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 Koenigsburg, 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,