REIGNS OF ALBERT I, FREDERIC, ALBERT AND OTHO.
From 1291 to 1347.
Anecdotes Of Rhodolph.--His Desire For The Election Of His Son.--His
Death.--Albert.--His Unpopularity.--Conspiracy Of The Nobles.--Their
Defeat.--Adolphus Of Nassau Chosen Emperor.--Albert's Conspiracy.--
Deposition Of Adolphus And Election Of Albert.--Death Of Adolphus.--The
Pope Defied.--Annexation Of Bohemia.--Assassination Of Albert.--Avenging
Fury.--The Hermit's Direction.--Frederic The Handsome.--Election Of
Henry, Count Of Luxemburg.--His Death.--Election Of Louis Of
Bavaria.--Capture Of Frederic.--Remarkable Confidence Toward a
Prisoner.--Death Of Frederic.--An Early Engagement.--Death Of
Louis.--Accession Of Albert.
Rhodolph of Hapsburg was one of the most remarkable men of his own or of
any age, and many anecdotes illustrative of his character, and of the
rude times in which he lived, have been transmitted to us. The
Thuringian knight who speared the emperor's horse in the bloody fight of
Murchfield, was rescued by Rhodolph from those who would cut him down.
"I have witnessed," said the emperor, "his intrepidity, and never could
forgive myself if so courageous a knight should be put to death."
During the war with Ottocar, on one occasion the army were nearly
perishing of thirst. A flagon of water was brought to him. He declined
it, saying,
"I can not drink alone, nor can I divide so small a quantity among all.
I do not thirst for myself, but for the whole army."
By earnest endeavor he obtained the perfect control of his passions,
naturally very violent. "I have often," said he, "repented of being
passionate, but never of being mild and humane."
One of his captains expressed dissatisfaction at a rich gift the emperor
made to a literary man who presented him a manuscript describing the
wars of the Romans.
"My good friend," Rhodolph replied, "be contented that men of learning
praise our actions, and thereby inspire us with additional courage in
war. I wish I could employ more time in reading, and could expend some
of that money on learned men which I must throw away on so many
illiterate knights."
One cold morning at Metz, in the year 1288, he walked out dressed as
usual in the plainest garb. He strolled into a baker's shop, as if to
warm himself. The baker's termagant wife said to him, all unconscious
who he was,
"Soldiers have no business to come into poor women's houses."
"True," the emperor replied, "but do not be angry, my good woman; I am
an old soldier who have spent all my fortune in the service of that
rascal Rhodolph, and he suffers me to want, notwithstanding all his fine
promises."
"Good enough for you," said the woman; "a man who will serve such a
fellow, who is laying waste the whole earth, deserves nothing better."
She then, in her spite, threw a pail of water on the fire, which,
filling the room with smoke and ashes, drove the emperor into the
street.
Rhodolph, having returned to his lodgings, sent a rich present to the
old woman, from the emperor who had warmed himself at her fire that
morning, and at the dinner-table told the story with great glee to his
companions. The woman, terrified, hastened to the emperor to implore
mercy. He ordered her to be admitted to the dining-room, and promised to
forgive her if she would repeat to the company all her abusive epithets,
not omitting one. She did it faithfully, to the infinite merriment of
the festive group.
So far as we can now judge, and making due allowance for the darkness of
the age in which he lived, Rhodolph appears to have been, in the latter
part of his life, a sincere, if not an enlightened Christian. He was
devout in prayer, and punctual in attending the services of the Church.
The humble and faithful ministers of religion he esteemed and protected,
while he was ever ready to chastise the insolence of those haughty
prelates who disgraced their religious professions by arrogance and
splendor.
At last the infirmities of age pressed heavily upon him. When
seventy-three years old, knowing that he could not have much longer to
live, he assembled the congress of electors at Frankfort, and urged them
to choose his then only surviving son Albert as his successor on the
imperial throne. The diet, however, refused to choose a successor until
after the death of the emperor. Rhodolph was bitterly disappointed, for
he understood this postponement as a positive refusal to gratify him in
this respect. Saddened in spirit, and feeble in body, he undertook a
journey, by slow stages, to his hereditary dominions in Switzerland. He
then returned to Austria, where he died on the 15th of July, 1291, in
the seventy-third year of his age.
Albert, who resided at Vienna, succeeded his father in authority over
the Austrian and Swiss provinces. But he was a man stern, unconciliating
and domineering. The nobles hated him, and hoped to drive him back to
the Swiss cantons from which his father had come. One great occasion of
discontent was, that he employed about his person, and in important
posts, Swiss instead of Austrian nobles. They demanded the dismission of
these foreign favorites, which so exasperated Albert that he clung to
them still more tenaciously and exclusively.
The nobles now organized a very formidable conspiracy, and offered to
neighboring powers, as bribes for their aid, portions of Austria.
Austria proper was divided by the river Ens into two parts called Upper
and Lower Austria. Lower Austria was offered to Bohemia; Styria to the
Duke of Bavaria; Upper Austria to the Archbishop of Saltzburg; Carniola
to the Counts of Guntz; and thus all the provinces were portioned out to
the conquerors. At the same time the citizens of Vienna, provoked by the
haughtiness of Albert, rose in insurrection. With the energy which
characterized his father, Albert met these emergencies. Summoning
immediately an army from Switzerland, he shut up all the avenues to the
city, which was not in the slightest degree prepared for a siege, and
speedily starved the inhabitants into submission. Punishing severely the
insurgents, he strengthened his post at Vienna, and confirmed his power.
Then, marching rapidly upon the nobles, before they had time to receive
that foreign aid which had been secretly promised them, and securing all
the important fortresses, which were now not many in number, he so
overawed them, and so vigilantly watched every movement, that there was
no opportunity to rise and combine. The Styrian nobles, being remote,
made an effort at insurrection. Albert, though it was in the depth of
winter, plowed through the snows of the mountains, and plunging
unexpectedly among them, routed them with great slaughter.
While he was thus conquering discontent by the sword, and silencing
murmurs beneath the tramp of iron hoofs, the diet was assembling at
Frankfort to choose a new chief for the Germanic empire. Albert was
confident of being raised to the vacant dignity. The splendor of his
talents all admitted. Four of the electors were closely allied to him by
marriage, and he arrogantly felt that he was almost entitled to the
office as the son of his renowned father. But the electors feared his
ambitious and despotic disposition, and chose Adolphus of Nassau to
succeed to the imperial throne.
Albert was mortified and enraged by this disappointment, and expressed
his determination to oppose the election; but the troubles in his own
domains prevented him from putting this threat into immediate execution.
His better judgment soon taught him the policy of acquiescing in the
election, and he sullenly received the investiture of his fiefs from the
hands of the Emperor Adolphus. Still Albert, struggling against
unpopularity and continued insurrection, kept his eye fixed eagerly upon
the imperial crown. With great tact he conspired to form a confederacy
for the deposition of Adolphus.
Wenceslaus, the young King of Bohemia, was now of age, and preparations
were made for his coronation with great splendor at Prague. Four of the
electors were present on this occasion, which was in June, 1297. Albert
conferred with them respecting his plans, and secured their coöperation.
The electors more willingly lent their aid since they were exceedingly
displeased with some of the measures of Adolphus for the aggrandizement
of his own family. Albert with secrecy and vigor pushed his plans, and
when the diet met the same year at Metz, a long list of grievances was
drawn up against Adolphus. He was summoned to answer to these charges.
The proud emperor refused to appear before the bar of the diet as a
culprit. The diet then deposed Adolphus and elected Albert II. to the
imperial throne, on the 23d of June, 1298.
The two rival emperors made vigorous preparations to settle the dispute
with the sword, and the German States arrayed themselves, some on one
side and some on the other. The two armies met at Gelheim on the 2d of
July, led by the rival sovereigns. In the thickest of the fight Adolphus
spurred his horse through the opposing ranks, bearing down all
opposition, till he faced Albert, who was issuing orders and animating
his troops by voice and gesture.
"Yield," shouted Adolphus, aiming a saber stroke at the head of his foe,
"your life and your crown."
"Let God decide," Albert replied, as he parried the blow, and thrust his
lance into the unprotected face of Adolphus. At that moment the horse of
Adolphus fell, and he himself was instantly slain. Albert remained the
decisive victor on this bloody field. The diet of electors was again
summoned, and he was now chosen unanimously emperor. He was soon crowned
with great splendor at Aix-la-Chapelle.
Still Albert sat on an uneasy throne. The pope, indignant that the
electors should presume to depose one emperor and choose another without
his consent, refused to confirm the election of Albert, and loudly
inveighed him as the murderer of Adolphus. Albert, with characteristic
impulsiveness, declared that he was emperor by choice of the electors
and not by ratification of the pope, and defiantly spurned the
opposition of the pontiff. Considering himself firmly seated on the
throne, he refused to pay the bribes of tolls, privileges, territories,
etc., which he had so freely offered to the electors. Thus exasperated,
the electors, the pope, and the King of Bohemia, conspired to drive
Albert from the throne. Their secret plans were so well laid, and they
were so secure of success, that the Elector of Mentz tauntingly and
boastingly said to Albert, "I need only sound my hunting-horn and a new
emperor will appear."
Albert, however, succeeded by sagacity and energy, in dispelling this
storm which for a time threatened his entire destruction. By making
concessions to the pope, he finally won him to cordial friendship, and
by the sword vanquishing some and intimidating others, he broke up the
league. His most formidable foe was his brother-in-law, Wenceslaus, King
of Bohemia. Albert's sister, Judith, the wife of Wenceslaus, had for
some years prevented a rupture between them, but she now being dead,
both monarchs decided to refer their difficulties to the arbitration of
the sword. While their armies were marching, Wenceslaus was suddenly
taken sick and died, in June, 1305. His son, but seventeen years of age,
weak in body and in mind, at once yielded to all the demands of his
imperial uncle. Hardly a year, however, had elapsed ere this young
prince, Wenceslaus III., was assassinated, leaving no issue.
Albert immediately resolved to transfer the crown of Bohemia to his own
family, and thus to annex the powerful kingdom of Bohemia to his own
limited Austrian territories. Bohemia added to the Austrian provinces,
would constitute quite a noble kingdom. The crown was considered
elective, though in fact the eldest son was almost always chosen during
the lifetime of his father. The death of Wenceslaus, childless, opened
the throne to other claimants. No one could more imperiously demand the
scepter than Albert. He did demand it for his son Rhodolph in tones
which were heard and obeyed. The States assembled at Prague on the 1st
of April, 1306. Albert, surrounded by a magnificent retinue, conducted
his son to Prague, and to confirm his authority married him to the widow
of Wenceslaus, a second wife. Rhodolph also, about a year before, had
buried Blanche, his first wife. Albert was exceedingly elated, for the
acquisition of Bohemia was an accession to the power of his family which
doubled their territory, and more than doubled their wealth and
resources.
A mild government would have conciliated the Bohemians, but such a
course was not consonant with the character of the imperious and
despotic Albert. He urged his son to measures of arbitrary power which
exasperated the nobles, and led to a speedy revolt against his
authority. Rhodolph and the nobles were soon in the field with their
contending armies, when Rhodolph suddenly died from the fatigues of the
camp, aged but twenty-two years, having held the throne of Bohemia less
than a year.
Albert, grievously disappointed, now demanded that his second son,
Frederic, should receive the crown. As soon as his name was mentioned to
the States, the assembly with great unanimity exclaimed, "We will not
again have an Austrian king." This led to a tumult. Swords were drawn,
and two of the partisans of Albert were slain. Henry, Duke of Carinthia,
was then almost unanimously chosen king. But the haughty Albert was not
to be thus easily thwarted in his plans. He declared that his son
Frederic was King of Bohemia, and raising an army, he exerted all the
influence and military power which his position as emperor gave him, to
enforce his claim.
But affairs in Switzerland for a season arrested the attention of
Albert, and diverted his armies from the invasion of Bohemia.
Switzerland was then divided into small sovereignties, of various names,
there being no less than fifty counts, one hundred and fifty barons, and
one thousand noble families. Both Rhodolph and Albert had greatly
increased, by annexation, the territory and the power of the house of
Hapsburg. By purchase, intimidation, war, and diplomacy, Albert had for
some time been making such rapid encroachments, that a general
insurrection was secretly planned to resist his power. All Switzerland
seemed to unite as with one accord. Albert was rejoiced at this
insurrection, for, confident of superior power, he doubted not his
ability speedily to quell it, and it would afford him the most favorable
pretext for still greater aggrandizement. Albert hastened to his domain
at Hapsburg, where he was assassinated by conspirators led by his own
nephew, whom he was defrauding of his estates.
Frederic and Leopold, the two oldest surviving sons of Albert, avenged
their father's death by pursuing the conspirators until they all
suffered the penalty of their crimes. With ferocity characteristic of
the age, they punished mercilessly the families and adherents of the
assassins. Their castles were demolished, their estates confiscated,
their domestics and men at arms massacred, and their wives and children
driven out into the world to beg or to starve. Sixty-three of the
retainers of Lord Balne, one of the conspirators, though entirely
innocent of the crime, and solemnly protesting their unconsciousness of
any plot, were beheaded in one day. Though but four persons took part in
the assassination, and it was not known that any others were implicated
in the deed, it is estimated that more than a thousand persons suffered
death through the fury of the avengers. Agnes, one of the daughters of
Albert, endeavored with her own hands to strangle the infant child of
the Lord of Eschenback, when the soldiers, moved by its piteous cries,
with difficulty rescued it from her hands.
Elizabeth, the widow of Albert, with her implacable fanatic daughter
Agnes, erected a magnificent convent on the spot at Königsburg, where
the emperor was assassinated, and there in cloistered gloom they passed
the remainder of their lives. It was an age of superstition, and yet
there were some who comprehended and appreciated the pure morality of
the gospel of Christ.
"Woman," said an aged hermit to Agnes, "God is not served by shedding
innocent blood, and by rearing convents from the plunder of families. He
is served by compassion only, and by the forgiveness of injuries."
Frederic, Albert's oldest son, now assumed the government of the
Austrian provinces. From his uncommon personal attractions he was called
Frederic the Handsome. His character was in conformity with his person,
for to the most chivalrous bravery he added the most feminine amiability
and mildness. He was a candidate for the imperial throne, and would
probably have been elected but for the unpopularity of his despotic
father. The diet met, and on the 27th of November, 1308, the choice fell
unanimously upon Henry, Count of Luxemburg.
This election deprived Frederic of his hopes of uniting Bohemia to
Austria, for the new emperor placed his son John upon the Bohemian
throne, and was prepared to maintain him there by all the power of the
empire. In accomplishing this, there was a short conflict with Henry of
Carinthia, but he was speedily driven out of the kingdom.
Frederic, however, found a little solace in his disappointment, by
attaching to Austria the dominions he had wrested from the lords he had
beheaded as assassins of his father. In the midst of these scenes of
ambition, intrigue and violence, the Emperor Henry fell sick and died,
in the fifty-second year of his age. This unexpected event opened again
to Frederic the prospect of the imperial crown, and all his friends, in
the now very numerous branches of the family, spared neither money nor
the arts of diplomacy in the endeavor to secure the coveted dignity for
him. A year elapsed after the death of Henry before the diet was
assembled. During that time all the German States were in intense
agitation canvassing the claims of the several candidates. The prize of
an imperial crown was one which many grasped at, and every little court
was agitated by the question. The day of election, October 9th, 1314,
arrived. There were two hostile parties in the field, one in favor of
Frederic of Austria, the other in favor of Louis of Bavaria. The two
parties met in different cities, the Austrians at Saxenhausen, and the
Bavarians at Frankfort. There were, however, but four electors at
Saxenhausen, while there were five at Frankfort, the ancient place of
election. Each party unanimously chose its candidate. Louis, of Bavaria,
receiving five votes, while Frederic received but four, was
unquestionably the legitimate emperor. Most of the imperial cities
acknowledged him. Frankfort sung his triumph, and he was crowned with
all the ancient ceremonials of pomp at Aix-la-Chapelle.
But Frederic and his party were not ready to yield, and all over Germany
there was the mustering of armies. For two years the hostile forces were
marching and countermarching with the usual vicissitudes of war. The
tide of devastation and blood swept now over one State, and now over
another, until at length the two armies met, in all their concentrated
strength, at Muhldorf, near Munich, for a decisive battle. Louis of
Bavaria rode proudly at the head of thirty thousand foot, and fifteen
hundred steel-clad horsemen. Frederic of Austria, the handsomest man of
his age, towering above all his retinue, was ostentatiously arrayed in
the most splendid armor art could furnish, emblazoned with the Austrian
eagle, and his helmet was surmounted by a crown of gold.
As he thus led the ranks of twenty-two thousand footmen, and seven
thousand horse, all eyes followed him, and all hearts throbbed with
confidence of victory. From early dawn, till night darkened the field,
the horrid strife raged. In those days gunpowder was unknown, and the
ringing of battle-axes on helmet and cuirass, the strokes of sabers and
the clash of spears, shouts of onset, and the shrieks of the wounded, as
sixty thousand men fought hand to hand on one small field, rose like the
clamor from battling demons in the infernal world. Hour after hour of
carnage passed, and still no one could tell on whose banners victory
would alight. The gloom of night was darkening over the exhausted
combatants, when the winding of the bugle was heard in the rear of the
Austrians, and a band of four hundred Bavarian horsemen came plunging
down an eminence into the disordered ranks of Frederic. The hour of
dismay, which decides a battle, had come. A scene of awful carnage
ensued as the routed Austrians, fleeing in every direction, were pursued
and massacred. Frederic himself was struck from his horse, and as he
fell, stunned by the blow, he was captured, disarmed and carried to the
presence of his rival Louis.
The spirit of Frederic was crushed by the awful, the irretrievable
defeat, and he appeared before his conqueror speechless in the extremity
of his woe. Louis had the pride of magnanimity and endeavored to console
his captive.
"The battle is not lost by your fault," said he. "The Bavarians have
experienced to their cost that you are a valiant prince; but Providence
has decided the battle. Though I am happy to see you as my guest, I
sympathize with you in your sorrow, and will do what I can to alleviate
it."
For three years the unhappy Frederic remained a prisoner of Louis of
Bavaria, held in close confinement in the castle at Trausnitz. At the
end of that time the emperor, alarmed at the efforts which the friends
of Frederic were making to combine several Powers to take up arms for
his relief, visited his prisoner, and in a personal interview proposed
terms of reconciliation. The terms, under the circumstances, were
considered generous, but a proud spirit needed the discipline of three
years' imprisonment before it could yield to such demands.
It was the 13th of March, 1325, when this singular interview between
Louis the emperor, and Frederic his captive, took place at Trausnitz.
Frederic promised upon oath that in exchange for his freedom he would
renounce all claim to the imperial throne; restore all the districts and
castles he had wrested from the empire; give up all the documents
relative to his election as emperor; join with all his family influence
to support Louis against any and every adversary, and give his daughter
in marriage to Stephen the son of Louis. He also promised that in case
he should fail in the fulfillment of any one of these stipulations, he
would return to his captivity.
Frederic fully intended a faithful compliance with these requisitions.
But no sooner was he liberated than his fiery brother Leopold, who
presided over the Swiss estates, and who was a man of great capacity and
military energy, refused peremptorily to fulfill the articles which
related to him, and made vigorous preparations to urge the war which he
had already, with many allies, commenced against the Emperor Louis. The
pope also, who had become inimical to Louis, declared that Frederic was
absolved from the agreement at Trausnitz, as it was extorted by force,
and, with all the authority of the head of the Church, exhorted Frederic
to reassert his claim to the imperial crown.
Amidst such scenes of fraud and violence, it is refreshing to record an
act of real honor. Frederic, notwithstanding the entreaties of the pope
and the remonstrances of his friends, declared that, be the consequences
what they might, he never would violate his pledge; and finding that he
could not fulfill the articles of the agreement, he returned to Bavaria
and surrendered himself a prisoner to the emperor. It is seldom that
history has the privilege of recording so noble an act. Louis of Bavaria
fortunately had a soul capable of appreciating the magnanimity of his
captive. He received him with courtesy and with almost fraternal
kindness. In the words of a contemporary historian, "They ate at the
same table and slept in the same bed;" and, most extraordinary of all,
when Louis was subsequently called to a distant part of his dominions to
quell an insurrection, he intrusted the government of Bavaria, during
his absence, to Frederic.
Frederic's impetuous and ungovernable brother Leopold, was unwearied in
his endeavors to combine armies against the emperor, and war raged
without cessation. At length Louis, harassed by these endless
insurrections and coalitions against him, and admiring the magnanimity
of Frederic, entered into a new alliance, offering terms exceedingly
honorable on his part. He agreed that he and Frederic should rule
conjointly as emperors of Germany, in perfect equality of power and
dignity, alternately taking the precedence.
With this arrangement Leopold was satisfied, but unfortunately, just at
that time, his impetuous spirit, exhausted by disappointment and
chagrin, yielded to death. He died at Strasbourg on the 28th of
February, 1326. The pope and several of the electors refused to accede
to this arrangement, and thus the hopes of the unhappy Frederic were
again blighted, for Louis, who had consented to this accommodation for
the sake of peace, was not willing to enforce it through the tumult of
war. Frederic was, however, liberated from captivity, and he returned to
Austria a dejected, broken-hearted man. He pined away for a few months
in languor, being rarely known to smile, and died at the castle of
Gullenstein on the 13th of January, 1330. His widow, Isabella, the
daughter of the King of Arragon, became blind from excessive grief, and
soon followed her husband to the tomb.
As Frederic left no son, the Austrian dominions fell to his two
brothers, Albert III. and Otho. Albert, by marriage, added the valuable
county of Ferret in Alsace to the dominions of the house of Austria. The
two brothers reigned with such wonderful harmony, that no indications
can be seen of separate administrations. They renounced all claim to the
imperial throne, notwithstanding the efforts of the pope to the
contrary, and thus secured friendship with the Emperor Louis. There were
now three prominent families dominant in Germany. Around these great
families, who had gradually, by marriage and military encroachments,
attained their supremacy, the others of all degrees rallied as vassals,
seeking protection and contributing strength. The house of Bavaria,
reigning over that powerful kingdom and in possession of the imperial
throne, ranked first. Then came the house of Luxembourg, possessing the
wide-spread and opulent realms of Bohemia. The house of Austria had now
vast possessions, but these were widely scattered; some provinces on the
banks of the Danube and others in Switzerland, spreading through the
defiles of the Alps.
John of Bohemia was an overbearing man, and feeling quite impregnable in
his northern realms beyond the mountains, assumed such a dictatorial air
as to rouse the ire of the princes of Austria and Bavaria. These two
houses consequently entered into an intimate alliance for mutual
security. The Duke of Carinthia, who was uncle to Albert and Otho, died,
leaving only a daughter, Margaret. This dukedom, about the size of the
State of Massachusetts, a wild and mountainous region, was deemed very
important as the key to Italy. John of Bohemia, anxious to obtain it,
had engaged the hand of Margaret for his son, then but eight years of
age. It was a question in dispute whether the dukedom could descend to a
female, and Albert and Otho claimed it as the heirs of their uncle.
Louis, the emperor, supported the claims of Austria, and thus Carinthia
became attached to this growing power.
John, enraged, formed a confederacy with the kings of Hungary and
Poland, and some minor princes, and invaded Austria. For some time they
swept all opposition before them. But the Austrian troops and those of
the empire checked them at Landau. Here they entered into an agreement
without a battle, by which Austria was permitted to retain Carinthia,
she making important concessions to Bohemia. In February, 1339, Otho
died, and Albert was invested with the sole administration of affairs.
The old King of Bohemia possessed vehemence of character which neither
age nor the total blindness with which he had become afflicted could
repress. He traversed the empire, and even went to France, organizing a
powerful confederacy against the emperor. The pope, Clement VI., who had
always been inimical to Louis of Bavaria, influenced by John of Bohemia,
deposed and excommunicated Louis, and ordered a new meeting of the diet
of electors, which chose Charles, eldest son of the Bohemian monarch,
and heir to that crown, emperor.
The deposed Louis fought bravely for the crown thus torn from his brow.
Albert of Austria aided him with all his energies. Their united armies,
threading the defiles of the Bohemian mountains, penetrated the very
heart of the kingdom, when, in the midst of success, the deposed Emperor
Louis fell dead from a stroke of apoplexy, in the year 1347. This event
left Charles of Bohemia in undisputed possession of the imperial crown.
Albert immediately recognized his claim, effected reconciliation, and
becoming the friend and the ally of the emperor, pressed on cautiously
but securely, year after year, in his policy of annexation. But storms
of war incessantly howled around his domains until he died, a crippled
paralytic, on the 16th of August, 1358.