11 O D 



Carniola. Both parties having prepared for the conteft, 

 war broke out between the emperor and the king in 1275, 

 and Rodolph commenced his operations with all the vigour 

 of his character. He firlt marched againft Henry, duke of 

 Lower Bavaria, whom Ottocar had fecured in his interefl, 

 and foon brought him to change his party. He then pene- 

 trated into Auftria, and appeared under the walls of Vienna, 

 before Ottocar thought of his danger. This prince, rinding 

 himfelf unable to fave the Auftrian capital, bent his haughty 

 fpirit to fue for peace, which was granted upon the con- 

 dition of his renouncing his claims upon the Auftrian pro- 

 vinces, and confenting to acknowledge the emperor, and do 

 homage for Bohemia and his other fiefs. The Auftrian 

 provinces, as fiefs, devolved to the empire, and were taken 

 poffeffion of by the emperor. 



The mind of Ottocar was fo much irritated by the lofs 

 and difgrace lie hid undergone, that he could not bring him- 

 felf to a faithful execution of the treaty, and the war was 

 renewed in 1277. A fierce battle enfued, in which Rodolph 

 was beaten to the ground by a Thuringian knight, and 

 brought into great danger ; but, on the other hand, Ottocar 

 was killed, and his army entirely defeated. Rodolph was 

 prevented from taking poftefiion of Bohemia by Otho, mar- 

 grave of Brandenburgh, and he entered into an accommoda- 

 tion, by which Wenceilaus was acknowledged king of 

 Bohemia, while he himfelf was to hold Moravia for five 

 years, and was to retain the Auftrian provinces. The fe- 

 curing of thefe to his family was thenceforth a great objeft 

 of his policy, in which he encountered many difficulties, but 

 at length he fucceeded in fettling them upon his two fons, 

 Albert and Rodolph. 



In the midft of thefe tranfactions, the emperor, thinking 

 it would be for his honour to revive the imperial authority 

 in Italy, after the death of Gregory, during the fubfequent 

 fhort -lived pontificate, fent commiftaries into that country to 

 exact homage from feveral of the towns ; but, on the ac- 

 ceflion of Nicholas III. he found it expedient to confirm to 

 the papal fee its pofleffions in Romagna. He afterwards 

 attempted to reftore the authority of the empire in Tufcany ; 

 but in this he ajfo failed, and was obliged X.S content him- 

 felf with drawing large funis from Lucca and other cities 

 for the confirmation of their privileges. No foreign foe now- 

 remaining, Rodolph turned his attention to the reftoral 

 of peace and order in Germany ; and for this purpofe it 

 was neceiiary to enforce the laws againft building private 

 fortreftes, which were the retreats of banditti, or the r< 1 

 of turbulent nobles, who defied all law and authority. Of 

 thefe ftrong-holds he razed leventy ir. one year, condem 

 to death many of their owners for their violations of the 

 public peace. He made many progreffes through the im- 

 perial cities, admiiiiftermg juftice and making falutary regu- 

 lations, fo that he obtained the title of " a living law," and 

 deferved to be regarded as a fecond founder oi the German 

 empire. In 1283 he engaged in a war againft Philip, count 

 of Savoy, who had appropriated feveral imperial i; - in Hel- 

 vetia ; but in an action near Morat be was overpowered by 

 numbers, unhorfed, and obliged, for faving himfelf, to fpring 

 into the lake, where he fupported himfelf by the branch of a 

 tree till refcued by his followers. He was, however, vic- 

 torious, and brought the count to terms of fubmifiion. He 

 was likewife fuccefsful againft the count of Burgundy, who 

 had transferred his homage from the empire to France ; but 

 he failed in an attempt to gain pofteffion of Bern, which had 

 declared itfelf an independent republic. The troubles of 

 Bohemia, in which the opprefiions of the regent Otho had 

 excited revolts, while the minor king, Wenceilaus, was de- 

 tained as a prifoner, called Rodolph into that country. He 



ROD 



delivered Wenceilaus, whom he married to one of hii daugh- 

 ters, and left him at the head of the government, in a ftate of 

 tranquillity. The final object of this emperor was to fecure 

 the imperial crown to his only furviving fon, Albert ; but the 

 electors were not to be perfuaded into this meafure, and 

 Rodolph was feverely mortified with the difappointment. 

 His itrength had already begun to fail, and as he was upon 

 his way to Spire he was obliged to ftop at Germerfheim, 

 where he died in July 1291, in the feventy-third year of his 

 age, and the nineteenth of his reign. 



There is fcarcely an excellency of body or mind which 

 the biographers of the houfe of Auftria have not attributed 

 to its founder ; and it appears from the hiftory of his actions, 

 that few princes have furpaffed him in energy of character, 

 and civil and military talents. In the beginning of his ca- 

 reer, he feems to have been little fcrupulous in the means of 

 aggrandizement ; but, as an emperor, he was in general mo- 

 derate and equitable. In his iixty-fourth year he married, 

 for his fecond wife, a princefs of Burgundy, only fourteen 

 years of age, but no illue proceeded from this ill-forted 

 union. By his firft marriage he had a numerous offspring, 

 of whom fix daughters were all united to powerful families. 

 Mod. Univ. Hift. 



Rodolph II., emperor of Germany, fon of Maximilian II., 

 was born in 1552. His father procured him the crown of 

 Hungary in 1572, and that of Bohemia in 1575, together 

 witli the title of king of the Romans. On the death of 

 Maximilian, in 1576, he fucceeded to the imperial throne, 

 being then regarded as a highly accomplifhed prince, con- 

 verfnnt with various branches of knowledge. Unfortunately, 

 his tafte and acquirements were fo far from qualifying him 

 for the ftation to which he was elevated, that they diverted 

 his attention from the principal duties of a fovereign. He 

 was attached to mechanical inventions, and fpent whole days 

 in the (hops of clock-makers, turners, and other artifts, 

 Chemiftry was alfo one of his favourite ftudies, with its ufual 

 attendant in that age, alchemy. Having been educated 

 among the Jefuits, his zeal for the Catholic religion rendered 

 him unfriendly to thufe tolerating principles upon which his 

 father had adted. He had fucceeded to the fole pofleffion 

 of the territories of the houfe of Auftria, and finding that 

 the Proteftant religion had fpread in them to a degree that 

 threatened to tubvert the fuperionty of the Catholic, his 

 firft ere was to reftore the preponderance of the latter. 

 His meafures for this purpofe occafioned revolts, and a 

 total alienation of the minds of his Proteftant fubje&s. In 

 the other parts of the empire, Rodolph took part againft 

 the Proteflants, and his interference was a principal caufeof 

 the depofition and expulfion of the archbilhop and elector 

 of Cologne, who had embraced the Proteftant religion, and 

 married. Troubles foon arofe in his Hungarian dominions, 

 where fultan Amurath III. made various incurfions, in which 

 he over ran part of Hungary and Croatia. Thefe were, 

 however, challifed by feveral defeats given to the Turks by 

 the imperial generals. But Mahomet III., the fucceffor of 

 Amurath, took the important town of Agria, in Upper 

 Hungary, and war was maintained, with various fortune, in 

 that kingdom, till a peace was concluded with fultan Achmet, 

 in 1606. Rodolph took little perfonal fhare in thefe events, 

 being chiefly occupied with his ftudies ; and his Hungarian 

 lubjedts had contracted fuch a contempt for his character, 

 that they invited his brother, the archduke Matthias, to 

 undertake the government, and in 1607 elected him tor their 

 king. Matthias prepared to take poftefiion of his king- 

 dom, and, marching with an army through Auftria, pro- 

 jected to make himlelf malter of that duchy. The timid 

 and pacific Rodolph was perfuaded to enter into a treaty 



with 



