Otto IV
Otto IV was the only Welf Holy Roman Emperor, and he lost the throne at a single battle in Flanders. Born around 1175, he was the son of Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony and Bavaria whom Frederick Barbarossa had stripped of both duchies, and of Matilda of England. He grew up largely at the court of his uncle Richard the Lionheart, who made him Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine. When Henry VI died in 1197 leaving a three-year-old son, the German princes split. The Hohenstaufen party elected Philip of Swabia; the Welf party elected Otto; and Germany had two kings for a decade. Innocent III backed Otto, on the grounds that the papacy had the right to examine the candidates and that a Hohenstaufen holding both Germany and Sicily would surround the Papal States. Otto promised in writing to respect papal territory and rights. Philip won the war and was then murdered in a private quarrel in 1208, and Otto was crowned emperor in Rome in 1209. He immediately invaded Sicily. Innocent excommunicated him in 1210 and produced the alternative: Frederick II, the boy he had been protecting, who went north in 1212 and gathered support. Otto allied with his uncle King John of England against Philip Augustus of France. At Bouvines in July 1214 the French destroyed the coalition army, and Otto rode off the field. He lost everything except Brunswick, and died there in 1218. Bouvines is one of the few medieval battles that settled a throne in an afternoon.
- Lived: 1175 CE – 1218 CE
- Nationality: German
- Roles: emperor, head_of_state, military_leader
