in confessions, prayers, genuflexions and the divine service in the choir.  Regarding himself as one of the fraternity, he called himself brother Albert, and left William untrammeled in the cares of state.  His life was short, for he died the 14th of September, 1404, in the twenty-seventh year of his age, leaving a son Albert, seven years old.  William, who married a daughter of the King of Naples, survived him but two years, when he died childless.

A boy nine years old now claimed the inheritance of the Austrian estates; but the haughty dukes of the Swiss branch of the house were not disposed to yield to his claims.  Leopold ii., who after the battle of Sempach succeeded his father in the Swiss estates, assumed the guardianship of Albert, and the administration of Austria, till the young duke should be of age.  But Leopold had two brothers who also inherited their father’s energy and ambition.  Ernest ruled over Styria, Carinthia and Carniola.  Frederic governed the Tyrol.

Leopold ii. repaired to Vienna to assume the administration; his two brothers claimed the right of sharing it with him.  Confusion, strife and anarchy ensued.  Ernest, a very determined and violent man, succeeded in compelling his brother to give him a share of the government, and in the midst of incessant quarrels, which often led to bloody conflicts, each of the two brothers strove to wrest as much as possible from Austria before young Albert should be of age.  The nobles availed themselves of this anarchy to renew their expeditions of plunder.  Unhappy Austria for several years was a scene of devastation and misery.  In the year 1411, Leopold ii. died without issue.  The young Albert had now attained is fifteenth year.

The emperor declared Albert of age, and he assumed the government as Albert V. His subjects, weary of disorder and of the strife of the nobles, welcomed him with enthusiasm.  With sagacity and self-denial above his years, the young prince devoted himself to business, relinquishing all pursuits of pleasure.  Fortunately, during his minority he had honorable and able teachers who stored his mind with useful knowledge, and fortified him with principles of integrity.  The change from the most desolating anarchy to prosperity and peace was almost instantaneous.  Albert had the judgment to surround himself with able advisers.  Salutary laws were enacted; justice impartially administered; the country was swept of the banditti which infested it, and while all the States around were involved in the miseries of war, the song of the contented husbandman, and the music of the artisan’s tools were heard through the fields and in the towns of happy Austria.

Sigismond, second son of the Emperor Charles IV., King of Bohemia, was now emperor.  It will be remembered that by marrying Mary, the eldest daughter of Louis, King of Hungary and Poland, he received Hungary as the dower of his bride.  By intrigue he also succeeded in deposing his effeminate and dissolute brother, Wenceslaus, from the throne of Bohemia, and succeeded, by a new election, in placing the crown upon his own brow.  Thus Sigismond wielded a three-fold scepter.  He was Emperor of Germany, and King of Hungary and of Bohemia.