t the
ambition of the great count was ignorant of these noble pursuits; it
was gratified by the vulgar means of violence and artifice. He sought to
obtain the undivided possession of Palermo, of which one moiety had been
ceded to the elder branch; struggled to enlarge his Calabrian limits
beyond the measure of former treaties; and impatiently watched the
declining health of his cousin William of Apulia, the grandson of
Robert. On the first intelligence of his premature death, Roger sailed
from Palermo with seven galleys, cast anchor in the Bay of Salerno,
received, after ten days' negotiation, an oath of fidelity from the
Norman capital, commanded the submission of the barons, and extorted a
legal investiture from the reluctant popes, who could not long endure
either the friendship or enmity of a powerful vassal. The sacred spot
of Benevento was respectfully spared, as the patrimony of St. Peter;
but the reduction of Capua and Naples completed the design of his uncle
Guiscard; and the sole inheritance of the Norman conquests was possessed
by the victorious Roger. A conscious superiority of power and merit
prompted him to disdain the titles of duke and of count; and the Isle of
Sicily, with a third perhaps of the continent of Italy, might form the
basis of a kingdom which would only yield to the monarchies of France
and England. The chiefs of the nation who attended his coronation at
Palermo might doubtless pronounce under what name he should reign
over them; but the example of a Greek tyrant or a Saracen emir was
insufficient to justify his regal character; and the nine kings of
the Latin world might disclaim their new associate, unless he were
consecrated by the authority of the supreme pontiff. The pride of
Anacletus was pleased to confer a title, which the pride of the Norman
had stooped to solicit; but his own legitimacy was attacked by the
adverse election of Innocent the Second; and while Anacletus sat in
the Vatican, the successful fugitive was acknowledged by the nations of
Europe. The infant monarchy of Roger was shaken, and almost overthrown,
by the unlucky choice of an ecclesiastical patron; and the sword of
Lothaire the Second of Germany, the excommunications of Innocent, the
fleets of Pisa, and the zeal of St. Bernard, were united for the ruin of
the Sicilian robber. After a gallant resistance, the Norman prince was
driven from the continent of Italy: a new duke of Apulia was invested by
the pope and the emp