the autumn of 1861 he was busy with the arrangements for the projected international exhibition, and it was just after returning from one of the meetings in connexion with it that he was seized with his last illness. Beginning at the end of November with what appeared to be influenza, it proved to be an attack of typhoid fever, and, congestion of the lungs supervening, he died on the 14th of December. The grief of the queen was overwhelming and the sympathy of the whole nation marked a revulsion of feeling about the prince himself which was not devoid of compunction for earlier want of appreciation. The magnificent mausoleum at Frogmore, in which his remains were finally deposited, was erected at the expense of the queen and the royal family; and many public monuments to “Albert the Good” were erected all over the country, the most notable being the Albert Hall (1867) and the Albert Memorial (1876) in London. His name was also commemorated in the queen’s institution of the Albert medal (1866) in reward for gallantry in saving life, and of the order of Victoria and Albert (1862).
By the queen’s authority, her secretary, General Grey, compiled The Early Days of the Prince Consort, published in 1867; and The Life and Letters of the Prince Consort (1st vol., 1874; 2nd, 1880) was similarly edited by Sir Theodore Martin. A volume of the Principal Speeches and Addresses of Prince Albert, with an introduction by Sir Arthur Helps, was published in 1862. See also the Letters of Queen Victoria (1907). (H. Ch.)
ALBERT I. (c. 1250–1308), German king, and duke of Austria, eldest son of King Rudolph I., the founder of the greatness of the house of Habsburg, was invested with the duchies of Austria and Styria, together with his brother Rudolph, in 1282. In 1283 his father entrusted him with their sole 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 Göllheim 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 Görz 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. Bemühungen um die Nachfolge im Reich (Leipzig, 1862); J. F. A. Mücke, Albrecht I. von Habsburg (Gotha, 1866); A. L. J. Michelsen, Die Landgrafschaft Thüringen unter den Königen 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 ridding 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 for Germany.
See W. Altmann, Die Wahl Albrecht II. zum römische Könige (Berlin, 1886).
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
