the Empress and Bishop Egilbert. In the following years, Henry was deputed to act against the Slavs of the North-East and against Břatislav of Bohemia. In these, his first independent campaigns, he succeeded in restoring order. In August 1034, Conrad was fully recognised as king by the Burgundian magnates, and in this recognition the younger king was included. Henry had already in the previous year come fully of age, the guardianship of Bishop Egilbert being brought to an end with grants of land in recognition of his services.
The deposition in 1035 of Duke Adalbero of Carinthia led to a curious scene between father and son. In the South the deposition was regarded as an autocratic act (Herman of Reichenau curtly notes that Adalbero "having lost the imperial favour, was deprived likewise of his duchy"); and Bishop Egilbert won a promise from his late ward that he would not consent to any act of injustice against the duke. The princes accordingly refused to agree to the deposition without Henry's consent, which Henry withheld in spite of prayers and threats from Conrad. The Emperor was overcome and finally borne unconscious from the hall; on his recovery, he knelt before Henry and begged him to withdraw his refusal. Henry of course yielded, and the brunt of the imperial anger fell on Bishop Egilbert.
In 1036, at Nimeguen, Henry wedded Kunigunda, or Gunnhild, daughter of Knut, a wedding which secured to Denmark, for over eight hundred years, the Kiel district of Schleswig. The bride was delicate and still a child, grateful for sweets as for kindness. In England songs were long sung of her and of the gifts showered on her by the English people. Her bridal festivities were held in June in Charlemagne's palace at Nimeguen, and on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul (June 29) she was crowned queen. Conrad was soon after called to Italy by the rising of the vavassors against the great lords. Henry was summoned to help, and with him went Kunigunda and Gisela. In August 1038, on the march of the Germans homeward, camp and court were pitched near the shores of the Adriatic. Here a great sickness attacked the host; among the victims was Queen Kunigunda, whose death "on the threshold of life" roused pity throughout the Empire. Her only daughter Beatrice was later made by her father abbess of the royal abbey of Quedlinburg near Goslar.
Another victim of the pestilence was Henry's half-brother Herman, Gisela's second son. His duchy of Swabia devolved on Henry, already Duke of Bavaria. To these two duchies and his German kingship was added, in 1038, the kingship of Burgundy. Then in the spring of 1039 Conrad died at Utrecht.
The position of public affairs at Henry's accession to sole rule was roughly this. There had been added to the Empire a kingdom, Burgundy, for the most part non-German, geographically distinct, yet most useful if the German king was to retain his hold upon Italy. The imperial
