Editing Hohenstaufen (section)

===Henry VI===
[[File:Friedrich-barbarossa-und-soehne-welfenchronik 1-1000x1540.jpg|thumb|upright|Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and his sons King Henry VI and Duke [[Frederick V, Duke of Swabia|Frederick V of Swabia]], ''[[Historia Welforum]]'', 1167/79, [[Weingarten Abbey]]]]

Frederick died in 1190 while on the [[Third Crusade]] and was succeeded by his son, [[Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor|Henry VI]]. Elected king even before his father's death, Henry went to [[Rome]] to be crowned emperor. He married [[Constance I of Sicily|Princess Constance of Sicily]], and deaths in his wife's family gave him claim of succession and possession of the [[Kingdom of Sicily]] in 1189 and 1194 respectively, a source of vast wealth. Henry failed to make royal and Imperial succession hereditary, but in 1196 he succeeded in gaining a pledge that his infant son [[Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor|Frederick]] would receive the German crown. Faced with difficulties in Italy and confident that he would realize his wishes in Germany at a later date, Henry returned to the south, where it appeared he might unify the peninsula under the Hohenstaufen name. After a series of military victories, however, he fell ill and died of natural causes in Sicily in 1197. His underage son Frederick could only succeed him in Sicily and Malta, while in the Empire the struggle between the House of Staufen and the House of Welf erupted once again.<ref name="Matthew1992">{{cite book|author=Donald Matthew|title=The Norman Kingdom of Sicily - p. 290|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CQfub3l_ejkC|date=30 July 1992|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-26911-7}}</ref>