On an explanation being demanded, they refused to give any, and
were so arrogantly defiant that the emperor pronounced their city
outlawed, and wrathfully vowed that he would never place the crown upon
his head again until he had utterly destroyed this arrant nest of
rebels.
It was not to prove so easy a task. Frederick began by besieging
Cremona, which was in alliance with Milan, and which resisted him so
obstinately that it took him seven months to reduce it to submission. In
his anger he razed the city to the ground and scattered its inhabitants
far and wide.
Then came the siege of Milan, which was so vigorously defended that
three years passed before starvation threw it into the emperor's hands.
So virulent were the citizens that they several times tried to rid
themselves of their imperial enemy by assassination. On one occasion,
when Frederick was performing his morning devotions in a solitary spot
upon the river Ada, a gigantic fellow attacked him and tried to throw
him into the stream. The emperor's cries for help brought his attendants
to the spot, and the assailant, in his turn, was thrown into the river.
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