Rudolf II ( – 10 May 1290), a member of the House of Habsburg, was Duke of Austria and

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...

from 1282 to 1283, jointly with his elder brother Albert I, who succeeded him.

Biography

Rudolf II was born in

Rheinfelden Rheinfelden may refer to: Places * Rheinfelden (Baden), a town in the county of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany * Rheinfelden (Aargau), a town in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland * Rheinfelden District, a district in the Swiss canton of Aa ...

Swabia Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany. The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...

, the youngest son of Count Rudolf of Habsburg and his first wife Gertrude of Hohenberg to survive infancy. In 1273 his father was elected king of Germany, the first of the Habsburg dynasty, whereafter he seized the "princeless" duchies of Austria,

and

Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...

from the Bohemian king Ottokar II. After King Ottokar was defeated and killed in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld, King Rudolf in December 1282 vested his sons Albert and Rudolf II with the Austrian and Styrian duchies. However, in the Treaty of Rheinfelden on 1 June 1283 Rudolf II had to relinquish his share in favour of his elder brother Albert. In compensation Rudolf II was designated as future king and his father appointed him a "

duke of Swabia The Dukes of Swabia were the rulers of the Duchy of Swabia during the Middle Ages. Swabia was one of the five stem duchies of the medieval German kingdom, and its dukes were thus among the most powerful magnates of Germany. The most notable family ...

" - more or less an honorific title, as the former

stem duchy A stem duchy (german: Stammesherzogtum, from '' Stamm'', meaning "tribe", in reference to the Franks, Saxons, Bavarians and Swabians) was a constituent duchy of the German Empire at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dynasty (death o ...

had been in long-term disarray after the last Hohenstaufen duke, the underage Conradin, was killed in 1268. In Swabia the former counts of Habsburg only held various smaller home territories, later summed up as Further Austria, of which Rudolf II never got hold. In the course of the reconciliation process with the Bohemian Přemyslid dynasty, Rudolf II in 1289 married Agnes (1269-1296), daughter of the late King Ottokar II. Rudolf II died suddenly at the age of 20 in Prague, where he stayed at the court of his brother-in-law King Wenceslaus II. In the same year his son, John Parricida, was born. His brother's failure to ensure that Rudolf II would be adequately compensated for relinquishing his claim on the throne caused strife in the Habsburg dynasty, leading to the assassination of Albert I by Rudolph's son, John, in 1308. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rudolf 02, Duke of Austria 1270 births 1290 deaths 13th-century dukes of Austria Rudolf 2 13th-century House of Habsburg Rulers deposed as children Medieval child rulers Burials at St. Vitus Cathedral Sons of kings