CHAPTER I.
RHODOLPH OF HAPSBURG.
From 1232 to 1291.
Hawk's Castle .-- Albert, Count of Hapsburg .-- Rhodolph of Hapsburg .-- His Marriage and Estates .-- Excommunication and its Results .-- His Principles 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.