The Historians' History of the World 07

The twenty-two-year-old king saw clearly the path he had to follow. Even in his father’s lifetime he had realised where the strength and the weakness of the empire lay; where he should continue to act in his father’s spirit, and where he must strike out on a totally different path. Henry III, like his predecessor, desired the aggrandisement of his own house; like him he endeavoured to make the royal dignity hereditary in his family, but he scorned to stoop to unworthy means. Being convinced that his endeavours were conducive to the interests of the nation rather than subversive of them, he felt his conscience clear and thought himself justified in carrying out his designs by honourable methods. He was thus constrained to avoid much in which Conrad II would have indulged himself, and the first token of this difference was Henry’s firm resolve to raise the standard of public morals by steadfastly refusing to accept gifts in return for ecclesiastical preferment.

HENRY’S EFFORTS FOR PEACE

Even during the lifetime of Conrad II, Bretislaw, duke of Bohemia, a son of Othelric, had invaded Poland and perpetrated hideous ravages in the country. The German king—either appealed to by the inhabitants in their distress, or apprehensive for his own sake of the spread of the power of Bohemia—despatched two armies in the year 1039 to attack Bretislaw in Bohemia itself, an enterprise which ended in disaster to the Germans. In order to restore his impaired credit, Henry was obliged to undertake a fresh expedition against the Bohemian duke in the following year. This he conducted with great energy, himself leading one of the two armies he had equipped. This time victory waited upon the German arms, Prague was invested and Bretislaw compelled to submit. The latter vowed allegiance and fealty to the head of the German Empire, undertook to pay tribute, and gave hostages as a guarantee of his good faith. For all that Henry was not yet free to devote his energies to the domestic affairs of the empire, for disturbances began to be rife in Burgundy and fresh dangers loomed in the Hungarian quarter. Peter, king of Hungary, had been driven out of his country, and appealed for assistance to Henry at Ratisbon; Ovo, the new king, pursued him with an army and the enemies plundered freely in Bavaria.

In consequence Henry marched to Hungary with an army in August, 1042, to demand satisfaction for the outrage. He advanced victoriously through the country, took several fortified towns, and received the oath of allegiance or fealty from the inhabitants; but he could not induce them to take back their banished king. He therefore installed another sovereign and returned at once to Germany. In the winter immediately following (1042) he hurried to Burgundy, where he tranquillised the country by his firm and clement administration of justice. Thus he quickly reduced the refractory nobles to obedience; but on the other hand fresh troubles arose in Hungary, where the people drove out the new sovereign whom Henry had installed as soon as the latter had withdrawn from the country. Ovo made repeated incursions into Bavaria and laid waste the country on both sides of the Danube. The German king, who was consequently constrained to undertake a second campaign against the Hungarians, soon put an end to the evil, and compelled the enemy not only to make reparation but to give ampler security for his good behaviour in future.

[1043-1046 A.D.]

Then at length Henry resolved to devote all his attention to internal politics. One of the greatest evils of the times was the abuse of the right of self-help, which gave birth to a rude system of government by force under which the nation was lapsing into savagery. The weaker suffered under the heaviest oppressions, and the wise king was therefore deeply concerned to remedy first of all this aspect of public affairs. To pave the way for the establishment of a system of law he convened a diet of the empire at Constance, when he returned from his second Hungarian campaign. This took place in the year 1043, and many temporal lords, as well as bishops, appeared at it. Henry III was always present at its deliberations; he fired all who were there by his own enthusiasm for peace and justice, and brought them to a unanimous decision that thenceforth legal order should be maintained in Germany. The king issued a decree to this effect with the sanction of the diet, and thus established a peace hitherto unknown in the country. To ensure a result so happy Henry had set a noble example by magnanimously pardoning all his enemies.