Henry IV was born on II November 1050, perhaps in Goslar, the favourite palace of his father, Emperor Henry III. ‘In the autumn the empress bore a son, thanks be to God!’ wrote the chronicler of Niederaltaich, his pious exclamation underlining the importance of this long-awaited birth of a male heir. Anxiety about the succession to the throne is already apparent in a report from 1047. Archbishop Herman II of Cologne, the emperor's trusted adviser, celebrating mass on 8 September, perhaps in the emperor's presence, called on the faithful to ‘pray that divine mercy may give the emperor a son so that the peace of the kingdom may continue’. The urgency of this need had recently been underlined by an attempt on the emperor's life. Henry III's first wife, Gunhild (daughter of Cnut the Great, king of Denmark and England), had borne him one daughter, Beatrice. (Henry appointed her abbess of Quedlinburg and Gandersheim when she was eight years old.) His second wife, Agnes of Poitou bore three more daughters – Matilda (1045), Judith (1047) and Adelaide (1048)– before bearing a son after seven years of marriage. The child was at first given the name of his grandfather, the first Salian king and emperor, Conrad II. When he was baptised in Cologne by Archbishop Herman on Easter day (31 March) 1051, the name Conrad was replaced by Henry, the name of his father and great-grandfather.