their allegiance to Ottocar, who secured that duchy by defeating Bela at Cressenbrum, and by the treaty of peace which followed that victory.  Ottocar had scarcely obtained possession of Styria before he deprived Gertrude of her small pittance, and the unfortunate princess took refuge from his tyranny in a convent of Misnia.  Having thus secured Austria and Styria, and ascended the throne of Bohemia, Ottocar divorced Margaret, who was much older than himself; and to acquire that right of succession of Frederick the Warlike which he had lost by this separation from his wife he, in 1262, procured from Richard of Cornwall the investiture of Austria, Styria, and Carniola, as fiefs devolved to the empire.  He either promised or gave compensation to Agnes, daughter of Gertrude by Herman of Baden, and to Henry, Margrave of Misnia, husband of Constantia.

Ottocar next purchased of Ulric, Duke of Carinthia and Carniola, who had no issue, the right of succeeding to those duchies on his death.  In the deed of transfer, instituted December, 1268, Ulric describes himself as without heirs; although his brother Philip, Archbishop of Salzburg, was still living.  On the death of Ulric, in 1269 or 1270, Ottocar took possession of those duchies, defeated Philip, who asserted his claims, and forced the natives to submit to his authority.

By these accessions of territory, Ottocar became the most powerful prince of Europe, for his dominions extended from the confines of Bavaria to Raab in Hungary, and from the Adriatic to the shores of the Baltic.  On the contrary, the hereditary possessions of Rudolph were comparatively inconsiderable, remote from the scene of contest, and scattered at the foot of the Alps and in the mountains of Alsace and Swabia; and though head of the empire, he was seated on a tottering throne, and feebly supported by the princes of Germany, who raised him to that exalted dignity to render him their chief rather in name than in power.

Although the princes and states of the empire had voted succors, many had failed in their promised assistance, and, had the war been protracted, those few would have infallibly deserted a cause in which their own interests were not materially concerned.  The wise but severe regulations of Rudolph for extirpating the banditti, demolishing the fortresses of the turbulent barons, and recovering the fiefs which several of the princes had unjustly appropriated, excited great discontent.  Under these circumstances the powerful and imperious Ottocar cannot be deemed rash for venturing to contend with a petty count of Switzerland, whom he compared to those phantoms of sovereignty, William of Holland and Richard of Cornwall, or that he should conclude a king of Bohemia to be more powerful than an emperor.  The event, however, showed that he had judged too hastily of his own strength and of Rudolph’s comparative weakness, and proved that, when the reins of government were held by an able hand, the resources of the empire were still considerable, and its enmity an object of terror.