accordingly pronounced to have forfeited his dukedom ; and leave was given to the archbishop of Cologne to enter the territories of the duke of Saxony with an armed force, in order to take revenge for the injuries which the duke had done him. The emperor also, with a great army, entered the territories of the duke of Saxony, and laid them waste with fire, and sword, and famine, and reduced the duke to such extremities that he placed himself at the mercy of the emperor, abjured his territory, and placed the same for seven years at the mercy of the emperor, and then came in exile to the court of Henry, king of England, his wife's father. Shortly after this, however, at the entreaty of Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff, Philip, king of Prance, Henry, king of England, and Philip, earl of Planders, the emperor remitted four years from the period of banishment which he had prescribed to the duke. In the same year died Manuel, emperor of Constantinople ; and Alexis his son, who had married the daughter of Louis, king of Prance, ascended the throne, and reigned in peace two years. However, in the meantime, his mother, Mary, daughter of Raymond, prince of Antioch, had a certain person as her paramour, who, by virtue of his office, was in the Greek language called " Protosouastos,"50 and in Latin, "Comes Palatinus ;" 5 1 whom the before-named empress loved with such a disgraceful and ungovernable passion, that she was ready to put her son Alexis, the emperor, to death, and thereby promote her lover to the imperial throne. Accordingly, on a day that seemed suitable for the purpose, she gave a poisonous draught to her son the emperor ; after drinking which, the poison, spreading its influence throughout his tender limbs, almost suffocated him on the spot : but at length, by means of the antidotes of skilful physicians, with considerable difficulty he escaped with his life. Being determined to take due precautions for the future, he sent for Androneus, the brother's son of his father Manuel, and associated him with himself on the throne ; by whose advice he seized his mother, and threw her into prison, and after she had long pined in prison, caused her to be tied up in a sack, and, an anchor being fastened to her neck, to be drowned in that part of the sea which 4 0 This was the title of an officer very high in rank in the emperor's palace at Constantinople. 5 1 " Attendant in the palace." These words are however generally rendered " Count Palatine."