The Frison race alone refused to recognize the sovereign counts.

They boasted of being self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the emperor, and regarding the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged in all things to respect them.

But the counts of Holland, the bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that of the sovereign they represented.

The descendants of the Count Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent in this assumption of power.

Defeat after defeat, however, punished their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the pikes of their Frison opponents.