The reign of the anti-king began inauspiciously. After his coronation in Mainz (26 March) Rudolf planned to make a ‘royal journey’ through the kingdom, but it soon became clear that he had overestimated his support in the Rhineland and southern Germany, including his own duchy of Swabia. The coronation provoked riots in Mainz; the citizens of Worms refused him admission to their city; in Augsburg the bishop refused to acknowledge him as king. Once Henry returned from Italy in April, Rudolf was forced to withdraw to Saxony. His splendid reception in Merseburg (29 June), where ‘the greater and middling men from all parts of Saxony’ did homage to him, was the apogee of his reign as anti-king. He proved incapable of establishing his authority outside the province. From June 1077 until his death in October 1080 he resided there permanently, leaving Saxony only to campaign against Henry. By the end of his reign Rudolf was being described as ‘king of the Saxons’ by contemporaries who considered that the Forchheim election had caused a ‘division of the kingdom’, producing ‘a German and a Saxon kingdom’.

Immediately after the election the rival kings had sought papal support. Rudolf sent an envoy, informing Gregory VII that ‘he had been compelled to assume the government of the kingdom’ and ‘was ready to obey [the pope] in every way’. ‘Meanwhile’, the pope recalled, ‘Henry began to entreat me to help him against Rudolf. I replied that I would gladly do so, when I had heard the arguments on both sides and learned whom justice most favoured.’