Forester's formidable descendants. The connexion through Madame Judith, the daughter of Lothaire's great-grandfather, did not produce any practical affinity. Lothaire acted as Louis d'Outremer would have done, or have tried to do, he enforced obedience by military execu invades Richard of Arnoul ren homage. tion. Raising a powerful army of French and 954-987 Burgundians, he invaded the country, and the 965-962 whole of the "Flandre Gallicante," that is to say, the entire territory extending as far as the river Lys,-fell into Lothaire's power. Young Lothaire Arnoul was expelled.-From whom, under this Flanders distress, did he seek for aid? He appealed mediates to the Norman Richard, and found a friend ders due in him, who had a right to treat Arnoul as an hereditary enemy, his own father's murderer. Some authorities assert, that Richard was co-operating with Lothaire, and had furnished a contingent as an ally; but, influenced by sentiments deserving a higher name than mere generosity, the son of Guillaume-longueépée interfered the suppliant's behalf. Arnoul rendered due homage, received his great Comitial Marchland from Lothaire's grant, and was thoroughly re-instated as Count Marcher. chapter in history. § 54. About one year after Lothaire's death, The there suddenly rises up an individual, never Lothaire's named in Lothaire's lifetime, and who, by his unexpected apparition, indicates a most important unrecorded passage in the then deceased Monarch's history; a chapter relating to an event which must have happened about the period with which we are dealing. This personage, the living witness of the matters left untold, and who attained to portentous eminence during the Capetian Revolution, is Arnulphus or Arnoul, a Canon of Laôn, then promoted to 954-987 962-965 Lothaire's clandestine marriage with a Lotharingian LadyArnulph their son. separated from Lo the See of Rheims, though stigmatised as Lothaire's bastard. Epithets now understood as implying illegitimacy, must not, during the Middle Ages, be construed as necessarily conveying the import, that the connexion subsisting between the parents was illicit. Arnulph, as we have every reason to suppose, was not a spurious child, but the issue of a marriage lawfully and honourably contracted between Lothaire and a lady, who was a cousin of Guy, Count of Soissons, and daughter of a Lotharingian Noble, probably reckoned amongst the lower nobility. Her lineage, however, is presented with much obscurity; though the references given in the standard work, from which I collect the information, might perhaps assist those skilled in French genealogies, to remove the difficulties. By this Consort, Lothaire had Arnulph, though not a word is breathed concerning him during his father's life-time; possibly, also, a Richard, of whom we have a transient notice. The latent Queen having then been separated from her husband, she became the wife of Theobald de Monte Acuto, or Montague. No cause for the dissolution of the marriage between her and Lothaire is hinted. The whole The Lady transaction has been designedly enveloped in obscurity. All we can conjecture is, that some Theobald de one of the many allegations arising out of thaire marries Monte Acuto, or Montague. canonical affinity, pre-contract, or the like, which were considered as legal grounds of nullity, helped Lothaire in slipping out of the bond when he desired to solemnize a more desirable union. 954-987 962-965 965 Italy under returns to § 55. Since Lothaire's accession, Otho had been uninterruptedly pursuing that brilliant career, which I have perfunctorily attempted to describe :-Western Christendom rescued from the Magyar pollutions.-Italy freed from State of anarchy-an Anti-pope put down :-all oppo- Otho-he sition silenced:-the Lombard power extin- Germany. guished; and from the Alps to the frontier of the Byzantine territories, Apulia and Calabria, the whole Peninsula obeyed the Saxon Emperor. The subjugation of the Roman Republic to the Cæsar constituted her charter of independence. Nay, Venice, though girded by her lagunes, courted the Latin Emperor's favour. Otho's task was however only partially accomplished, clouds were rising; but he yearned to be again present with those who loved him. Desisting for a time from his world-influential labours, he returned home. Materials exist, enabling the historian to follow him stage by stage; but, omitting all intermediate stations, we will meet him at Cologne. There were gathered together Otho's nearest and dearest kindred. Pious Matilda, King Henry's affectionate relict, the Dowager Empress, honoured as the Mother of the family. Queen Gerberga, followed by her two sons, Lo 954-987 962-965 965 The famous Cologne. thaire, the King of France, struggling against fate; and his brother Charles, the neglected boy, whose destitution was rendered more pitiable by his ilFestival at lustrious ancestry. There also Hugh Capet and Eudes, Otho's ambitious nephews, and Henry the excluded Porphyrogenitus, Otho's repentant brother, and his pleasant son Henry, so cossetted during baby-hood and boy-hood by his grandmother. All the Dukes and Banner-bearing Counts, all the great Feudatories of the Empire, hailed their Sovereign's return. And, preeminent amongst the mitred crowd arose Bruno, commanding universal respect and honour. This Court so held by Otho at Cologne was admired as the grandest spectacle which men had ever witnessed in the German Empire. Long subsisting were the traditions of the festival's splendour. Particularly, as it should seem, in Saxony, where we find them recorded in the vernacular chronicles, written centuries after the Sceptre had departed from Henry the Fowler's lineage. Yet these rejoicings were uneasy, and only disguised the anxieties, whose bitterness dashed the present pleasure. However triumphant Otho had been, he apprehended danger in Italy. Rome, fermenting: the Imperial succession not yet settled in favour of the younger Otho. And Otho therefore determined to depart from Germany for the purpose of accomplishing his last Imperial progress to the Capital of the Christian world. |