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Updated: June 2, 2025
Among King Ottocar's esquires or subaltern junior officials on this occasion, is one RUDOLF, heir of a poor Swiss Lordship and gray Hill-Castle, called HAPSBURG, rather in reduced circumstances, whom Ottocar likes for his prudent hardy ways; a stout, modest, wise young man, who may chance to redeem Hapsburg a little, if he live?
At the conclusion of this ceremony the new Emperor, with his consort and the princes of the empire, assumed the cross, and engaged to undertake a crusade against the infidels. During the negotiations of Rudolph with Gregory X, Ottocar had exerted himself to shake the authority of the new chief of the empire, and to consolidate a confederacy with the German princes.
He was one of the lesser nobles, elected by the great dukes so that he should be too feeble to interfere with them. But he did interfere, and overthrew Ottocar of Bohemia, the strongest of them all, and restored some measure of law and tranquillity to distracted Germany.
While the two armies continued in this situation, some traitors repaired to the camp of-Rudolph and proposed to assassinate Ottocar, but Rudolph, with his characteristic magnanimity, rejecting this offer, apprised Ottocar of the danger with which he was threatened, and made overtures of reconciliation.
In September, 1211, a gathering of disaffected magnates, among whom were the newly made king Ottocar of Bohemia and the dukes of Austria and Bavaria, assembled at Nuremberg. They treated the papal sentence as the deposition of Otto, and pledged themselves to elect as their new king Frederick of Sicily, the sometime ward of the Pope.
Ottocar, now better understanding the power of his foe, made the most formidable preparations for the strife, and soon took the field with an army which he supposed would certainly triumph over any force which Rhodolph could raise. He even succeeded in drawing Henry of Bavaria into an alliance; and many of the German princes, whom he could not win to his standard, he bribed to neutrality.
Alphonso, King of Castile, and Ottocar, King of Bohemia, had both been candidates for the imperial crown. Exasperated by the unexpected election of Rhodolph, they both refused to acknowledge his election, and sent ambassadors with rich presents to the pope to win him also to their side.
Rhodolph spurned the infamous offer, and embraced the opportunity of seeking terms of reconciliation by apprising Ottocar of his danger. But the king, confident in his own strength, and despising the weakness of Rhodolph, deemed the story a fabrication and refused to listen to any overtures.
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.
Then that magnanimous monarch lost his life at the same time with the victory, and was overthrown, not by our power and strength, but by the right hand of the Most High." The body of Ottocar, deformed with seventeen wounds, was borne to Vienna, and, after being exposed to the people, was embalmed, covered with a purple pall, the gift of the Queen of the Romans, and buried in a Franciscan convent.
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