claim that he was the only
legitimate king, and sentenced both the princes, then but sixteen years
of age, to be publicly beheaded in the market-place at Naples.

Conradin was playing at chess in prison when the news of this unjust
sentence was brought to him. He calmly listened to it, with the courage
native to his race. On October 22, 1268, he, with Frederick and his
other companions, was conducted to the scaffold erected in the
market-place, passing through a throng of which even the French
contingent looked on the spectacle with indignation. So greatly were
they wrought up, indeed, by the outrage, that Robert, Earl of Flanders,
Charles's son-in-law, drew his sword, and cut down the officer
commissioned to read in public the sentence of death.

"Wretch!" he cried, as he dealt the blow, "how darest thou condemn such
a great and excellent knight?"

Conradin met his fate with unyielding courage, saying, in his address to
the people,--

"I cite my judge before the highest tribunal. My blood, shed on this
spot, shall cry to heaven for vengeance. Nor do I esteem my Swabians and
Bavarians, my Germans, so low as not to trust that this stain on the
honor of the German nation will be washed out by them in French blood."

Then, throwing his glove to the ground, he charged him who should raise
it to bear it to Peter, King of Aragon, to whom, as his nearest
relative, he bequeathed all his claims. The glove was raised by Henry,
Truchsess von Waldberg, who found in it the seal ring of the unfortunate
wearer. Thence-forth he bore in his arms the three black lions of the
Stauffen.

In a minute more the fatal axe of the executioner descended, and the
head of the last heir of the Hohenstauffens rolled upon the scaffold.
His friend, Frederick, followed him to death, nor was the bloodthirsty
Charles satisfied until almost every Ghibelline in his hands had fallen
by the hand of the executioner.

Enzio, the unfortunate son of Frederick who was held prisoner by the
Bolognese, was involved in the fate of his unhappy nephew. On learning
of the arrival of Conradin in Italy he made an effort to escape from
prison, which would have been successful but for an unlucky accident. He
had arranged to conceal himself in a cask, which was to be borne out of
the prison by his friends, but by an unfortunate chance one of his long,
golden locks fell out of the air-hole which had been made in the side of
the cask, and revealed the stratagem to his