struck, tore, and mangled his limbs; and violently forcing them from the executioner, they dragged through the streets with the utmost eagerness and rage, and burnt them in different parts of the city.

ASSASSINATION OF ALBERT OF AUSTRIA, DISPLAYING THE FEUDAL CONTENTIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

ALBERT went early in the spring of 1308 to his western dominions, in order to prepare for a war against Bohemia, and established his court at Rheinfelden. He was accompanied by John, the son of his late brother Rudolph, who secretly repined at the injustice of his uncle, in withholding from him, although now of age, his father's share of the hereditary dominions of the house of Hapsburg. The king, unwilling to yield up those ample territories, had formed the project of indemnifying his nephew by the grant of some distant provinces in Saxony, which he was preparing to conquer. Duke John, abashed by the presence of Leopold, the king's third son, who, although not older than himself, had yet been some time in possession of high honors, and extensive domains; and stimulated by many of the nobility of Argau, who, weary of the stern severity of Albert, looked for a more lenient sovereign, demanded anew, and with some importunity, the territories his father had held during the life of King Rudolph. Irritated by repeated denials, he poured forth bitter complaints into the bosoms of his confidential, and equally discontented friends, who, although conscious of their inability to compel redress, yet resolved to convince Albert that those who fear nothing are always formidable. Duke John and several nobles, now conspired the death of Albert. These nobles were Walter, baron of Eschenbach, whose estates and influence extended from the lake of Zurich to the Oberland, who was related to all the principal families in the Argau, Thurgau, and Rhætia, but who owed his power and renown much more to his eminent virtues than to his illustrious birth and ample property; Rudolph, baron of Wart, a cousin of Eschenbach, whose

castle was situated in Kyburgh; Rudolph de Balm, from Lenzburg, and Conrad de Tegerfeld, from the neighborhood of Baden, who had superintended the education of the young injured prince.

On the first of May, in the tenth year after he had triumphed over and contrived the death of his legitimate Sovereign, King Adolphus, Albert set out from the citadel of Baden, in his way to Rheinfelden, accompanied by Landenberg, Everhard de Waldsee, on whose account he had forfeited the affections of his Austrian subjects, Burcard, count of Hohenberg, his cousin, and several other nobles and attendants. Being arrived at the ferry over the Reuss, near Windish, the king was, under pretence that the boat must not be overburdened, insensibly led away by the conspirators, to some distance from his retinue. He was riding leisurely across some cornfields, bordering on the hills of Hapsburg, and conversing with Walter do Castelen, a knight whom he had met on his way, when duke John, approaching on a sudden, exclaimed, "Take this as a reward for thy injustice" and thrust his spear into the neck of Albert. Balm hereupon rushed in, and pierced his body; Eschenbach clove his head; Wart stood aghast, and Castelen fled. The king, streaming with blood, sunk to the ground, and soon after expired in the arms of a poor woman, who seeing his deplorable condition, had hastened to his assistance. He had before escaped two similar conspiracies; but this third, the contrivance of an insulted kinsman,* proved fatal.

Duke John and his friends, struck with a sudden panic, as if this had not been a premeditated and wilful act, fled different ways, and met no more after this portentous hour. The duke escaping into the mountains, lay a few days concealed at Einsidlen, and lurked some time, solitary and forlorn, in the adjacent woods; he then assumed the habit of a monk, and wandered into Italy. King Henry, of Luxemburg, saw him at Pisa, in the year 1313, after which he disappeared, and consumed the remainder of his days in

* In answer to one of duke John's most urgent solicitations for his in. heritance, the king presented him with a chaplet of flowers, observing, that this best became his years."

profound obscurity: nor has it ever been authentically disproved, that a blind beggar, who was seen many years after, receiving alms at the new market in Vienna, was actually, as he asserted, the son of this unfortunate prince, and grandson to the great Rudolph. It is not known where and how soon Balm ended his hapless days. Tegerfeld was never after heard of. Eschenbach fled with Wart up the river Aar, to the castle of his uncle, at Falckenstein. He is known to have lived thirty-five years afterward, as a shepherd, in the country of Wurtemburg, where he disclosed his rank shortly before his death, and was buried with the honors due to his illustrious birth. The baron of Wart, who had seen, but no way participated in the bloody deed, was betrayed by some of his relations into the hands of the sons of Albert, and by them instantly sentenced to death. While with broken limbs he lay agonizing on a wheel, he still, with manly fortitude, declared himself innocent of the crime for which he suffered. "And indeed," he added, "those also who have committed the deed, are guiltless of a crime. They have, in fact, destroyed a monster, who, violating all ties of honor and religion, had laid bloody hands on his liege lord and sovereign; and, in defiance of all justice and equity, withheld from his nephew his lawful patrimony, and who truly deserved to suffer the tortures I now endure. May God take pity on me, and pardon my transgressions!" His wife, (a lady of the house of Balm,) after having in vain prostrated herself at the feet of Agnes, daughter of Albert and queen of Hungary, and conjured her, by the mercy she hoped to find on the day of judgment, to take compassion on the unhappy baron attended her husband to the place of execution. She continued three days and three nights at the foot of the wheel, in constant prayer, and without sustenance, until he expired. She then went on foot to Basle, where she soon after died, oppressed with grief. Russeling, a servant of the baron, shared in the fate of his unhappy master.

Duke Leopold having collected forces, marched against the castle of Wart, took and demolished it, and put to the sword all the retainers of the baron who had attempted to defend it. John, a brother of baron Rudolph, although he had been in no ways concerned in the conspiracy, was,

nevertheless, despoiled of all his property, and left to pine away in necessitous life, in a remote and wretched cottage, once the property of his forefathers. Farwangen, the principal seat of the family of Balm, surrendered on a promise of mercy; but no sooner was the duke possessed of it, than he and his sister Agnes, caused thirty-six of the garrison, many of them nobles, who all, to their last breath, called God to witness of their innocence, to be dragged to a neighboring wood, and there beheaded in their presence. Mashwanden, a castle of Eschenbach, was taken, and its whole garrison put to the sword. In the midst of the carnage, a child of count Walter was discovered by his moans in a cradle, and with much difficulty saved by the ferocious soldiers, from the relentless fury of queen Agnes, who was preparing to butcher it with her own hands. She was then scarce twenty-six years of age!!

More than one thousand men, women and children having thus, chiefly at the instance of the relentless Agnes, been cruelly slaughtered, this queen, jointly with Eliza beth, her mother, founded on the field where the murder had been committed, the site of the ancient Vindonissa, a sumptuous monastery, for the minorites and nuns of St. Clara. Its high altar was raised on the spot on which Albert had expired. This foundation has since flourished under the name of the abbey of Koenigsfelden. It was xempted from all contributions and secular jurisdiction. The dowager queen, Agnes, and many other princesses and illustrious dames, who were desirous to ingratiate themselves either with God or with the court, conferred on it ample endowments in lands, tithes, jewels, and rich garments. Agnes, who from her infancy had shown a great aversion to the splendors and dissipations of a court, and had reluctantly consented to her marriage, fixed her abode near this monastery. Every morning she attended the celebration of mass, and all the afternoon she worked with her maids at some church implement or decoration. She observed all the fasts and ceremonies with the most scrupulous punctuality, and displayed great humility and beneficence in washing the feet of pilgrims, and distributing alms to the poor-and yet she in vain endeavored to prevail on a venerable hermit in the neighborhood to visit the

church of the monastery. "They," said he, "who shed innocent blood, and found convents with the spoils of the victims, can never be truly pious. The Father of mercies delights in benignity and forgiveness." Others have recorded also of this queen, that she possessed uncommon vigor and activity of mind, but that her great semblance of piety could not always be relied on with safety.

Thus ended the restless ambition of Albert, which, while it cost him the love of all his subjects, and the confidence of his contemporary princes, terminated, ultimately, in his own untimely death, the ruin of the only son of a brother, and the final extirpation of an illustrious race of ancient barons, and of many distinguished vassals. The bold achievement of the Swiss meanwhile drew on a series of hostilities, which, in less than a century, brought about the intimate union of all the states of Helvetia and Rhætia, and finally, the establishment of their renowned confederacy. Planta's His. of the Helvet. Confederacy.

THE CORNISH MURDER.

LILLO, the author of the tragedy of George Barnwell, wrote another tragedy, called "The Fatal Curiosity," which was founded on the following dreadful murder.

In September, Anno Christi 1618, there lived a man at Perin, in Cornwall, who had been blessed with an ample possession and fruitful issue; unhappy only in a younger son, who, taking liberty from his father's bounty, joined with a crew like himself, who, weary of the land, went roving to sea, and, in a small vessel, southward, made prize of all they could master; and so increased in wealth, number, and strength, that in the Straits they adventured upon a Turkish man of war, where they got great booty; but their powder by mischance taking fire, our gallant, trusting to his skillful swimming got on shore upon the Isle of Rhodes, with the best of his jewels about him; where, after a while, offering some of them for sale to a Jew, he knew them to be the governor's of Algiers; whereupon he was apprehended, and for a pirate condemned to the gal