Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

He married Constance of Aragon on August 15, 1209 in Messina, Sicily. Their son Henry VII was born in 1211.

On November 9, 1225, he married his second wife Yolande of Jerusalem in Brindisi, Apulia and the couple had two children, Margareta born on November 1226 and Conrad IV born on 25 April 1228.

On July 15, 1235, he married his third wife Isabella of England in Worms, Germany. They had four children - Jordon born in 1236, Anges born in 1237, Henry Otto born on February 18, 1238 and Margaret born on December 1, 1241 of whom the first two children did not survive infancy.

He was born on December 26, 1194 in Iesi, Italy, as the son of Emperor Henry VI and Constance of Hauteville and was baptised in Assisi.

During his infancy in 1196, he was elected King of the Germans by the princes at Frankfurt but Henry VI was not successful in garnering support of the princes to make his son’s succession hereditary.

His father died in September 1197 following which the otherwise strong Roman Empire went through turbulence.

On May 17, 1198, he was coroneted as King of Sicily at two years of age while Constance of Hauteville became the regent for her son. She disestablished the bond of Sicily with that of the empire and with Germany by sending back the German counsellors and giving up Frederick’s claim to the empire and the German throne. This was followed by election of two rival kings - Otto of Brunswick and Philip of Swabia.

Constance appointed Pope Innocent III as guardian of Frederick II and also as regent of the Empire of Sicily which was under the suzerainty of the papacy.

In 1208, he was declared of age and with a troop of knights, which he received through his marriage, he regained control over Sicily and south Italy, which had earlier been seized by adventurers and local barons. He was able to recover some of the regal areas that had gone out of hand during his minority. During this period, relations between him and the Pope strained.

In 1209, Pope Innocent III crowned Otto of Brunswick as the Holy Roman Emperor. During 1210-11 Otto came up as a threat to Sicily and challenged Fredrick II’s efforts and invaded the royal domain. However, Otto of Brunswick backed off when the princes of Germany dismissed Otto and elected Fredrick II as King.

In March 1212, he coronated his year old son Henry VII as the King of Sicily and left for Germany. Soon, he conquered south Germany and was re-elected as King of Germany at Frankfurt by majority of the princes which followed his coronation in Mainz on December 9, 1212.

In July 1214, he defeated Otto in the Battle of Bouvines.

In 1215, elected by the German princes, he was crowned king on July 23 in Aachen.