Manfred—Hippolita

Manfred and Hippolita’s relationship concludes in a joint renunciation of the principality: once a supernatural vision identifies Theodore as Alfonso’s true heir, they accept that their rule has ended, and each enters a neighboring convent. Their final decision binds them in retreat while marking the collapse of the hereditary claim Manfred has defended and the consequences Hippolita urges him to face.

A Marriage Within a Contested Succession

Manfred claims that his family’s rule descends through his father, Don Manuel, and grandfather, Don Ricardo, who received Otranto after Alfonso supposedly died childless in the Holy Land. He also maintains that Isabella had been contracted to Manfred’s son with the consent of her legal guardians. Against these claims, Frederic’s herald calls Manfred a usurper and demands both Isabella’s return and the principality for Frederic, whom he presents as nearest in blood to Alfonso. The dispute places the couple’s household within a struggle over whether possession, a purported bequest, or rightful descent legitimizes rule.

When Manfred argues his title before Frederic’s knights, he invokes his ancestors’ tenure, Ricardo’s service, and the favor of Saint Nicholas. He concedes that Frederic is nearer in blood, but insists that he will defend his own claim. His account treats family inheritance as both a political defense and a matter of ancestral honor; the revelation at the end of the story will overturn that account by exposing the origin of Ricardo’s title.

Hippolita’s Appeal at the Revelation

After the vision declares Theodore Alfonso’s true heir, Hippolita addresses the despondent Manfred. She sets the family’s losses—Conrad’s death and Matilda’s death—beside Theodore’s recognition as the rightful prince, and urges her husband to see the vanity of worldly greatness. She does not claim to understand the miracle that establishes Theodore’s place. Instead, she treats the outcome as a judgment already pronounced and asks whether they can do anything but spend their remaining hours seeking to avert further divine wrath.

Her appeal is also practical: since heaven has expelled them, she asks where they can go except to the nearby religious houses that still offer refuge. Manfred responds that his heart is finally open to her devout admonitions. He acknowledges that his crimes have brought the judgments down upon him and identifies usurpation and the killing of his child in a consecrated place among the wrongs for which he must answer. Hippolita’s counsel thus turns the revelation into a decision about how the defeated rulers should live after their authority has ended.

Confession and the Fall of the Family Claim

Manfred publicly explains that Alfonso died by poison and that a fictitious will made Ricardo his heir. He describes Ricardo’s subsequent vow to found a church and two convents if he survived a storm on the way to Otranto; according to Manfred, Saint Nicholas appeared in a dream and promised that Ricardo’s descendants would rule until the rightful owner grew too large to inhabit the castle, provided male heirs remained. Manfred now sees the deaths in his own family and the arrival of Theodore as the fulfillment of that prophecy and the price of his ancestor’s usurpation.

Jerome supplies the family history that clarifies Theodore’s descent. Alfonso had been driven to Sicily, where he married Victoria before continuing his crusading journey; she later gave birth to a daughter, who eventually married Jerome. Jerome says Victoria’s testimony was unsupported after she heard of Alfonso’s supposed death and Ricardo’s succession, and that he kept the secret. Manfred accepts the revelation without requiring Jerome’s authentic writing, saying that the events and vision confirm it. The couple’s relinquishment follows not merely a political defeat but the collapse of the history on which their family’s claim rested.

Abdication and Religious Retreat

After the company withdraws to the remaining part of the castle, Manfred signs his abdication the next morning with Hippolita’s approval. Both take religious habits in neighboring convents. The narrative gives no further account of their life there; their shared withdrawal is the final consequence of the supernatural judgment and Manfred’s confession.

Frederic offers Isabella in marriage to Theodore, an arrangement Hippolita’s tenderness for Isabella supports. Theodore cannot immediately consider another love because his grief for Matilda is still too fresh; only after repeated conversations with Isabella about Matilda does he accept that he may find happiness in Isabella’s company while continuing to mourn. This closing contrast distinguishes the couple’s permanent retreat from the new prince’s eventual return to life within the dynastic order. Hippolita and Manfred leave rule behind together, while Otranto passes to the heir their family had displaced.