terms or, failing that, of fighting their way to safety. The duke had miscalculated his resources; at an interview with his vassals he discovered his mistake. They were prepared, they said, to follow him as their oath required against any man except the Emperor; but loyalty to the Emperor took precedence to loyalty to the duke. Ernest had no choice but to throw himself on Conrad's mercy; he was deprived of his duchy and imprisoned in the castle of Gibichenstein near Halle. Welf was condemned to imprisonment, to make reparation to the Bishop of Augsburg, and to the loss of a countship in the neighbourhood of Brixen.
Ernest, after less than a year's captivity, was forgiven and reinstated in his dukedom. But the course of events of 1026 was repeated in 1030. Ordered by the Emperor to execute the ban against Count Werner, who had persisted in rebellion, he disobeyed, and was, by the judgment of the princes, once more deprived of his dukedom and placed under the ban of the Empire (at Ingelheim, Easter 1030). After a vain attempt to persuade Odo of Champagne to join him, he and Werner withdrew into the Black Forest, where, making the strong castle of Falkenstein their headquarters, they lived for a time the life of bandits. At last, in August, the two rebels fell in a fierce encounter with the Emperor's troops under Count Manegold.
The rebellions of Ernest, dictated not by any dissatisfaction at Conrad's rule but rather by personal motives and rival ambitions, never assumed dangerous proportions. The fact that even the nobility of Swabia, with few exceptions, refused to follow their duke is significant of the strength and popularity of Conrad's government. The loyalty of Germany as a whole was never shaken. Duke Ernest, a little undeservedly perhaps, has become the hero of legend and romance; he has often been compared with Liudolf of Swabia, the popular and ambitious son of Otto the Great. The parallel is scarcely a fair one; Liudolf rebelled but once and with juster cause; and after his defeat, he lived loyally and died fighting his father's battles in Italy. Ernest, though twice forgiven, lived and died a rebel.
In September 1032 Rodolph III ended a weak and inglorious reign. Conrad had been solemnly recognised as heir by the late king at Muttenz five years before and had been entrusted with the royal insignia, the crown and the lance of St Maurice. Some of the Burgundian nobles had even already taken the oath of allegiance to the German king; but the majority both of the ecclesiastical and secular lords, especially in the romance-speaking district of the south, stood opposed to him. His powerful rival, Odo, Count of Blois and Champagne, had at first the advantage, for Conrad at the critical moment was busily occupied with the affairs of Poland, and when, after the submission of the Polish Duke Mesco, he hastened to Strasbourg, he found a large part of Burgundy already in the hands of the enemy (Christmas 1032). In spite of the severity of
