The diet met, and on the 27th of November, 1308, the choice fell
unanimously upon Henry, Count of Luxemburg.
This election deprived Frederic of his hopes of uniting Bohemia to
Austria, for the new emperor placed his son John upon the Bohemian
throne, and was prepared to maintain him there by all the power of the
empire. In accomplishing this, there was a short conflict with Henry of
Carinthia, but he was speedily driven out of the kingdom.
Frederic, however, found a little solace in his disappointment, by
attaching to Austria the dominions he had wrested from the lords he had
beheaded as assassins of his father. In the midst of these scenes of
ambition, intrigue and violence, the Emperor Henry fell sick and died,
in the fifty-second year of his age. This unexpected event opened again
to Frederic the prospect of the imperial crown, and all his friends, in
the now very numerous branches of the family, spared neither money nor
the arts of diplomacy in the endeavor to secure the coveted dignity for
him. A year elapsed after the death of Henry before the diet was
assembled. During that time all the German States were in intense
agitation canvassing the claims of the several candidates.
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