in that kingdom. To cement this union a double
marriage was to be concluded between a son and daughter of each of the
two sovereigns; Rudolph engaged to give a portion of forty thousand
marks of silver to his daughter, and, as a pledge for the payment,
assigned to Ottocar a part of that district of Austria which lies
beyond the Danube. The peace being concluded, the city of Vienna
opened its gates and readily acknowledged the new sovereign.

Ottocar was obliged to submit to these humiliating conditions, and on
the 25th of November, the day appointed for doing homage, crossed the
Danube with a large escort of Bohemian nobles to the camp of Rudolph,
and was received by the King of the Romans, in the presence of several
princes of the empire. With a depressed countenance and broken spirit,
which he was unable to conceal from the bystanders, he made a formal
resignation of his pretensions to Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and
Carniola, and, kneeling down, did homage to his rival, and obtained
the investiture of Bohemia and Moravia, with the accustomed
ceremonies.

Rudolph, having thus secured these valuable provinces, took possession
of them as fiefs reverted to the empire, and issued a decree placing
them under the government of Louis of Bavaria as vicar-general to the
empire, in case of his death or during an interregnum. He at the same
time established his family in the Austrian dominions, by persuading
the Archbishop of Salzburg and the bishops of Passau, Freising, and
Bamberg to confer on his sons, Albert, Hartman, and Rudolph, the
ecclesiastical fiefs held by the dukes of Austria. His next care was
to maintain the internal peace of those countries by salutary
regulations; and he gained the affection of the nobles by confirming
their privileges and permitting them to rebuild the fortresses which
Ottocar had demolished. To superintend the execution of these
regulations he fixed his residence at Vienna, where he was joined by
his Queen and family.

In order to reward his retainers he was, however, compelled to lay
considerable impositions on his new subjects, and to obtain free gifts
from the bishop and clergy; and the discontents arising from these
measures probably induced Ottocar to attempt the recovery of the
territories which he had lost.

Although the King of Bohemia had taken leave of Rudolph with the
strongest professions of friendship, and at different intervals had
renewed his assurances of unalterable harmo