Philip was twenty-two years of age, Otho twenty-three. "In personal character," say the chroniclers, "in wealth, and in the number ofhis adherents, Philip had the advantage. He was praised for his moderation and his love of justice. His mind had been cultivated by literature to a degree then very unusual among princes, and his popular manners contrasted favorably with the pride and roughness of Otho. But Otho was the favorite with the great body of the clergy, to whom Philip was obnoxious, as the representative of a family, which was regarded as opposed to the interests of the hierarchy."
But what, the reader may be supposed to inquire—what of the young Frederick who had been crowned and anointed, and to whom both princes and prelates had sworn allegiance and over whose rights the pope was handsomely paid to keep watch and ward? The only answer to this inquiry is to be found in the secret but perfidious policy of Innocent. His one grand object in allowing, if not in creating, this great national quarrel for the imperial crown, was the humbling of the haughty house of Swabia, and every subordinate consideration must be sacrificed to the limitation of that power. But the elastic conscience of the papacy never was at a loss for an apparently pious reason for the perpetration of the greatest wickedness, or the most faithless and treacherous conduct. Innocent could not deny, and therefore makes a show of lofty equity in admitting, the claims of Frederick. This was the dragon's voice. He admits the lawfulness of his election, and the oath of allegiance taken by the nobles of the empire. But, on the other hand, he discovers that the oath was exacted by the father before the child was a Christian by baptism. He decreed that a child of two years old, unbaptized, was a nullity: therefore their oaths were null and void, and all obligation to the young heir was entirely set aside.
What a character, we may exclaim, for posterity to contemplate! He who assumed to be "the representative of God's eternal and immutable justice upon earth, absolutely above all passion or interest," now absolves the whole constituency of Germany from the most solemn oath of fealty to the legitimate heir of the kingdom. In place of maintaining the rights of his ward—to whom he wrote when he accepted the charge, "that though God had visited him by the death of his father and mother, he had provided him with a more worthy father—His own vicar on earth; and a better mother—the church"—rebuking the rival parties, and persuading them to peace; we see him fomenting the animosities of both, we see justice, truth, righteousness, peace, and every claim of humanity, all wantonly sacrificed, in the hope of increasing and consolidating the papal power. The crafty pope kept behind the scene, but stirred up and fed the flame of contention, knowing that both parties would be compelled, from the loss of blood and treasure, to lay their cause at his feet, and then he could come forward as the sovereign director of kings, and dictate his own terms. These convictions are fully borne out by the following judgment of Dean Milman: "Ten years of strife and civil war in Germany are to be traced, if not to the direct instigation, to the inflexible obstinacy of Pope Innocent III."