Adelaide helped govern during the 992 war between Bohemia and Poland, in which the Ottonian regime supported Poland.
Her regency lasted only a few years, since in 994 Otto turned 14. In September of that year he was granted the right to govern Germany without the need of a regent. A letter from Otto to his grandmother suggests that she was happy to give up the responsibility:
According to your wishes and desires, the divinity has conferred the rights of an empire on us with a happy outcome.
Otto now became King of Italy as well as King of Germany, and would soon officially crowned Holy Roman Emperor on 21 May 996.
After this point, Adelaide was active in charity work, founding and restoring monasteries and churches. A nunnery she had founded in 991 was her final residence, retiring there when Otto no longer needed her at court. She died there on 16 December 999 and was buried in the abbey. Pope Urban II canonized her in 1097 for her service to the Church.
On his own now, Otto faced and put down a Slavic rebellion. He then had trouble in Italy, and mounted an expedition to support Pope John XIV (a Lombard who had been Otto's father's chancellor), but was being beset by a Roman faction who wanted their own Italian pope put in place. A leader of the Roman aristocracy, Crescentius II, was calling himself Patrician of the Romans and trying to rule the place. They imprisoned John XIV in the Tomb of Hadrian and put antipope Boniface VII in his place. (The clan of the Crescentii figured largely in papal positions for several generations.)
Pope John XIV died in his prison. When Boniface died, Pope John XV succeeded him, but Crescentius had too much influence over him to satisfy Otto. John XV had actually fled Rome to get away from Crescentius. Otto's goal was to restore proper order as well as the pope. This would be the greatest challenge of his reign, and I'll tell you about it tomorrow.
