The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06.

The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 549 pages of information about The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06.

Rudolph, weakened by the departure of the Hungarians and thwarted by the princes of the empire, was too prudent to trust his fortune to the chance of war; he listened therefore to overtures of peace, and an accommodation was effected by arbitration.  He was to retain possession of the Austrian provinces, and to hold Moravia for five years, as an indemnification for the expenses of the war; Wenceslaus was acknowledged King of Bohemia, and during his minority the regency was assigned to Otho; Rudolph, second son of the Emperor, was to espouse the Bohemian princess Agnes; and his two daughters, Judith and Hedwige, were affianced to the King of Bohemia and to Otho the Less, brother of the Margrave.  In consequence of this agreement Rudolph withdrew from Bohemia, and in 1280 returned to Vienna in triumph.  Being delivered from the most powerful of his enemies, and relieved from all further apprehensions by the weak and distracted state of Bohemia, he directed his principal aim to secure the Austrian territories for his own family.  With this view he compelled Henry of Bavaria, under the pretext of punishing his recent connection with Ottocar, to cede Austria above the Ems, and to accept in return the districts of Scharding, Neuburg, and Freistadt as the dowry of his wife.

But, though master of all the Austrian territories, he experienced great difficulties in transferring them to his family.  Some claimants of the Bamberg line still existed:  Agnes, daughter of Gertrude and wife of Ulric of Heunburg, and the two sons of Constantia by Albert of Misnia.  Those provinces were likewise coveted by Louis, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and by his brother Henry of Bavaria, as having belonged to their ancestors, and by Meinhard of Tyrol, from whom he had derived such essential assistance, in virtue of his marriage with Elizabeth, widow of the emperor Conrad and sister of the Dukes of Bavaria.  The Misnian princes, however, having received a compensation from Ottocar, withheld their pretensions, and Rudolph purchased the acquiescence of Agnes and her husband by a sum of money and a small cession of territory.  He likewise eluded the demands of the Bavarian princes and of Meinhard by referring them to the decision of the German diet, In the mean time he conciliated, by acts of kindness and liberality, his new subjects, and obtained from the states of the duchy a declaration that all the lands possessed by Frederick the Warlike belonged to the Emperor, or to whomsoever he should grant them as fiefs, saving the rights of those who within a given time should prosecute their claims.  He then intrusted his son Albert with the administration, convoked, on August 9, 1281, a diet at Nuremberg, at which he presided in person, and obtained a decree annulling all the acts and deeds of Richard of Cornwall and his predecessors, since the deposition of Frederick II, except such as had been approved by a majority of the electors.  In consequence of this decree another was passed specifically in-validating the investiture of the Austrian provinces, which in 1262 was obtained from Richard of Cornwall by Ottocar.

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The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.