In the next year (August, 1306) the murder of the young [Sidenote: Succession in Bohemia.] Wenzel III. left the Bohemian crown itself vacant. The sister of the late king had married Henry of Carinthia and Tyrol, the brother of Albert’s wife.[2] In spite of this relationship Albert claimed the kingdom as a vacant fief, and conferred it upon his eldest son Rudolf. The consent of the Bohemian nobles was extorted or purchased, and an agreement that Rudolf’s brothers should succeed if he himself died childless, seemed to secure to the Hapsburgs the permanent possession of a kingdom which, added to their Austrian territories, would make them all-powerful on the eastern frontier of Germany. This was the greatest of Albert’s achievements, and, if the acquisition had been permanent, would have made his reign as important in Hapsburg history as his father’s had been. But his last years were clouded with disappointment. An attempt to renew his predecessor’s claims upon Meissen and Thuringia was repulsed by Frederick of Wettin, who defeated the royal army, under Frederick of Hohenzollern, near Altenburg (May 31, 1307). This defeat was followed by the sudden death, on July 4, of the youthful Rudolf of Bohemia. The Bohemians had tired of Hapsburg rule, and in spite of the agreement made at Rudolf’s election, they now offered the crown to Henry of Carinthia. Albert had already made one incursion into Bohemia, and was preparing another, [Sidenote: Albert’s death.] when he was treacherously murdered by his nephew, John (May 1, 1308).