ALBERT I. (c. 1250-1308), German king, and duke of Austria,
eldest son of King Rudolph I., the founder of the greatness
of the house of Habsburg, was invested with the duchies of
Austria and Styria, together with his brother Rudolph, in
1282. In 1283 his father entrusted him with their sole
government, and he appears to have ruled them with conspicuous
success. Rudolph was unable to secure the succession to
the German throne for his son, and on his death in 1291, the
princes, fearing Albert's power, chose Adolph of Nassau as
king. A rising among his Swabian dependants compelled Albert
to recognize the sovereignty of his rival, and to confine
himself to the government of the Habsburg territories.
He did not abandon his hopes of the throne, and, in 1298,
was chosen German king by some of the princes, who were
dissatisfied with Adolph. The armies of the rival kings
met at Gollheim near Worms, where Adolph was defeated and
slain, and Albert submitted to a fresh election. Having
secured the support of several influential princes by extensive
promises, he was chosen at Frankfort on the 27th of July
1298, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 24th of August
following. Albert sought to play an important part in European
affairs. He seemed at first inclined to press a quarrel with
France over the Burgundian frontier, but the refusal of Pope
Boniface VIII. to recognize his election led him to change his
policy, and, in 1299, a treaty was made between Albert and
Philip IV., king of France, by which Rudolph, the son of the
German king, was to marry Blanche, a daughter of the French
king. He afterwards became estranged from Philip, and, in
1303, was recognized as German king and future emperor by
Boniface, and, in return, admitted the right of the pope
alone to bestow the imperial crown, and promised that none
of his sons should be elected German king without the papal
consent. Albert had failed in his attempt to seize Holland and
Zealand, as vacant fiefs of the Empire, on the death of Count
John I. in 1299, but in 1306 he secured the crown of Bohemia
for his son Rudolph on the death of King Wenceslaus III. He
also renewed the claim which had been made by his predecessor,
Adolf, on Thuringia, and interfered in a quarrel over the
succession to the Hungarian throne. His attack on Thuringia
ended in his defeat at Lucka in 1307, and, in the same year,
the death of his son Rudolph weakened his position in eastern
Europe. His action in abolishing all tolls established on
the Rhine since 1250, led to the formation of a league against
him by the Rhenish archbishops and the count palatine of the
Rhine; but aided by the towns, he soon crushed the rising.
He was on the way to suppress a revolt in Swabia when he was
murdered on the 1st of May 1308, at Windisch on the Reuss, by
his nephew John, afterwards called ``the Parricide,'' whom he
had deprived of his inheritance. Albert married Elizabeth,
daughter of Meinhard IV., count of Gorz and Tirol, who bore
him six sons and five daughters. Although a hard, stern
man, he had a keen sense of justice when his selfish interests
were not involved, and few of the German kings possessed so
practical an intelligence. He encouraged the cities, and
not content with issuing proclamations against private war,
formed alliances with the princes in order to enforce his
decrees. The serfs, whose wrongs seldom attracted notice
in an age indifferent to the claims of common humanity,
found a friend in this severe monarch, and he protected
even the despised and persecuted Jews. The stories of his
cruelty and oppression in the Swiss cantons first appear
in the 16th century, and are now regarded as legendary.
See
G. Droysen, Albrechts I. Bemuhungen um die Nachfolge
im Reich (Leipzig, 1862)
J. F. A. Mucke, Albrecht
I. von IIabsburg (Gotha, 1865)
A. L. J. Michelsen,Die Landgrafschaft Thuringen unter den Konigen
Adolf, Albrecht, und Heinrich VII. (Jena, 1860).
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