Constance, the grand-daughter of their old
ruler, and Peter of Aragon, her husband, were proclaimed their
sovereigns by the Sicilians, and Charles, the son of Charles of Anjou,
fell into their hands.
Constance was generous to the captive prince, and on hearing him remark
that he was happy to die on a Friday, the day on which Christ suffered,
she replied,--
"For love of him who suffered on this day I will grant thee thy life."
He was afterwards exchanged for Beatrice, the daughter of the unhappy
Helena, whose sons, the last princes of the Hohenstauffen race, died in
the prison in which they had lived since infancy.
_THE TRIBUNAL OF THE HOLY VEHM._
The ideas of law and order in mediaeval Germany were by no means what we
now understand by those terms. The injustice of the strong and the
suffering of the weak were the rule; and men of noble lineage did not
hesitate to turn their castles into dens of thieves. The title "robber
baron," which many of them bore, sufficiently indicates their mode of
life, and turbulence and outrage prevailed throughout the land.
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