of Italy at Pavia; and had an interview with pope Adrian IV. at Sutri, to whom, somewhat unwillingly, he paid the homage of holding his stirrup. He then re-established his holiness in Rome, whence he had been expelled by a tumult, received the Imperial crown from his hands, and then returned to Germany, where his presence was required to restore the public peace, which had been violated by a quarrel between the archbishop of Mentz and the countpalatine of the Rhine. This he effected, and called a diet at Besançon. The pope's legates who attended that meeting gave so much offence by reading a letter from him, in which he pretended that he had conferred the empire upon Frederic by his own free grace, that they were ignominiously driven out, and the emperor publicly gave the lye to the pontifical pretensions. This dispute was compromised, and Frederic then reduced to obedience Boleslaus duke of Poland, who had asserted his in dependence. Having by his vigorous measures pacified all Germany, he again, in 1158, proceeded with a powerful army to Italy, where the claims of the empire met with a pertinacious opposition. "Frederic," says Gibbon, "invaded the republics of Lombardy, with the arts of a statesman, the valour of a soldier, and the cruelty of a tyrant. The recent discovery of the pandects had renewed a science most favour able to despotism; and his venal advocates proclaimed the emperor the absolute master of the lives and properties of his subjects." He everywhere arrogated the rights of unlimited sovereignty, and carried fire and sword through those places which ventured upon opposition. While he was thus engaged, pope Adrian died, and the new election gave rise to a schism. The majority of cardinals chose Alexander III. but a party, supported by the Romans, nominated Victor IV. The emperor called a council at Pavia to decide between the competitors. Alexander refused to submit his cause to their decision; and when they had declared in favour of Victor, he excommunicated the emperor and all his adherents. He was acknowledged by the kings of France and England, and by the states of Lombardy; but from the superiority of Frederic in Italy, was obliged to take refuge in France. The emperor, meanwhile, occupied himself in reducing the revolters, and though his arms underwent a check, he made himself master of Milan in 1163, and gratified his resentment by razing the city to the ground, sparing only the churches. This severe example put an end to farther opposition in Lombardy, and he returned to Germany, where the usual disorders had begun to prevail. These he ap

peased, and then set out to meet Lewis the Young, king of France, at a council to be held for terminating the papal schism; but it proved ineffectual. The reluctant obedience of the Italian towns soon gave way in his absence; and when in 1164 he again crossed the Alps, he found so formidable a league against him, that he was obliged to employ policy rather than force to counteract it. The cruel exactions, however, of his officers, in the places where his authority was still acknowledged, augmented the general detestation in which his government was held. He returned to Germany, and in the mean time pope Alexander was escorted to Ronte by the king of Sicily, and took quiet possession of his see. Frederic revisited Italy, and various actions ensued between his troops and those of the revolters. He penetrated to Rome, which he entered in a hostile manner, and Alexander was obliged to make his escape in the habit of a pilgrim to Beneventum. The new antipope Paschal was seated in the chair, and crowned the emperor with his empress Beatrice. His success was, however, brought to a period by the plague, which made such ravages in his army, that he was constrained to commence a hasty retreat, which he did not effect without great difficulty. He reached Alsace with the wreck of his army, while the confederates in Lombardy took the opportunity of strengthening themselves, and pope Alexander received succours from Manuel the Greek emperor. Frederic occupied himself for some time in appeasing the disorders of Saxony, where the nobles had taken up arms against their duke, and in procuring the election of his eldest son Henry to the dignity of king of the Romans. He then sent the archbishop of Mentz with an army into Italy, who, notwithstanding some successes, was unable to break the confederacy of the towns. The emperor was detained some time longer by the troubles in Bohemia, where he was obliged to depose the king Ladislaus for his misconduct. He then once more marched into Italy, and reduced several towns; but at length fortune turned against him, and he was totally defeated in a battle at Signano. About the same time his son Henry lost a battle at sea against the Venetians, in which he was taken prisoner. His cause in' Italy was now in such a state, that he proposed an accommodation with pope Alexander, and accordingly they had an interview at Venice in 1177. The emperor behaved with great submission to his holiness, who absolved him from all ecclesiastical censures, and communicated with him. Some historians have asserted, that on this occasion the pope, while the emperor was prostrate before

him, insolently set his foot upon his neck, repeating the text, "Thou shalt tread upon the asp and the basilisk, and shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon;" but others regard this as a fable. This reconciliation was followed by the treaty of Constance, in which Frederic confirmed the freedom of four-andtwenty cities, with a reservation of his rights as sovereign. The disturbances in the empire rsised by Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony, next engaged Frederic's attention. On account of that prince's non-appearance at the diet of Worms, he was put to the ban of the empire, stript of all his dominions, and obliged to take refuge with his father-in-law, Henry II. king of England. In 1183, the treaty of Placentia confirmed the agreement made between the emperor and the Lombard towns. New troubles, however, arose in Italy, on account of Frederic's refusal of granting to the successive popes, Lucius III. and Urban III., the sovereignty of the countess Matilda's estates, called St. Peter's Patrimony. He seized the greatest part of this property, and by the marriage of his son Henry with the heiress of William king of Sicily, so far strengthened his interest in Italy, that the popes, though they had many causes of complaint against him, were afraid of proceeding to extremities. Frederic continued to support with a high hand the imperial prerogatives in Germany and the North, but was unable to prevent Canute king of Denmark from withdrawing, not only his Danish dominions, but those of Vandalia, from the sovereignty of the empire.

The news of the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin suspended domestic quarrels among the Christians; and the emperor, as the first prince in Christendom, took the cross in 1188, with his son Frederic, and a number of the principal nobles of Germany. Assembling an army of 160,000 men in the plains of Hungary, the aged chief proceeded at their head to the territories of the Greek emperor. The fears or perfidy of Isaac Angelus induced him to violate the promises of friendship which he had made, and the march of the Western host through his country was impeded by every act of hostility and ill-will. Frederic was compelled against his will to act as an enemy, and make his way by force. At length, with a greatly reduced army, he reached the Turkish frontier, took the city of Iconium, crossed mount Taurus, and was proceeding in a career of victory, when an accident brought his eventful life to a close. Tempted by the heat to bathe in a river of Cilicia, which is generally represented as the Cydnus, but was probably a less famous stream, he was carried away by the current, and drowned. This

event took place in 1190, in the sixty-ninth year of Frederic's age, and thirty-eighth of his reign. His enterprise would probably have proved fatal, even had he escaped this misfortune; for his son, the duke of Suabia, and the greatest part of his army, afterwards perished of a pestilential disease before the walls of Acre. Besides the vigour and capacity in action displayed by this great prince, he possessed some literary talents, and drew up memoirs of his own life, which he gave to the historian Otho, bishop of Frisingen. Moreri. Univers. Hist. Gibbon.-A.

FREDERIC II., emperor, grandson of the preceding, and son of the emperor Henry VI. by Constance of Sicily, was born in 1194. He was created king of the Romans in his cradle, but the premature death of his father prevented his succession at the first vacancy. He was educated with great care by his mother, and became extraordinarily learned for the age, having acquired the Greek, Latin, German, French, and Saracenic languages. His hereditary possessions were very considerable, including the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, and dukedom of Suabia, and other German territories. When the emperor Otho was excommunicated by the pope, young Frederic, by a partial election, was declared emperor in December, 1210; and after some years of contest, he became peaceable possessor of the Imperial throne by the retreat and subsequent death of Otho. He was solemnly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1215, and employed himself in composing the remaining disturbances in Germany. In 1220 he crossed the Alps, and proceeded to Rome to receive, according to stom, the crown from the hands of the pope, who was then Honorius III. At his coronation he swore to defend the possessions of the holy see, including the fiefs of the countess Matilda and the county of Fondi, and also to cross over into Asia with an army of crusaders at the requisition of the pope. He then marched into Naples, where the brothers of the late pope Innocent had excited a revolt, and soon reduced the country to his obedience. Then, carrying his troops into Sicily, he obliged the rebellious Saracens in that island to surrender, and transported them to the continent. The papal claims of sovereignty over the kingdom of Naples soon involved Frederic in disputes with the court of Rome, which brought upon him ecclesiastical censures. The difference, however, was accommodated; and the emperor, as an earnest of his sincere intentions of going in person to the Holy Land, according to his promise, engaged, upon the death of his wife Constance of Arragon, to marry the daughter of John de Brienne, king

of Jerusalem. A confederacy of the Lombard towns against the Imperial authority occupied him some time, and he held an assembly at Cremona in 1226, and marched to Milan, but was not able to obtain admission into that city. A treaty in 1227, mediated by the pope, produced a temporary cessation of these disturbances. Gregory IX., who now succeeded to the papacy, urged Frederic to his crusade with so much importunity, that at length he set sail from Brundusium, but through real or pretended illness put back in a few days. The pope was so much incensed at this proceeding, that he fulminated a sentence of excommunication against the emperor, who, on his part, ravaged the lands of the church, and took vengeance on all the ecclesiastics who adhered to the papal cause. He also excited the Frangipani and other Roman nobility to commit hostilities against Gregory, who was obliged to take refuge in Perugia. On this occasion the parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines, which had lain dormant from the time of Conrad III., revived with great animosity in the Italian towns. In 1228 Frederic embarked in earnest for the Holy Land, leaving the duke of Spoleto as his lieutenant in Italy, who, on the pope's refusal to come to an accommodation, ravaged St. Peter's Patrimony with an army of Germans and Saracens. The pope's indignation pursued the emperor to Jerusalem; and through his suggestions, the grandmasters of the military orders refused to obey Frederic as commander-in-chief. He therefore found himself obliged to make a ten-years' truce with Meledin sultan of Egypt, on condition that the Christians should retain Jerusalem, in which city he was crowned. Upon his return to Italy his treaty was disavowed by the pope, who persisted in violent enmity to him, and endeavoured to procure the election of a new emperor. A reconciliation was, however, effected in 1230, after which Frederic employed himself in attempting to reduce the revolted cities in Lombardy. In the mean time his son Henry, king of the Romans, formed a conspiracy against him, which obliged him to visit Germany. He held a diet at Mentz, in which his son was convicted of rebellion, and was in consequence sent to Sicily. Frederic having composed the German disturbances, returned to Italy; and finding his son engaged in a new conspiracy, he imprisoned him in a castle of Apulia, where he soon after died. He then invaded the dominions of the duke of Austria, his son's accomplice, took Vienna, where he founded the university now subsisting, and having procured the election of his son Conrad as king of the Romans, returned with a powerful army to Italy. He obtained a

considerable victory over the Lombard league, and treated the vanquished with great severity. He now became so formidable that the pope again openly took part against him, and renewed his excommunication. A furious war succeeded, which spread throughout Italy, almost every town being ravaged alternately by the two hostile factions. Gregory at length died; but Innocent IV., who succeeded after a considerable vacancy, continued the quarrel, and excommunicated the emperor in 1245. Troubles were excited against him in Germany, where the pope's party elected a new king of the Romans. An attempt was also made to poison the emperor, but was rendered abortive by a timely discovery. Frederic's obstinacy in pursuing the siege of Parma which he had undertaken, was the occasion of a total defeat of his army in 1248, which caused his party to be almost entirely deserted in the north of Italy, and brought his affairs into great disorder. He retired into his kingdom of Naples, where he died at Fiorenzuola in 1250, at the age of fifty-six. Some historians affirm that he was stiffed with a pillow by his natural son Mainfroy. Frederic II. was a prince of many splendid qualities, though tarnished by ambition, violence, and an inordinate attachment to the fair sex. He was a great patron of learning, founded several schools, and caused the works of Aristotle and other ancients to be translated from the Greek and Arabic into Latin. He himself composed poems and some other works; and has been charged with a share in the famous treatise "De Tribus Impostoribus." He was addicted to the follies of judicial astrology, and is said to have been inclined to impious and atheistical opinions; but his continued quarrels with the popes may have brought upon him this last charge. He married six wives, the last of whom was a daughter of John king of England. Moreri. Univers. Hist.-A.

FREDERIC III., emperor, son of Ernest duke of Austria, succeeded his cousin Albert II. in 1440, being then in his twenty-fifth year. The long reign of this sovereign was productive of many events important in history, but in which he had little personal share, as might be concluded from his surname of the Pacific. Towards the beginning of his reign he convoked several diets, chiefly for the purpose of terminating the schism then subsisting in the papal see. This, however, was not effected till 1447, when Felix was prevailed upon to abdicate, and Nicholas V. was acknowledged as lawful pope. Troubles arose in various parts of Germany, which the authority of the sovereign was not adequate to quell; and it soon appeared that a

more vigorous head was wanted for so turbulent a body. In 1451 Frederic visited Italy, in order to receive the Imperial crown from the pope, along with his betrothed spouse Eleanora, sister of the king of Portugal. This ceremony was performed, but it did not enable him to recover any of the rights of the empire which had been torn from it by various usurpers; and his visit left a very unfavourable impression of his talents upon the minds of the Italians. The capture of Constantinople by the Turks, and their progress in Hungary, could not rouse him to any spirited efforts for the christian cause. He was engaged for some time in domestic wars for the possession of the duchy of Austria, the whole of which he at length obtained, on the death of his brother Albert. In 1468 he again visited Rome in consequence of a vow, and held several conferences with the pope, Paul II., concerning means for resisting the progress of the Turks; but nothing of importance followed. The emperor was more intent upon the aggrandisement of his family, and the marriage of his son Maximilian to the heiress of the rich house of Burgundy. This at length took place after the death of her father, Charles the Bold; and thus Frederic, though one of the most supine and least adventurous of the Austrian emperors, had the fortune to be the author of the greatest accession of dominion his race ever acquired. This acquisition, however, seemed to render him more indifferent as to his other rights and possessions; for when Matthias king of Hungary in 1479 laid siege to Vienna, Frederic bought him off by renouncing all his own pretensions to Hungary, and granting him the investiture of Bohemia, with a sum of money. Six years afterwards, he suffered Matthias, upon a new quarrel, to take from him Vienna and all Lower Austria, while he retired from the disgraceful scene to his son Maximilian in the Low-counties. He had, however, the satisfaction soon after to see his son elected king of the Romans. Upon the death of Matthias, he obtained from his son Ladislaus the restitution of Austria; and afterwards regained Tyrol from the duke of Bavaria. At length he quitted the reins of empire, and retired to Lintz, where he occupied himself in the studies of chemistry, astrology, and astronomy. A period was put to his life in 1493, as some say, from a disorder occasioned by a surfeit of melons, according to others, from the consequence of an amputation of his leg for a cancerous ulcer. He was then in the seventy-ninth year of his age, and the fifty-fourth of his reign. His character was that of cold caution, and minute

scrupulosity, attended with low cunning, avarice, and the absence of every strong or generous emotion. He was extremely sober, plain in his apparel, devout, and moderate to a degree which, in a lower station, would have passed for philosophy. It was his favourite maxim, "That the best remedy for irretrievable losses, was oblivion;" but an emperor should not have regarded as irretrievable, what might have been recovered by industry and courage. He chose for his device the five vowels, his meaning in which has been variously interpreted. Univers. Hist. Moreri.—A.

FREDERIC I., king of Denmark, son of Christian I., was born in 1473. By his father he was made duke of Sleswick, Holstein, Stormar, and Dithmarsh; but his elder brother, king John, wrested from him half his territories. He maintained a prudent caution during the turbulent reign of his nephew Christian II.; and when that bloody tyrant was deposed in 1523, Frederic was declared king in his stead, first by the Jutlanders, and then by the rest of the kingdom. He reduced Copenhagen in 1524, and was then publicly proclaimed. He was instigated to lay claim to the crown of Sweden; but finding Gustavus Vasa so well settled in the throne that nothing but a war could dispossess him, he wisely made a treaty of mutual friendship with that sovereign. The isle of Gothland, seized by the admiral Norby, was afterwards an object of contention between the two crowns; but Frederic, by his vigour and policy, finally annexed it to his own dominions.. The progress of the Reformation in the last reign, had now brought religious differences to a crisis in Denmark; and in 1527 Frederic openly declared in favour of Lutheranism, and gave the ascendancy to that persuasion. The deposed Christian in 1531 making an attempt. for the recovery of his crown, was obliged to surrender himself prisoner, and was committed to close custody by his uncle. Frederic died in 1533, at the age of sixty. His conduct obtained for him the title of the Pacific; and the historians of his country justly praise that prudence and moderation of his government which rendered his reign prosperous and happy. He left children by both his wives, one of whom was daughter of the elector of Brandenburg, the other, of the duke of Pomerania. Moreri. Univers. Hist.-A.

FREDERIC II., king of Denmark, son of Christian III., was born in 1534. He succeeded to the crown on the death of his father in 1558; and soon after his accession joined the duke of Holstein in a war against the people of

ent.

Dithmarsh, who had made themselves independAfter a brave resistance, they were forced to submit to the law of the conqueror. Frederic next engaged in a war with Eric king of Sweden, whose embassadors, passing into Germany, he arrested, in violation of the safe-conduct he had granted them. Hostilities commenced in 1563, and were carried on with great mutual detriment and cruel devastations of both countries, till the deposition of Eric by his own subjects in 1568. Peace was then made, but upon terms so unfavourable to Sweden, that the war was renewed in 1569. A final treaty took place the next year, to the advantage of Denmark. Frederic soon after married the daughter of the duke of Mecklenburg, and thenceforth attended to the preservation of peace, and pronoting the prosperity of his dominions. He augmented the university of Copenhagen, and patronised men of learning, among whom was the celebrated astronomer Tycho Brahe. His reputation_stood high among neighbouring princes. Queen Elizabeth sent him the order of the Garter, and James VI., king of Scotland, entered into a treaty with him for obtaining in marriage his daughter Anne. He died in 1588, leaving behind him a high character, both public and private. Moreri. Univers. Hist.-A.

FREDERIC III., king of Denmark, born in 1609, was son of Christian IV. He had been archbishop of Bremen; but the death of his elder brother, a short time before that of his father, caused him to succeed to the crown in 1648. The nobility, who were become extremely powerful, made terms with him at his accession, which reduced his authority within very narrow limits; and the force of the kingdom was brought to a low condition by the wars of the late reign. A treaty with the Dutch was one of the first measures of Frederic's administration. He purchased the friendship of that nation by seizing in the port of Copenhagen a fleet of English merchant ships laden with naval stores; which step, while it involved him with the republic of England, obtained for him a subsidy and league of alliance from Holland. Several causes of difference soon arose between Denmark and Sweden, but it was not till 1657 that Frederic, stimulated by the Dutch, declared war against that country. The warlike king of Sweden, Charles-Gustavus, though at that time engaged with other enemies, soon repressed the progress of the Danes, and passing over the ice to Zealand, laid siege to Copenhagen. That capital was in a very defenceless state, and notwithstanding the courage and vigour displayed by Frederic, he was

compelled, under the mediation of England and Holland, to make a peace upon disadvantageous terms. War, however, soon broke out again, and Copenhagen was closely invested by sea and land. The Swedes took the fortress of Cronenburg, and the capital was saved only by the arrival of a Dutch fleet. Charles made one more attempt to storm it, but was repulsed with loss. The mediators again interfered, but it was not till after the death of Charles in 1660 that peace was concluded. Its terms were the restitution of all the Danish isles of the Baltic, with the district of Drontheim, while Sweden retained the isle of Rugen, and the provinces of Bleking, Halland, and Schonen.

The great event of Frederic's reign, the change of the constitution from an elective and limited to an hereditary and absolute monarchy, followed in the same year. It was brought on by divisions between the different states of the kingdom, and the insolence and selfishness of the nobles, who would not consent to take their share with the commons, of the public burthens. The part acted by the king on this occasion is variously represented, but it is generally thought that he (or rather the queen, who much surpassed him in vigour of character) secretly fomented discontents which were likely to procure an accession of power to the crown, or at least to weaken that of the nobles. When the arrogance of this body in treating the commons as vassals had stimulated that order, in conjunction with the clergy, to a resolution of laying the liberties of the nation at the king's feet, he gladly made use of the occasion, and by means of the army overawed the nobles to a concurrence in the inconsiderate project. All the rights and privileges of the states were solemnly surrendered, and the king and royal family received the homage of the different orders in a public theatre erected for the purpose. The revolution was entirely bloodless; and whatever stain may attach to the Danish nation for this dereliction of their liberties, few political moralists will be found to blame the king for accepting the power so unconditionally offered him. It should be added, that he never abused their gift. The remainder of his reign was spent in forming political alliances, and restoring prosperity to his country by the arts of peace. The intimate connection between Holstein and Sweden, was the principal cause of his disquiet; and he was preparing to support his cause by arms, when he was carried off by a chronical disorder in 1670. By his 'queen, the daughter of George duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg, he left a numerous posterity. merous posterity. Univers. Hist.-A.