Innocent surpassed his predecessors in the ferocity and unscrupulousness of his attacks on the emperor (see Innocent IV).
An energy which never slackened, a doggedness which no adversity could crush, a fiery ambition coupled with the coolest calculation, and a diplomatic unscrupulousness which looked always to the end and never to the means, these were the salient qualities of the reconstructor of the dismembered Danish state.
At the same time a new enemy arose in the Illyrian pirate fleets, which outdid them in unscrupulousness and violence.
His successes were won not only by military and political ability, but also by the most absolute unscrupulousness, neither flagrant perjury nor the basest treachery being disdained.
He was still full of plans and new ideas, always with the same end in view; and for this reason, in spite of his various enterprises, which were sometimes ridiculous, sometimes unpleasant in their consequences, and his unscrupulousness as to the men and means he employed, he always had a kind of greatness.