Both in Germany and in Italy Innocent had to carry on his
struggle against Conrad, Frederick's son. After Conrad's death, in
1254, there was still Frederick's strenuous bastard, Manfred, to be
reckoned with in Naples and Sicily. Innocent IV. died in 1254, but his
successor, Alexander IV., continued his policy. A papalist King of
Naples was wanted to withstand Manfred, and also a papalist successor
to the pope's phantom King of the Romans, William of Holland, who died
in 1256.
Candidates to both crowns were sought for in England. Since 1250
Innocent IV. had been sounding Richard, Earl of Cornwall, as to his
willingness to accept Sicily. The honourable scruple against hostility
to his kinsman, which Richard shared with the king, prevented him from
setting up his claims against Conrad. But the deaths both of Conrad and
of Frederick II.'s son by Isabella of England weakened the ties between
the English royal house and the Hohenstaufen, and Henry was tempted by
Innocent's offer of the Sicilian throne for his younger son, Edmund, a
boy of nine, along with a proposal to release him from his vow of
crusade to Syria, if he would prosecute on his son's behalf a crusading
campaign against the enemies of the Church in Naples.
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