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As soon as the affairs of Germany were arranged, the Emperor Henry came into Italy with Gostanza his wife, and a son about four years of age named Frederick; and, as Tancred was now dead, leaving only an infant named Roger, he took possession of the kingdom without much difficulty.
Guglielmo, the Second, as the Sicilians compute, King of Sicily, had two children, a son named Ruggieri, and a daughter named Gostanza.
About this period was also carried into effect the plot of Pope Nicholas and Peter, king of Aragon, by which the Sicilians murdered all the French that were in that island; and Peter made himself sovereign of it, saying, that it belonged to him in the right of his wife Gostanza, daughter of Manfred.
In her longing to glide over the waters that were getting golden with the level sun-rays, she thought of a story which had been one of the things she had loved to dwell on in Boccaccio, when her father fell asleep and she glided from her stool to sit on the floor and read the `Decamerone. It was the story of that fair Gostanza who in her lovelorn-ness desired to live no longer, but not having the courage to attack her young life, had put herself into a boat and pushed off to sea; then, lying down in the boat, had wrapt her mantle round her head, hoping to be wrecked, so that her fear would be helpless to flee from death.
To facilitate this affair, he caused Gostanza, a daughter of William, who had been placed in a monastery and was now old, to be brought from her seclusion and become the wife of Henry. Thus the kingdom of Naples passed from the Normans, who had been the founders of it, to the Germans.
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