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).
ALBERT II. (1397-1439), German king, king of Bohemia and
Hungary, and (as Albert V.) duke of Austria, was born on the
10th of August 1397, the son of Albert IV. of Habsburg, duke of
Austria. He succeeded to the duchy of Austria on his father's
death in 1404. After receiving a good education, he undertook
the government of Austria in 1411, and succeeded, with the
aid of his advisers, in adding the duchy of the evils which
had arisen during his minority. He assisted the German king,
Sigismund, in his campaigns against the Hussites, and in
1422 married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Sigismund,
who designated him as his successor. When the German king
died in 1437, Albert was crowned king of Hungary on the
1st of January 1438, and although crowned king of Bohemia
six months later, he was unable to obtain possession of the
country. He was engaged in warfare with the Bohemians and
their Polish allies, when on the 18th of March 1438 he was
chosen German king at Frankfort, an honour which he does
not appear to have sought. Afterwards engaged in defending
Hungary against the attacks of the Turks, he died on the
27th of October 1439 at Langendorf, and was buried at
Stuhlweissenburg. Albert was an energetic and warlike prince,
whose short reign gave great promise of usefulness lor Germany.
ALBERT (1490-1545), elector and archbishop of Mainz, and
archbishop of Magdeburg, was the younger son of John Cicero,
elector of Brandenburg, and was born on the 28th of June
1490. Having studied at the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder,
he entered the ecclesiastical profession, and in 1513 became
archbishop of Magdeburg and administrator of the diocese of
Halberstadt. In 1514 he obtained the electorate of Mainz,
and in 1518 was made a cardinal. Meanwhile to pay for
the pallium of the see of Mainz and to discharge the other
expenses of his elevation, Albert had borrowed a large sum of
money from the Fuggers, and had obtained permission from Pope
Leo X. to conduct the sale of indulgences in his diocese to
obtain funds to repay this loan. For this work he procured
the services of John Tetzel, and so indirectly exercised a
potent influence on the course of the Reformation. When the
imperial election of 1519 drew near, the elector's vote was
eagerly solicited by the partisans of Charles (afterwards
the emperor Charles V.) and by those of Francis I., king of
France, and he appears to have received a large amount of
money for the vote which he cast eventually for Charles.
Albert's large and liberal ideas, his friendship with Ulrich
von Hutten, and his political ambitions, appear to have raised
hopes that he would be won over to the reformed faith; but
after the Peasants' War of 1525 he ranged himself definitely
among the supporters of Catholicism, and was among the princes
who met to concert measures for its defence at Dessau in July
1525. His hostility towards the reformers, however, was
not so extreme as that of his brother Joachim I., elector of
Brandenburg; and he appears to have exerted himself in the
interests of peace, although he was a member of the league
of Nuremberg, which was formed in 1538 as a counterpoise to
the league of Schmalkalden. The new doctrines nevertheless
made considerable progress in his dominions, and he was
compelled to grant religious liberty to the inhabitants
of Magdeburg in return for 500,000 florins. During his
latter years indeed he showed more intolerance towards the
Protestants, and favoured the teaching of the Jesuits in his
dominions. Albert adorned the Stiftiskirche at Halle and
the cathedral at Mainz in sumptuous fashion, and took as his
motto the words Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae. A generous
patron of ait and learning, he counted Erasmus among his
friends. He died at Aschaffenburg on the 24th of September 1545.
See I. H. Hennes, Albrecht von Brandenburg, Erzbischofvon
Mbinz und Magdeburg (Mai1iz, 1858); i. May, Der
Kuriurst, Kardinal, und Erzbischof Albrecht II. von Mainz
unid Mogdeburg (Munich, 1865--1875ai co. Schum, Kardinal
Albrecht von Mainz und die Erfurter Kirchenreformation
(Halle, 1878); P. Redlich, Kardinal Albrecht von
Brandenburg, und das neue Stift zu Halte (Mainz, 1900).
ALBERT (1490-1568), Grand Master of the Teutonic Order,
and first duke of Prussia, was the third son of Frederick of
Hohenzollern, prince of Ansbach and Bayreuth, and Sophia,
daughter of Casimir IV., king of Poland. Born at Ansbach
on the 16th of May 1490, he was intended for the church, and
passed some time at the court of Hermann, elector of Cologne,
who appointed him to a canonry in his cathedral. Turning
to a more active life, he accompanied the emperor Maximilian
I. to Italy in 1508, and after his return spent some time in
Hungary. In December, Frederick, grand master of the Teutonic
Order, died, and Albert, joining the order, was chosen as his
successor early in 1511 in the hope that his relationship to
Sigismund I., king of Poland, would facilitate a settlement
of the disputes over east Prussia, which had been held by the
order under Polish suzerainty since 1466. The new master,
however, showed no desire to be conciliatory, and as war
appeared inevitable, he made strenuous efforts to secure
allies, and carried on tedious negotiations with the emperor
Maximilian I. The ill-feeling, influenced by the ravages of
members of the order in Poland, culminated in a struggle which
began in December 1519. During the ensuing year Prussia was
devastated, and Albert consented early in 1521 to a truce for four
years. The dispute was referred to the emperor Charles V.
and other princes, but as no settlement was reached the master
continued his efforts to obtain help in view of a renewal of the
war. For this purpose he visited Nuremberg in 1522, where
he made the acquaintance of the reformer, Andreas Osiander,
by whose influence he was won over to the side of the new
faith. He then journeyed to Wittenberg, where he was advised
by Martin Luther to cast aside the senseless rules of his
order, to marry, and to convert Prussia into an hereditary
duchy for himself. This proposal, which commended itself to
Albert, had already been discussed by some of his relatives;
but it was necessary to proceed cautiously, and he assured
Pope Adrian VI. that he was anxious to reform the order
and punish the knights who had adopted Lutheran doctrines.
Luther for his part did not stop at the suggestion, but in
order to facilitate the change made special efforts to spread
his teaching among the Prussians, while Albert's brother,
George, prince of Ansbach, laid the scheme before Sigismund of
Poland. After some delay the king assented to it provided that
Prussia were held as a Polish fief; and after this arrangement
had been confirmed by a treaty made at Cracow, Albert was
invested with the duchy by Sigismund for himself and his heirs
on the 10th of February 1525. The estates of the land then
met at Konigsberg and took the oath of allegiance to the new
duke, who used his full powers to forward the doctrines of
Luther. This transition did not, however, take place without
protest. Summoned before the imperial court of justice, Albert
refused to appear and was placed under the ban; while the order,
having deposed the grand master, made a feeble effort to recover
Prussia. But as the German princes were either too busy or
too indifferent to attack the duke, the agitation against
him soon died away. In imperial politics Albert was fairly
active. Joining the league of Torgau in 1526, he acted inunison
with the Protestants, and was among the princes who banded
themselves together to overthrow Charles V. after the issue
of the Interim in May 1548. Forvarious reasons, however,
poverty and personal inclination among others, he did not take a
prominent part in the military operations of this period. The
early years of Albert's rule in Prussia were faidy prosperous.
Although he had some trouble with the peasantry, the lands
