Germany
Henry of Luxemburg
Albert's unexpected death in 1308 threw open once more the question of succession. He, too, had a son who was opposed by the ecclesiastical electors. They wanted a French candidate, while at least some of the lay electors wanted Albert's son. In that stalemate, a compromise candidate was proposed: Henry of Luxemburg.
Once again the electors chose a weak monarch who was neutral rather than risk a strong king who was partisan. Luxemburg was like Habsburg and Nassau: small, weak, and unlikely to cause trouble.
Henry was elected 27 November 1308 and was crowned at Aachen on 6 January 1309. Henry had been close to King Philip of France, spending time at the court there, but his election as King of the Romans caused a rift between the two.
Soon after his election, the Kingdom of Bohemia fell into his lap. The Bohemian nobles ousted Henry of Carinthia as unsatisfactory. They then arranged a marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of the late King Wenceslaus II, to John of Luxemburg, Henry's son. John was crowned 7 February 1311. Thus, in the space of three years, the house of Luxemburg vaulted from a minor county to holding two kingdoms and the title of emperor.
Henry, meanwhile, set out to add another kingdom and to acquire that imperial title: he set out for Italy in October 1310. He was crowned King of the Lombards in Milan on 6 January 1311. He came to Italy deliberately posing as an arbiter of strife, above faction. But he came with too little money, with too small an army, and was utterly out of his depth in Italian politics. His experience in Milan illustrates this.
He recalled the Visconti, who had been exiled by the Torriani, hoping to reconcile the factions. But he was already unpopular because he'd taxed the Milanese to raise funds for his military expeditions. Guido della Torre played on this to raise a rebellion that Henry had to suppress by force of arms. Exasperated and needing to move on, he exiled della Torre and installed Visconti as signore for the town. This incident alienated other towns.
This was typical of Henry's fortunes in Italy. Every friend he made created a new enemy. Padua allied with him, but Cremona gave refuge to the Milanese rebels. Verona was loyal, but Brescia resisted and endured a four-month siege. Henry took the town, but disease cost him many men he could not afford to lose.
His most obdurate enemy was Florence, which launched a propaganda campaign, fomented rebellions, and lent aid to his enemies wherever it could. The Florentines succeeded in labelling him a Ghibelline, an installer of tyrants (Visconti in Milan, della Scala in Verona), and an enemy of freedom.
Henry could deal with Florence, but Robert of Naples, under French and papal influence, began to waver in his alliance. Robert was important to Henry's plans, for he needed someone in the south, someone with an army and money. The other possibility was the ruler of Sicily, Frederick of Trinacria, Robert's rival.
Henry was in Genoa that winter. He delegated a military commander to deal with the rebellions that kept erupting in Lombardy. He began treason proceedings against Florence. He then went to Pisa (February 1312), where Ghibelline supporters gathered to him. They then marched down the coast to Rome.
Robert had placed Angevin troops in Rome, to "protect" the churches there. When Henry arrived on 7 May, fighting broke out between the French and Germans, and their local supporters—a measure of the level of tension between the two. The Angevins held St. Peters, so Henry couldn't go there.
Instead, he was crowned Emperor on 29 June 1312 in the Lateran Palace, by two cardinals sent by Pope Clement V. He now openly allied with Frederick of Trinacria, and left Rome on 20 August. He went first to Arezzo, where he opened legal proceedings against Robert as a rebellious vassal.
From Arezzo, Henry turned on Florence. His siege of the city failed--his army was far too small--but he conquered much of the surrounding countryside, then went on to Pisa (March 1313). There he gathered up a little army of about 4000 knights and set out to invade Naples (8 August 1313). His first step was to take Siena. At the siege there he fell ill of a fever, probably malaria, and died at nearby Buonconvento on 24 August 1313. He is buried at Pisa Cathedral.
I have related Henry's story in some detail because it illustrates the difficulties of being Holy Roman Emperor in the late Middle Ages. The choice of emperor was now firmly in the hands of the electors, and they tried to choose someone who could not threaten their interests. This often, though not always, ended in choosing a minor prince.
Once chosen, though, the minor prince was now a major lord, or at least a lord with major pretensions. Henry was well educated and had learned about pretensions at the court of Philip IV of France. We see him using ancient Roman law to levy treason charges against Florence and against Robert. His first order of business was to gain the title of Emperor. He knew the importance of the pretensions.
But in reality he was still a minor prince who could mobilize only very modest resources. At every step he had to gain allies and supporters. He might have been able to do this in Germany, but he turned first to Italy and there he was over his head almost from the outset. Not even Frederick II had been able to navigate those waters without running aground. Henry, with fewer resources and less wit, ran into those shoals and sank there.