anish court.

Rhodolph was as superstitious as he was bigoted and cruel. Through the
mysteries of alchymy he had been taught to believe that his life would
be endangered by one of his own blood. The idea haunted him by night and
by day; he was to be assassinated, and by a near relative. He was afraid
to marry lest his own child might prove his destined murderer. He was
afraid to have his brothers marry lest it might be a nephew who was to
perpetrate the deed. He did not dare to attend church, or to appear any
where in public without taking the greatest precautions against any
possibility of attack. The galleries of his palace were so arranged with
windows in the roof, that he could pass from one apartment to another
sheltered by impenetrable walls.

This terror, which pursued him every hour, palsied his energies; and
while the Turks were drawing nearer to his capital, and Hungary had
broken from his sway, and insurrection was breaking out in all parts of
his dominions, he secluded himself in the most retired apartments of his
palace at Prague, haunted by visions of terror, as miserable himself as
he had already made millions of his subjects. He devoted himself to the
study of the mystic sciences of astrology and alchymy. He became
irritable, morose, and melancholy even to madness. Foreign ambassadors
could not get admission to his presence. His religion, consisting
entirely in ecclesiastical rituals and papal dogmas, not in Christian
morals, could not dissuade him from the most degrading sensual vice.
Low-born mistresses, whom he was continually changing, became his only
companions, and thus sunk in sin, shame and misery, he virtually
abandoned his ruined realms to their fate.

Rhodolph had received the empire from the hands of his noble father in a
state of the very highest prosperity. In thirty years, by shameful
misgovernment, he had carried it to the brink of ruin. Rhodolph's third
brother, Matthias, was now forty-nine years of age. He had been educated
by the illustrious Busbequias, whose mind had been liberalized by study
in the most celebrated universities of Flanders, France and Italy. His
teacher had passed many years as an ambassador in the court of the
sultan, and thus had been able to give his pupil a very intimate
acquaintance with the resources, the military tactics, the manners and
customs of the Turks. He excelled in military exercises, and was
passionately devoted to the art of war. In all respects he