No sooner was Constance dead than the Germans came back to their prey.  The fierce Markwald, driven from Romagna by the papal triumph, claimed the regency and the custody of the King.  The Saracens and Greeks of Sicily, still numerous and active, joined the Germans.  Walter, Bishop of Troja, Chancellor of Sicily, weaved deep plots against his master and his overlord.  But the general support of the Church gave Innocent a strong weapon.  Roffrid, Abbot of Monte Casino, a tried friend of Henry VI, declared for Innocent against Markwald, who in revenge besieged the great monastery, until a summer storm drove him baffled from its walls.  But the purchased support of Pisa gave Markwald the command of the sea, and Innocent had too many schemes on foot and too little military power at his command to be able to make easy headway against him.

At last Innocent had reluctant recourse to Count Walter of Brienne, the French husband of Tancred’s daughter Albina, and now a claimant for the hereditary fiefs of Tancred, Lecce, and Taranto, from which, despite Henry VI’s promise, he had long been driven.  For almost the first time in Italian history, Frenchmen were thus called in to drive out the Germans.  But it was then as afterward a dangerous experiment.  Walter of Brienne and his small French following invaded Apulia, and fought hard against Diepold of Acerra, another of King Henry’s Germans.  Meanwhile Markwald, now in open alliance with the Bishop of Troja, made himself master of Sicily and regent of the young King.  His death in 1202 removed the most dangerous enemy of both Innocent and Frederick.  But the war dragged on for years in Apulia, especially after Diepold had slain Walter of Brienne.  The turbulent feudal barons of Apulia and Sicily profited by this long reign of anarchy to establish themselves on a permanent basis.  At last Innocent sent his own brother, Richard, Count of Segni, to root out the last of the Germans.  So successful was he that, in 1208, the Pope himself visited the kingdom of his ward, and arranged for its future government by native lords, helped by his brother, who now received a rich Apulian fief.  It was Innocent’s glory that he had secured for Frederick the whole Norman inheritance.  It was amid such storms and troubles that the young Frederick grew up to manhood.

In Central and Northern Italy, Innocent III was more speedily successful than in the South.  On Philip of Swabia’s return to Germany, Tuscany and the domains of the Countess Matilda fell away from their foreign lord, and invoked the protection of the Church.  The Tuscan cities formed themselves into a new league under papal protection.  Only Pisa, proud of her sea power, wealth, and trade, held aloof from the combination.  It seemed as if, after a century of delays, the papacy was going to enjoy the inheritance of Matilda,[55] and Innocent eagerly set himself to work to provide for its administration.  In the north the Pope maintained friendly relations with the