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RUDOLPH I. RUE 463 RUDOLPH I. of Hapsbnrg, emperor of Ger- many, founder of the imperial house of Aus- tria, son of Count Albert IV. of Hapsburg, born in the Breisgau, May 1, 1218, died in Ger- mersheim, July 15, 1291. He was brought up at the court of his uncle the emperor Fred- erick II., under whom he served in the wars in Italy. On the death of his father in 1240, he succeeded to the landgraviate of Upper Al- sace, the burgraviate of Rheinfelden, and with his brother to the county of Hapsburg. He wrested additional territory from his relatives and others, and in 1245 married a daughter of Burchard, count of Hohenberg, who brought him valuable possessions. He distinguished himself in several wars, and acquired so high a reputation for justice and prowess that he was chosen by many cities as their protector and the leader of their armies. In 1264 he became chief magistrate of Zurich, and was involved in several conflicts, which generally terminated in his favor. The most bitter of these was with the bishop of Basel, and Ru- dolph was besieging that city in 1273 when he was unanimously chosen to the throne of Germany in preference to Alfonso of Castile and Ottocar of Bohemia. Basel immediately opened its gates, in spite of the angry remon- strances of the bishop. Rudolph strengthened himself after his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle (Oct. 28) by the marriage of his two daugh- ters, Matilda and Agnes, to Louis, duke of Bavaria, and Albert, duke of Saxony, and by a concordat with Pope Gregory X., who per- suaded Alfonso of Castile to recognize Ru- dolph, while Duke Henry of Bavaria and King Ottocar of Bohemia were speedily overcome by him. Ottocar, after violating a truce, fell in battle on the Marchfeld, Aug. 26, 1278. Rudolph restored Bohemia and Moravia to Wenceslas, son of Ottocar, but retained Aus- tria, Styria, and Carniola for his own sons. He now established order and tranquillity in his dominions, put an end to the depredations of the feudal barons by sentencing many of them to death and demolishing their strong- holds, and passed so many new decrees that he was called lex animata, " the living law." Un- der him German was substituted for Latin in official documents. Rudolph also engaged in a successful war with the count of Savoy, but was unsuccessful in 1288 against the city of Bern. He restored order in Bohemia, deliver- ing the young king Wenceslas II. from his cap- tivity, and marrying him to one of his daugh- ters. He was greatly mortified at the refusal of the diet of Frankfort in 1291 to choose his son Albert as his successor. He set out for Spire, but died on the way, and was succeeded on the imperial throne by Adolphus of Nas- sau. See Geschichte Rudolfs von Hdbsburg, by Schonhuth (2 vols., Leipsic, 1843-'4). RUDOLPH II., emperor of Germany, born in Vienna, July 18, 1552, died Jan. 20, 1612. He was the son of Maximilian II. and Maria, daughter of Charles V., a bigoted princess, un- 714 VOL. xiv. 30 der whose charge he passed his early years. In 1564 he was sent to the court of Spain, where Philip II., who had then no male issue, designed him to be his successor, and here the Jesuits continued his education. In 1572 he was crowned king of Hungary and in 1575 of Bohe- mia, was in the latter year elected and crowned king of the Romans, and on Oct. 12, 1576, suc- ceeded Maximilian in all his dominions. Un- der the tolerant rule of his father the Protes- tants had gained vastly in strength, especially in the Austrian states. Rudolph, led by the Spanish court and the Jesuits, proceeded at once to restore the Catholic party to its former position. The religious dissensions broke out in all their former bitterness, and Aix-la-Cha- pelle, the electorate of Cologne (where the dis- pute arose out of the ecclesiastical reservation), and the see of Strasburg became the theatre of war. Failing to obtain redress from Ru- dolph, a number of the Protestant states formed in 1608 a confederacy known as " the Union," and in the following year the Catholic states established a counter confederacy styled " the League." While Germany was thus brought to the brink of a general struggle, the inca- pacity and intolerance of Rudolph, who had been involved in war with the Turks and Tran- sylvania, had alienated his family, and pro- voked an insurrection in Hungary under Bocs- kay (1604) which threatened to overturn his throne. In 1608 he was forced to cede Hun- gary, Austria, and Moravia to his brother Mat- thias, who had gained the malcontents 'by promises of religious liberty (see MATTHIAS) ; and in July, 1609, the Protestants of Bohemia extorted from the distressed emperor a letter patent (Majestatsbrief) guaranteeing the exer- cise of their religion. A new war was kin- dled in Germany by the disputed succession to the dominions of the duke of Jiilich. In 1611 an attempt against the liberties of Bohemia, whose capital Prague was his favorite resi- dence, cost Rudolph the crown of that kingdom, which was transferred to Matthias. Rudolph died soon after, stripped of all but his imperial dignities. His temper had become extremely gloomy and mistrustful, and from superstitious fear he had never married and sought to keep his brothers from doing so. He was fond of science and the mechanical arts, in which last he personally excelled, but he was greatly ad- dicted to alchemy as well as to astrology, which at his court found votaries in Tycho Brahe and Kepler. He encouraged letters, his reign being the most brilliant period of Bohemian literature. He was succeeded by Matthias. RUDOLSTADT. See ScnwABZBUKG-RuDOL- STADT. RUE, from ruta, the ancient Latin and pres- ent botanical name of a genus of plants, one species of which, the common rue (H. graveo- lens), has long been cultivated, and is now oc- casionally seen in old gardens. The genus ruta comprises about 40 species, which are natives of the Mediterranean region and west-