King Henry VI, had arrived in Sicily in 1194 C.E. and, on the road from Germany, the king’s wife, the Norman lady Constance, birthed Frederick, who would follow his father into nobility and become the Holy Roman Emperor in the year 1220.
Frederick had been raised on tales of his family, how they conquered Sicily, and all the folklore that the people of the island attached to them. His mother was a Norman from the Hauteville family and his father was a German from the Hohenstaufen family, so Sicily had already been ruled by foreigners before Frederick ascended to the throne. His family had redefined Sicily, taken it from the Arabs, and he knew from an early age that they were destined for many generations of leadership on this island in the Middle Sea.
But it wasn’t all that easy. In his
