The Kingdom in the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

superb testimony. But he knew, even before the foundations had been laid, that another, greater storm was gathering fast. Lothair was planning his promised march on Rome, with the dual purpose of establishing Pope Innocent in the chair of St Peter and of having himself crowned Emperor. With the Abbot of Clairvaux, the weight of the western Church and the Kings of England and France behind him, he would probably succeed; and what then was to prevent his leading his army on into Sicilian domains, to rid Europe once and for all of a schismatic Pope and his only champion ?
    Once in the South, he would find no lack of support. Even more than the towns, the vassals of South Italy had always resented their Hauteville overlords. In the previous century they had been a constant thorn in the flesh of Robert Guiscard, distracting and delaying him in all his operations. But for their perpetual insurrections he would never have taken so long to conquer Sicily; he might even have ended his life as Emperor in Constantinople. Yet Robert had at least been able to exert some degree of authority; under the son and grandson who had succeeded him as Dukes of Apulia the last shreds of that authority were lost and the land had slipped back into chaos. The vassals were free to do as they wished, to fight and to lay waste, to rob and to pillage until, as the Abbot of Telese lamented, a peasant could not even till his own fields in safety.
    One thing only united them—a determination to preserve this freedom and to resist any attempt to re-establish a firm and centralised control. The fact that their suzerain was now no longer a Duke but a King had done nothing to reconcile them to the new order. To be sure, they had no love for the Empire either; but if they had to have a suzerain they liked him to be as far away as possible, and a grizzled old Emperor beyond the Alps was infinitely preferable to a determined and efficient young Hauteville on their doorstep. Almost as soon as the King had returned to Sicily in the summer of 11 31 two of the worst of them, Tancred of Conversano and Prince Grimoald of Bari, had stirred up a minor insurrection in Apulia, and by Christmas the port of Brindisi was in their hands.
    The King was in no particular hurry to bring them to heel. It was his custom to winter in Sicily whenever possible, and Cefalù was doubtless occupying much of his attention. Besides, he loved his wife and family. Queen Elvira, the daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile, had been married to him for fourteen years. We know sadly little about her except that the marriage was a happy one and that she bore her husband seven children, including the four stalwart sons on whom, during his later years, he was so much to rely. The two eldest of these boys, Roger and Tancred, had made one ceremonial appearance in Italy at Melfi in 1129, when they and their father had received the grudging fealty of the Apulian and Calabrian nobles; but for the most part mother and children remained in Sicily, where during recent summers Roger had had little chance of seeing them.
    By March 1132, however, he could no longer delay his return to the mainland. It was not only Apulian rebels who claimed his attention; a graver problem was posed by Anacletus, who met him at Salerno to discuss plans for the future. The anti-Pope was growing worried: in preparation for the imperial coming, his rival Innocent had already appeared in North Italy. There was still no immediate danger; so far as anybody knew, Lothair's army had not yet begun to march. But Rome was already alive with rumours and these, fostered by Anacletus's old enemies the Frangipani, were having an unsettling effect on the populace. To make matters worse, the moon —according to Falco, the chronicler of Benevento—had suddenly lost its splendour and turned the colour of blood; no one could call that a good sign. What was needed, Anacletus argued, was a show of strength—a reminder to the Romans that he was still