of Honor.--A Confederacy of Barons.--Their Route.--Rhodolph's Election
as Emperor of Germany.--The Bishop's Warning.--Dissatisfaction at the
Result of the Election.--Advantages Accruing from the Possession of an
Interesting Family.--Conquest.--Ottocar Acknowledges the Emperor; yet
breaks his Oath of Allegiance.--Gathering Clouds.--Wonderful
Escape.--Victory of Rhodolph.--His Reforms.


In the small canton of Aargau, in Switzerland, on a rocky bluff of the
Wulpelsberg, there still remains an old baronial castle, called
Hapsburg, or Hawk's Castle. It was reared in the eleventh century, and
was occupied by a succession of warlike barons, who have left nothing to
distinguish themselves from the feudal lords whose castles, at that
period, frowned upon almost every eminence of Europe. In the year 1232
this castle was occupied by Albert, fourth Count of Hapsburg. He had
acquired some little reputation for military prowess, the only
reputation any one could acquire in that dark age, and became ambitious
of winning new laurels in the war with the infidels in the holy land.
Religious fanaticism and military ambition were then the two great
powers which ruled the human soul.

With the usual display of semi-barbaric pomp, Albert made arrangements
to leave his castle to engage in the perilous holy war against the
Saracens, from which few ever returned. A few years were employed in the
necessary preparations. At the sound of the bugle the portcullis was
raised, the drawbridge spanned the moat, and Albert, at the head of
thirty steel-clad warriors, with nodding plumes, and banners unfurled,
emerged from the castle, and proceeded to the neighboring convent of
Mari. His wife, Hedwige, and their three sons, Rhodolph, Albert and
Hartman, accompanied him to the chapel where the ecclesiastics awaited