Otto IV (9 juin 1198 – 19 mai 1218)

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The third son of Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, and Matilda of England. One of two rival kings of Germany from 1198 on, sole king from 1208 on, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1209 until he was forced to abdicate in 1215. The only German king of the Welf dynasty, he incurred the wrath of Pope Innocent III and was excommunicated in 1210.
After the death of Emperor Henry VI, the majority of the princes of the Empire, situated in the south, elected Henry’s brother, Philip, Duke of Swabia, king in March 1198, after receiving money and promises from Philip in exchange for their support. Those princes opposed to the Staufen dynasty also decided, on the initiative of Richard of England, to elect instead a member of the House of Welf. Otto's elder brother, Henry, was on a crusade at the time, and so the choice fell to Otto, who was elected king by his partisans in Cologne on 9 June 1198. Otto took control of Aachen, the place of coronation, and was crowned by Adolf, Archbishop of Cologne, which was of great symbolic importance.
Otto's election pulled the empire into the conflict between England and France. Philip had allied himself with the French king, Philippe II, while Otto was supported at first by Richard I, and after his death in 1199 by his brother John. Frederick was crowned as king on 9 December 1212 in Mainz. Frederick's authority in Germany remained tenuous, however, and he was recognized only in southern Germany; in the region of northern Germany, the center of Guelph power, Otto continued to hold the reins of royal and imperial power despite his excommunication. But Otto's decisive military defeat at the Bouvines in 1214 forced him to withdraw to the Welf hereditary lands where, virtually without supporters, he died in 1218.

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