FREDERICK III., OF GERMANY.—Frederick, who was F. III. as emperor of Ger many, F. IV. as king of Germany, and F. V. as duke of Austria, was b. in 1415, being the son of duke Ernst, of the Styrian branch of the house of Hapsburg. At the age of 20, he undertook an expedition to the Holy Land ; and on his return, in conjunction with his factious brother, Albert the prodigal, he assumed the government of his hered itary dominions of the duchy of Ausiria, the revenues of which scarcely exceeded 16,000 marks. On the death of the emperor Albert II., he was unanimously elected as his successor; and two years afterwards, in 1442, he was solemnly crowned at Aix-la Chapelle; ten years later, he received the imperial crown at the hands of the pope of Rome, and in 1453, secured the archducal title to his family. His reign was a prolonged struggle against domestic intrigues and foreign aggressions. One of his most trouble some opponents was his brother Albert, who refused to give up the provinces which he held until he had received a large sum of money; but notwithstanding these causes of annoyance, and while John Hunvades Corvinus. at the head of a Hungarian army. overran Austria, and laid siege to Vienna, and the usurper Sforza possessed himself of the imperial fief of Milan, on the extinction of the male line of the visconti, F. remained absorbed in his own private studies, or roused himself only to attempt, by the aid of foreign mercenaries. to recover the crown-lands of which the house of Austria had been deprived. His pusillanimous subserviency to the papal chair, and his wavering policy, irritated the electors, who at one time cherished the design of deposing him and nomi nating George Podiebrand, king of Bohemia, to the imperial throne; while it entangled him in quarrels on account of the succession to the palatinate, and other questions of German policy, and deprived the church in Germany of that independence from the thraldom of the papal chair which it had been the object of the council of Basel to secure to it. The contempt in which F. was held was made apparent on the death of his ward, Ladislausl king of Hungary and Bohemia, without children, when, notwith standing his just pretensions to this inheritance, he was passed over, the people of the former having chosen George Podiebrand as their king, and those of the latter Matthias Corvinus. His brother Albert's death in 1463, secured him a short reprieve from internal
disturbances, and gave him possession of upper Austria; but he was repeatedly embroiled in quarrels with Podiebrand and Matthias; the latter of whom several times besieged Vienna, and finally dispossessed him of every town of importance in his heredi tary domains. In the meanwhile, the Turks were suffered to push their conquests in Europe until they had advanced in 1456 to Hungary, in 1469 to Carniola, and in 1475 to Salzburg, although a vigorous opposition at the outset would easily have put a definite stop to their encroachments. On the death of Matthias, in 1490, F. recovered Austria, but he was obliged to acknowledge prince Ladislaus of Bohemia as king of Hungary. This mortification was soon followed by his death, in 1493, after an inglorious reign of 53 years, which did nothing to advance the prosperity or progress of the empire, although the times were propitious to both. But although F. neglected the interests and duties of the imperial crown to indulge in the pursuit of his favorite studies in alchemy, astronomy, and botany, he never lost an opportunity of promoting the aggrandizement Of his own family, which he very materially secured by marrying his son and successor, Maximilian, to Mary, the rich heiress of Charles the bold of Burgundy. F. was tem perate, devout, parsimonious, scrupulous about trifles, simple in his habits. pacific in his. disposition, and naturally averse to exertion or excitement. From his time, the imperial dignity continued almost hereditary in the house of Austria, which has per petuated the use of his favorite device, A. E. I. O. U., Austria Est Imperare Orloi Universe. See tEneas Sylvius, Historia; Ooze, house of Austria.