Summoned by the Pope, the young hereditary enemy of Otto's house, whom Otto already believed to be annihilated, suddenly arose against him like David against Saul. A singular destiny ordained that Frederick, who, although first of the three competitors to be elected to the throne, and possessing the foremost claim, was the last to enter the great contest, was to restore the house of Hohenstaufen and to endow it with a new greatness. In the hand of Innocent III. these three competitors were like the pieces in a game of chess, played by the Pope against each other, and one after the other. They had all experienced the indignity of being the servants of another's will. The son of Henry VI. imbibed a profound hatred of the selfish policy of the priests, a hatred which governed his whole life. He never forgot either that he had been obliged to purchase the protection of the Church with feudal homage and the loss of valuable crown-rights, or that he had been excluded from the throne of the empire, when the Pope had summoned Otto in his place.

Frederick had grown up, like Henry IV. in his day, in the midst of the court cabals, and, like Henry IV., had acquired in its fullest measure the art of over-reaching others. The difficult relations in which from his childhood he had stood towards the Roman Curia and its enterprises in the empire and in Sicily, had taught him the subtlety which he later displayed towards the Church.