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.