Duke Ernest took up the reins of Government of Tyrol, and there ensued a period of bloodshed and disastrous Civil War in which the peasants and the lower classes remained firm and loyal supporters of their ruler Frederick, and the greater number of the nobility espoused the cause of the usurper Ernest. At length a peace was brought about between the two brothers, chiefly through the mediation of the Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg, and the Duke Louis of Bavaria. The reconciliation of Frederick and Duke Ernest, whose estrangement had been brought about by Frederick's action in relation to Pope John at Constance which had brought him under the powerful ban of the Church, took place at the castle of the Archbishop at Kropfsberg. The remaining portion of Frederick's life appears to have been peaceable, and notwithstanding his _sobriquet_ of "Empty Purse" he left a huge fortune in treasure, which some authorities assert was the greatest amassed by any ruler of those times. He was undoubtedly one of the most able, and with the peasants and townsfolk most popular, rulers Tyrol has ever had as a separate principality. He carried on a struggle throughout his reign against the encroachments of the nobility upon the lands and liberties of the people, which in itself was a thing sufficient to gain him the love and loyalty of the great masses of his subjects, which his affable manners, generosity, and kindliness served to cement. To him belongs the credit of summoning the first Tyrolean Landtag of any use or importance, held at Meran in 1423. Subsequently the Landtag was convened at Innsbruck, which town in consequence gradually came to be regarded as the capital of Tyrol. On the death of Frederick he was succeeded by his son Sigismund, then a mere lad of eleven or twelve years of age. The latter lived for some seven years at the Court of Vienna under the control of his guardian the Emperor Frederick III. Whilst in Vienna he became acquainted with one Æneas Silvius de Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., a widely travelled, able but licentious man who had journeyed so far afield as Scotland, and who poured such glowing descriptions of the beauty of the ladies of the Scottish Court into the young Duke Sigismund's ears that he became possessed with a desire to marry a Scotch bride. Thus it happened that when the daughter of Charles VII., King of France, died (whom it had been intended by his father he should marry) the young Duke Sigismund wooed and won Eleanor, daughter of ill-fated James I. of Scotland, to whom as dowry the Duke gave the historic castles of Ambras, Imst, and Hörtenburg for life. This gifted princess lived in Tyrol for a period of more than thirty years, and by her gentle manners, love of sport, especially hawking and hunting, and social accomplishments made herself much beloved by her husband's subjects. Her Court, for the size of the principality over which her husband ruled, was very large and luxurious.