by the emperor, at Verona, 1245. The rights of Vienna, as an imperial city, were abolished, and Frederic was to be called king, as sovereign of Austria and Stiria; but all his expectations of empire were disappointed by his death, in the battle of Leytha against Bela IV, king of Hungary, July 15, 1246, in the 35th year of his age. Thus the male line of the house of Bamberg became extinct.-The period from 1246 to 1282 is styled the Austrian interregnum. The emperor Frederic II declared Austria and Stiria a vacant fief, the hereditary property of the German emperors, and sent a governor to Vienna, the privileges of which, as an imperial city, were once more renewed. But the female relations of the deceased duke Frederic, his sister Margaret (widow of the emperor Henry VI), and his niece Gertrude, by the persuasion of pope Innocent IV, in 1248, laid claim to the inheritance of their brother. The margrave Hermann, with the aid of the pope and a strong party, made himself master of Vienna, and of several Austrian cities. In Stiria, he was opposed by the governor, Meinhard, count of Görz. But Hermann died in 1250, and his son Frederic, who was afterwards beheaded, in 1268, at Naples, with Conradin of Suabia, was then only a year old. The whole country was distracted by various parties, and the emperor Conrad IV was prevented, by disputes with his neighbors, from turning his attention to A. In 1251, the states of Austria and Stiria determined to appoint one of the sons of the second sister of Frederic the Warrior, Constantia (widow of the margrave Henry the Illustrious), to the office of duke. Their deputies were on the way to Misnia, when they were persuaded by king Wenzeslaus, on their entrance into Prague, to declare his son Ottocar duke of Austria and Stiria, who made every effort to support his appointment, by arms, money, and especially by his marriage with the empress-widow, Margaret. Ottocar wrested Stiria from Bela, king of Hungary, by his victory of July, 1260, in the Marchfield; and, in 1262, forced the emperor Richard to invest him with both duchies. Soon after, by the will of his uncle Ulrich, the last duke of Carinthia and Friuli (who died 1269), Ottocar became master of Carinthia, a part of Carniola connected with it, the kingdom of Istria, and a part of Friuli. But his arrogance soon caused his fall. In 1272, he refused to acknowledge count Rodolph of Hapsburg emperor, and was obliged to defend himself against

his arms. After an unsuccessful war, he was forced to cede all his Austrian possessions, in Nov. 1276. In 1277, he attempted to recover these territories, but, in the battle of the Marchfield, Aug. 26, 1278, he was slain, and his son Wenceslaus was obliged to renounce all claim to them, in order to preserve his hereditary estates. The emperor Rodolph remained three years in Vienna, and then appointed his eldest son governor. But, having succeeded in gaining the consent of the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, of the three ecclesiastical electors, and of the count-palatine of the Rhine, he granted the duchies of Austria and Stiria, with the province of Carinthia, to his two sons Albert and Rodolph, Dec. 27, 1282.

This brings us to the History of Austria under the House of Hapsburg.-I. From 1282 to 1526. Albert and Rodolph transferred Carinthia to Meinhard, count of Tyrol, father-in-law to Albert. In 1283, they concluded a treaty, by which Albert was made sole possessor of Austria, Stiria, and Carniola. Vienna, having again renounced its privileges as an imperial city, was made the residence of the court, and the successors of Rodolph, from this time, assumed Austria as the family title. The introduction of the Hapsburg dynasty was the foundation of the future greatness of A. The despotic Albert was assailed by Hungary and Bavaria, and, in 1298, he won the Roman crown in an engagement with Adolphus of Nassau. After this, he undertook the conquest of Switzerland ; but was assassinated, May 1, 1308, at Rheinfelden, by his nephew, John of Suabia (see John the Parricide), from whom he had basely withheld his hereditary estates. The inheritance of John now fell to the five sons of the murdered Albert-Frederic, surnamed the Fair, Leopold, Henry, Albert, and Otho. They were forced to purchase of the emperor Henry VII the investiture of their paternal estates (consisting, in 1308, of 26,572 square miles), for 20,000 marks of silver. Under their father, in 1301, the margraviate of Suabia was added to the territories of Austria, and the contest with Bavaria ended in the cession of Neuberg. On the contrary, the attempt of duke Leopold, in 1315, to recover the forest-towns of Switzerland, which had been lost under Albert, was frustrated by the valor of the troops of the Swiss confederacy in the battle of Morgarten. In 1314, his brother Frederic, chosen emperor of Germany by the electors, was conquered by his rival, the emperor Louis (of Bavaria), in 1322, at

Mühldorf, and was his prisoner, for two years and a half, in the castle of Trausnitz. The dispute with the house of Luxemberg, in Bohemia, and with pope John XXII, induced the emperor, in 1325, to liberate his captive. Upon this, the latter renounced all share in the government, and pledged himself to surrender all the imperial domains which were still in the possession of A. But Leopold considered the agreement derogatory to his dignity, and continued the war against Louis. Frederic, therefore, again surrendered himself a prisoner in Munich. Moved by his faithful adherence to his word, Louis concluded a friendly compact with Frederic, and made preparations for their common government, Sept. 7, 1325. These preparations, however, were never carried into execution; for the agreement had been concluded without the consent of the electors. Leopold died in 1326, and Henry of A. in 1327; Frederic also died without children, Jan. 13, 1330, after which his brothers, Albert II and Otho, came to a reconciliation with the emperor Louis. After the death of their uncle, Henry, margrave of Tyrol and duke of Carinthia (the father of Margaret Maultasch), they persuaded the emperor to grant them the investiture of Tyrol and Carinthia, in May, 1335: they ceded Tyrol, however, to John, king of Bohemia, by the treaty of Oct. 9, 1356, in behalf of nis son John Henry, or rather of his wife, Margaret Maultasch. In 1344, after the death of Otho and his sons, Albert II, called the Wise, united all his Austrian territories, which, by his marriage with the daughter of the last count of Pfirt, had been augmented by the estates of her father in 1324, and by the Kyburg estates in Burgundy in 1326. Of the four sons of Albert II (Rodolph, Albert, Leopold and Frederic), Rodolph II (IV) completed the church of St. Stephen's, and died at Milan, in 1365, without children, a short time after his youngest brother, Frederic. In 1379, the two surviving brothers divided the kingdom, so that Albert III (with the queue) became master of Austria, and gave the other territories to his brother Leopold III, the Pious. Leopold had made repeated attempts to gain the Hapsburg possessions in Switzerland. He was killed, July 9, 1386, on the field of Sempach, where he lost the battle in consequence of the valor of Winkelried, and Albert administered the government of the estates of his brother's minor sons. Margaret Maultasch ceded Tyrol to him on the death of Meinhard, her only son,

who was married to the sister of Albert. She retained nothing but a few castles and 6000 marks of gold. Her claims to Bavaria, also, she renounced, in consideration of receiving Schärding and three Tyrolese cities, Kitzbühl, Ballenberg and Kuffstein, and 116,000 florins of gold. In 1365, Leopold III had bought the claims of the count of Feldkirch for 36,000 florins; for 55,000 florins Austria received Brisgau from the count of Fürstenberg, with the cities of Neuberg, Old Brisach, Kentzingen, and Billingen. The remainder of Carniola and the Windisch Mark, after the death of the last count of Görz, were purchased, together with the county of Pludentz, from the earl of Werdenberg, and the possessions of the count of Hohenberg, for 66,000 florins; and the city of Trieste was acquired, in 1380, by aiding in the war between Hungary and Venice. Moreover, the two governments of Upper and Lower Suabia were pledged for 40,000 florins by the king of Rome, Wenceslaus, to duke Leopold. The Austrian and Stirian lines, founded by Albert III and Leopold III, his brother, continued for 78 years. In 1395, when Albert III died, his only son, Albert IV, was in Palestine. On his return, he determined to take vengeance on Procopius, margrave of Moravia, for his hostile conduct; but he was poisoned, in 1404, at Znaym. His young son and successor, Albert V, was declared of age in 1410; and, being the son-in-law of the emperor Sigismund, he united the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia in 1437, and connected them with that of Germany in 1438. But in the following year the young prince died. His posthumous son, Ladislaus, was the last of the Austrian line of Albert, and its possessions devolved on the Stirian line, 1457. From this time, the house of Austria has furnished an unbroken succession of German emperors. Hungary and Bohemia were lost for a time by the death of Albert V, and, after the unhappy contests with the Swiss, under Frederic III, the remains of the Hapsburg estates in Switzerland. But several territories were gained; and, to increase the rising splendor of the family, the emperor conferred upon the country the rank of an archduchy. The dispute which broke out between Frederic and his brothers Albert and Sigismund, relating to the division of their paternal inheritance, ended with the death of Albert, in December, 1464. In the course of the troubles which resulted from this quarrel, the emperor was besieged in the citadel of Vienna by the

citizens, who favored the cause of the murdered prince. Sigismund now succeeded to his portion of the estate of Ladislaus, and Frederic became sole ruler of all Austria. His son Maximilian, by his marriage with Mary, the surviving daughter of Charles the Bold, united the Netherlands to the Austrian dominions. But it cost Maximilian much anxiety and toil to maintain his power in this new province, which he administered as the guardian of his son Philip. His confinement at Brüges, in 1489, resulted in an agreement which was decidedly for his advantage; but he lost, at the same time, the duchy of Guelders. After the death of his father, which happened Aug. 19, 1493, he was made emperor of Germany, and transferred to his son Philip the government of the Netherlands. Maximilian I (see this article and Germany) added to his paternal inheritance all Tyrol, and several other territories, particularly some belonging to Bavaria. He also acquired for his family new claims to Hungary and Bohemia. Ďuring his reign, Vienna became the great metropolis of the arts and sciences in the German empire. The marriage of his son Philip to Joanna of Spain raised the house of Hapsburg to the throne of Spain and the Indies. But Philip died in 1506, 13 years before his father, and the death of Maximilian, which happened Jan. 12, 1519, was followed by the union of Spain and Austria : his grandson (the eldest son of Philip), Charles I, king of Spain (see Charles V), was elected emperor of Germany. In the treaty of Worms, April 28, 1521, and of Ghent, May 7, 1540, he ceded to his brother Ferdinand all his hereditary estates in Germany, and retained for himself the kingdom of the Netherlands. The house of A. was now the proprietor of a tract of country in Europe comprising 360,230 sq. miles. The emperor Charles V immediately increased the number of provinces in the Netherlands to 17, and confirmed their union with the German states, which had been concluded by his grandfather, under the title of the circle of Burgundy. In 1526, A. was recognised as a European monarchy.-II. From 1526 to 1740. Ferdinand I, by his marriage with Anna, the sister of Louis II, king of Hungary, who was killed in 1526, in the battle of Mohacs, acquired the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, with Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia, the appendages of Bohemia. Bohemia rejoiced to hail Ferdinand its king. Notwithstanding the divided opinions of the nobles, and the rising fortune

of his adversary, John von Zapolya (see Hungary), he was raised to the throne of Hungary, Nov. 26, 1526, by the Hungarian diet, and was crowned, Nov. 5, 1527. But Zapolya resorted for assistance to the sultan Soliman II, who appeared, in 1529, at the gates of Vienna. The capital was rescued from ruin solely by the prudent measures of the count of Salm, general of the Austrian army, and the imperial forces compelled Soliman to retreat. In 1535, a treaty was made, by which John von Zapolya was allowed to retain the royal title and half of Hungary, and his posterity were to be entitled to nothing but Transylvania. But, after the death of John, new disputes arose, in which Soliman was again involved, and Ferdinand maintained the possession of Lower Hungary only by paying the warlike sultan the sum of 30,000 ducats annually. This took place in 1562. Ferdinand was equally unsuccessful in the duchy of Würtemberg. This province had been taken from the restless duke Ulrich by the Suabian confederacy, and sold to the emperor Charles V; and, when his estates were divided, it fell to Ferdinand. Philip, landgrave of Hesse, the friend of duke Ulrich, took advantage of the opportunity offered him by the embarrassment of Ferdinand in the Hungarian war. With the aid of France, he conquered Würtemberg; but France ceded it again to Ulrich in the treaty of Caden, in Bohemia, concluded June 29th, 1534, on condition that the province should still be a fief of Austria, and, after the extinction of the male line of the duke, that it should revert to that country. The remaining half of Bregentz, the county of Thengen, and the city of Constance, were insufficient wholly to compensate these losses; nevertheless, the territory of the German line of the house of Austria was estimated at 114,468 square miles. Ferdinand received also the imperial crown in 1556, when his brother Charles laid by the sceptre for a cowl. He died July 25, 1564, with the fame of an able prince, leaving 3 sons and 10 daughters. According to the direc tions given in his will, the three brother divided the patrimony so that Maximilia II, the eldest son, who succeeded his father as emperor, obtained Austria, Hungary and Bohemia; Ferdinand, the second son, received Tyrol and Hither Austria; and Charles, the third, became master of Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola and Görz. But, in 1595, after the death of the archduke Ferdinand, the husband of Philippine Welser, the fair maid of Augs

burg, his sons Andrew (cardinal and bishop of Constance and Brixen, and governor of the Netherlands for Spain) and Charles (margrave of Burgau) were declared incompetent to succeed their father, and his possessions reverted to his relations. In Hungary, the emperor Maximilian met with far better fortune than his father had done. The death of Soliman, at Sigeth, in 1566, was followed by a peace, and, in 1572, Maximilian crowned his eldest son, Rodolph, king of Hungary: he was afterwards crowned king of Bohemia, and elected king of Rome. In his attempts to add the Polish crown to his Austrian dominions, he was equally unsuccessful with his fourth son, Maximilian, who engaged in a similar enterprise after the decease of Stephen Bathori, in 1587. Maximilian died Oct. 12, 1576, and Rodolph, the eldest of his five sons, succeeded to the imperial throne. The most remarkable events, by which his reign is distinguished, are, the war against Turkey and Transylvania, the persecution of the Protestants, who were all driven from his dominions, and the circumstances which obliged him to cede Hungary, in 1608, and Bohemia and his hereditary estates in Austria, in 1611, to his brother Matthias. From this time we may date the successful exertions of the Austrian sovereigns to put down the restless spirit of the nation, and to keep the people in a state of abject submission. Matthias, who succeeded Maximilian on the imperial throne, concluded a peace for 20 years with the Turks; but he was disturbed by the Bohemians, who took up arms in defence of their religious rights. Matthias died March 20, 1619, before the negotiations for a compromise were completed. The Bohemians refused to acknowledge his successor, Ferdinand, and chose Frederic V the head of the Protestant league, and elector of the palatinate, for their king. After the battle of Prague, 1620, Bohemia submitted to the authority of Ferdinand. He immediately applied himself to eradicate Protestantism out of Bohemia Proper and Moravia. At the same time, he deprived Bohemia of the right of choosing her king, and of her other privileges. He erected a Catholic court of reform, and thus led to the emigration of thousands of the inhabitants. The house of Hapsburg has presented an example, which stands alone in history, of the manner in which violence and tyranny can check the progress of civilization; and Bohemia, the land of Huss, the land where religious freedom has been defended with

such heroic zeal, is now greatly inferior in cultivation to every other country of western Europe. The Austrian states also, favoring, in general, the Protestant religion, were compelled by Ferdinand to swear allegiance to him, and Lutheranism was strictly forbidden in all the Austrian dominions. The province of Hungary, which revolted under Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania, was, after a long struggle, subdued. This religious war dispeopled, impoverished and paralyzed the energies of the most fertile provinces of the house of Austria. During the reign of Ferdinand III, the successor of Ferdinand (1637-57), Austria was continually the theatre of war. In the midst of these troubles, Ferdinand ceded Lusatia to Saxony at the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635; and, when the war was ended, he ceded Alsace to France, at the peace of Westphalia, in 1648. The emperor Leopold I, son and successor of Ferdinand III, was victorious through the talents of his minister, Eugene, in two wars with Turkey; and Vienna was delivered, by John Sobieski (q. v.) and the Germans, from the attacks of Kara Mustapha, in 1683. In 1687, he changed Hungary into a hereditary kingdom, and joined to it the territory of Transylvania, which had been governed by distinct princes. Moreover, by the peace of Carlovitz, concluded in 1699, he restored to Hungary the country lying between the Danube and the Theiss. It was now the chief aim of Leopold to secure to Charles, his second son, the inheritance of the Spanish monarchy, then in the hands of Charles II, king of Spain, who had no children to succeed him; but his own in decision, and the artful policy of France, induced Charles II to appoint the grandson of Louis XIV his successor. Thus began the war of the Spanish succession, in 1701. Leopold died May 5, 1705, before it was terminated. The emperor Joseph I, his successor and eldest son, continued the war, but died without children, April 17, 1711. His brother Charles, the destined king of Spain, immediately hastened from Barcelona to his hereditary states, to take upon him the administration of the government. He was elected emperor, Dec. 24 of the same year; but was obliged to accede to the peace of Utrecht, concluded by his allies, at Rastadt and Baden, in 1714. By this treaty, Austria received the Netherlands, Milan, Mantua, Naples and Sardinia. In 1720, Sicily was given to Austria in exchange for Sardinia. The duchy of Mantua,

occupied by Joseph in 1708, was now made an Austrian fief, because it had formed an alliance with France, prejudicial to the interests of Germany. This monarchy now embraced 191,621 square miles, and nearly 29 million inhabitants. Its annual income was between 13 and 14 million florins, and its army consisted of 130,000 men; but its power was weakened by new wars with Spain and France. In the peace concluded at Vienna, 1735 and 1738, Charles VI was forced to cede Naples and Sicily to don Carlos, the infant of Spain, and to the king of Sardinia a part of Milan, for which he received only Parma and Piacenza. In the next year, by the peace of Belgrade, he lost nearly all the fruits of Eugene's victories, even the province of Temeswar; for he was obliged to transfer to the Porte Belgrade, Servia, and all the possessions of Austria in Walachia, Orsova and Bosnia. All this Charles VI willingly acceded to, in order to secure the succession to his daughter, Maria Theresa, by the Pragmatic sanction. This law of inheritance was passed 1713-1719, and acknowledged, one after another, by all the Euro

pean powers.

History of Austria under the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine.--I. From 1740 to 1790. By the death of Charles VI. Oct. 20, 1740, the male line of the Austrian house of Hapsburg became extinct; and Maria Theresa (q. v.), having married Stephen, duke of Lorraine, ascended the Austrian throne. On every side her claims were disputed, and rival claims set up. A violent war began, in which she had no protector but England. Frederic II of Prussia subdued Silesia; the elector of Bavaria was crowned in Lintz and Prague, and, in 1742, chosen emperor under the name of Charles VII. Hungary alone supported the heroic and beautiful queen. But, in the peace of Breslau, concluded June 4, 1742, she was obliged to cede to Prussia Silesia and Glatz, with the exception of Teschen, Jägerndorf and Troppau. Frederic II, by assisting the party of Charles VII, soon renewed the war. But Charles died Jan. 20, 1745, and the husband of Theresa was crowned emperor of Germany under the title of Francis I. A second treaty of peace, concluded Dec. 25, 1745, confirmed to Frederic the possession of Silesia. By the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Oct. 18, 1748, Austria was obliged to cede the duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla to Philip, infant of Spain, and several districts of Milan to Sardinia. The Aus

trian monarchy was now firmly established; and it was the first wish of Maria Theresa to recover Silesia. With this object in view, she formed an alliance with France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden. This was the origin of the seven years' war; but, by the peace of Hubertsberg, 1763, Prussia retained Silesia, and Austria had sacrificed her blood and treasures in vain. The first paper money was now issued in Austria, called state obligations, and the emperor Francis erected a bank to exchange them. After his death, Aug. 18, 1765, Joseph II, his eldest son, was appointed colleague with his mother in the government of his hereditary states, and elected emperor of Germany. To prevent the extinction of the male line of her family, Maria Theresa now established two collateral lines; the house of Tuscany, in her second son, Peter Leopold; and the house of Este, in the person of the archduke Ferdinand. For these separations, Maria Theresa indemnified the country by the confiscation of several cities, formerly pledged to Poland by Hungary, without paying the sum for which they stood pledged; by obtaining Galicia and Lodomiria in the first profligate division of the kingdom of Poland, in 1772; and by the capture of Bukowina, which was ceded by the Porte, in 1777. In the peace of Teschen, May 13, 1779, Austria received Innviertel, and the vacant county of Hohenembs in Suabia, the county of Falkenstein, and the Suabian territories of Tettnang and Argen; and thus, at the death of the empress, Nov. 28, 1780, Austria contained 234,684 square miles: it had lost 16,366 square miles, and gained 34,301. The population was estimated at 24 millions; but the public debt, also, had increased to 160 million florins. The administration of the empress was distinguished by the most useful institutions of government, agriculture, trade and commerce, the education of the people, the promotion of the arts and sciences, and of religion. The foreign relations of the kingdom, also, even those with the Roman court, were happily conducted by the talents of her minister, Kaunitz. (q. v.) Her successor, Joseph II (q. v.), was active and restless; impartial, but too often rash and violent. While a colleague with his mother in the government, he diminished the expenses of the state, and introduced a new system in the payment of pensions and of officers. But, after the death of his mother, all his activity and talent as a sovereign was fully developed. As