centric character, ever poring over
musty records and hunting up decayed titles. He was fond of attaching to
his signature the names of all the innumerable offices he held over the
conglomerated States of his realm. He was Rhodolph, Margrave of Baden,
Vicar of Upper Bavaria, Lord of Hapsburg, Arch Huntsman of the Empire,
Archduke Palatine, etc., etc. His ostentation provoked even the jealousy
of his father, the emperor, and he was ordered to lay aside these
numerous titles and the arrogant armorial bearings he was attaching to
his seals. His desire to aggrandize his family burned with a quenchless
flame. Hoping to extend his influence in Italy, he negotiated a
matrimonial alliance for his brother with an Italian princess. As he
crossed the Alps to attend the nuptials, he was seized with an
inflammatory fever, and died the 27th of July, 1365, but twenty-six
years of age, and leaving no issue.

His brother Albert, a young man but seventeen years of age, succeeded
Rhodolph. Just as he assumed the government, Margaret of Tyrol died, and
the King of Bavaria, thinking this a favorable moment to renew his
claims for the Tyrol, vigorously invaded the country with a strong army.
Albert immediately applied to the emperor for assistance. Three years
were employed in fightings and diplomacy, when Bavaria, in consideration
of a large sum of money and sundry other concessions, renounced all
pretensions to Tyrol, and left the rich prize henceforth undisputed in
the hands of Austria. Thus the diminutive margrave of Austria, which was
at first but a mere military post on the Danube, had grown by rapid
accretions in one century to be almost equal in extent of territory to
the kingdoms of Bavaria and of Bohemia. This grandeur, instead of
satisfying the Austrian princes, did but increase their ambition.

The Austrian territories, though widely scattered, were declared, both
by family compact and by imperial decree, to be indivisible. Albert had
a brother, Leopold, two years younger than himself, of exceedingly
restless and ambitious spirit, while Albert was inactive, and a lover of
ease and repose. Leopold was sent to Switzerland, and intrusted with the
administration of those provinces. But his imperious spirit so dominated
over his elder but pliant brother, that he extorted from him a compact,
by which the realm was divided, Albert remaining in possession of the
Austrian provinces of the Danube, and Leopold having exclusive dominion
ove