Second Marriage
However, Hugh's attempt to strengthen his power further by a second marriage failed disastrously. His bride was Marozia, senatrix and effective ruler of Rome and widow first of Alberic I of Spoleto and then of Hugh's own half-brother Guy of Tuscany. This last fact, though, meant that the marriage was illegal under canon law, on grounds of consanguinity — a matter that Hugh tried to circumvent by disowning and eliminating the descendants of his mother's second marriage and giving Tuscany to a relative on his father's side of the family, Boso. This in turn, however, alarmed Alberic II, Marozia's teenaged son or stepson from her first marriage, who, appealing to Roman distrust of the foreign troops Hugh had brought with him, launched a coup d'état during the wedding festivities. Hugh managed to flee, but Marozia was imprisoned until her death a few years later.
Hugh's power in Italy was damaged but not destroyed by these events. To strengthen his hand in the affairs of Milan, he tonsured his younger illegitimate son, Tebald, to groom him for the position of Archbishop of Milan; unfortunately the ancient cleric, Arderic, whom he installed pro tem lived another twenty-two years He continued to organise the fight against the Magyars and the Andalusian pirates based at Fraxinet in Provence. Active, if sometimes dubious, diplomacy paid off. He concluded a treaty with Rudolph in 933 by which Rudolf abandoned his claims to Italy in return for being handed Provence over the heads of Louis the Blind's heirs and the marriage of Rudolph's daughter Adelaide to Hugh's son Lothair. Friendly relations were maintained with the Byzantine Empire and, in 942, Hugh even came to terms with Alberic, who married one of Hugh's daughters.
Within the kingdom, Hugh intensified his existing habit of giving any available offices or lands to relations, including his numerous legitimate and illegitimate progeny, and a small circle of old and trusted friends. The effect this had on Italian nobles who saw this as threatening themselves eventually resulted in rebellion. In 941, Hugh expelled Berengar of Ivrea from Italy and abolished the March of Ivrea. In 945, Berengar returned from exile in Germany and defeated Hugh in battle. By a diet Berengar held at Milan, Hugh was deposed, though he managed to come to terms by which he nominally kept the crown and the title rex (king) but returned to Provence, leaving Lothair as nominal king, but with all real power in Berengar's hands.
Hugh retired to Provence, but continued to carry the royal title until 947.
Read more about this topic: Hugh Of Italy
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