dethroning the king, Bogeslaff II., and setting up Frederic I. In 1186 he became involved in a quarrel with King Bela, who disputed the possession of certain portions of Styria which Leopold held as a bequest from Ottocar, duke of that country. The difference being arranged by the emperor, Leopold in 1190 went to Palestine, and fought with the fierce bravery of his race. He quitted the Holy Land before King Richard, whom he seized in 1193 and sold to the emperor. Leopold was excommunicated for having arrested a crusader, and died from a fall from his horse in 1194, having ordered his son to restore the ransom he had received from the English king.—R. H.
LEOPOLD, surnamed the Glorious, Duke of Austria, and grandson of Rodolph of Hapsburg, was born in 1292, and died at Strasburg, 28th February, 1326. When his father, the Emperor Albert, was murdered in 1308, he acted with energy in pursuing the guilty, and with wisdom in preserving the states of his family. In 1310 he went with two hundred knights to join the Emperor Henry VII., and passed with him into Italy, where he took part in the siege of Brescia. At Henry's death he intrigued with the electors to obtain the election of his brother Frederick. A double election in fact took place—Ludwig of Bavaria being crowned at Aix, while Frederick was crowned at Cologne. Leopold was the first to appeal to arms and take the field. He invaded Bavaria in 1315, and devastated a portion of the country. He then led an army against the Swiss, but his troops fell crushed by the rocks and trees hurled from the heights at Morgarten, November 16, and retreat was imperative. He engaged in another war with Bavaria, but death overtook him at the time success appeared most probable.—P. E. D.
LEOPOLD, II., Duke of Austria, was born in April, 1351, and killed at Sempach, 9th July, 1386. On the death of his brother Rodolph II. he was called by his other brother, Albert III., to take part in the government. The two brothers proceeded to extend their dominion. They induced Bavaria to renounce all right to the Tyrol, and marched to the succour of Trieste, which, besieged by the Venetians, had given itself to Austria. They could not raise the siege, however, and in the following year concluded a treaty with Venice, to secure the trade that previously had passed through their states. In 1370 they confiscated the property of the Jews; and at the end of the same year Leopold went into Lithuania, to aid the Teutonic knights who were converting the last pagans of Europe by pillage and the sword. In 1372 he attempted to break the family compact of the house of Hapsburg, which made their states indivisible, and some time later he compelled his brother Albert to make a division. Leopold received Swabia, and Albert Austria and Styria. In attempting to subdue the Swiss he met his death on the field of battle.—P. E. D.
LEOPOLD I. King of the Belgians, born on the 16th of December, 1792—Prince Leopold George Christiern Friedrich of Saxe-Coburg—was the youngest son of the late Duke Francis of Saxe-Coburg, and brother of the late Duke Ernest and of the late duchess of Kent. Carefully educated after the manner of the princes of his house, he entered with the rank of general the military service of Russia when his sister married the Grand-duke Constantino. In that capacity he accompanied the Emperor Alexander to Erfurt. The menaces of Napoleon forced him later to resign his rank in the Russian service; but in the February of 1813, with an altered Europe, he joined the Emperor Alexander in Poland, and remained with the Russian army up to the first occupation of Paris, distinguishing himself at Lutzen, Bautzen, Leipsic, and Culm. According to Sir Archibald Alison the young prince was fascinated at Paris by the charms of a beautiful Englishwoman, and followed her with the allied sovereigns to London. It was the time when the then prince of Orange was paying his addresses to the Princess Charlotte, the daughter of George IV. The match with the prince of Orange was broken off; Prince Leopold proposed in his turn, and it is said was rejected. Present at the congress of Vienna, he joined the army of the Rhine on Napoleon's return from Elba. He was at Berlin when, soon after the battle of Waterloo, he received (according to Sir Archibald Alison) an invitation to England, during his former residence in which he had, it seems, been viewed with favour by the prince regent. Returning to London, he became the accepted suitor of the Princess Charlotte, and on the 19th of March, 1816, a message from the prince regent announced to parliament their approaching marriage. A settlement of £50,000 per annum was made upon the prince, who was naturalized, and created Duke of Kendal and a field-marshal. The marriage was celebrated on the 2nd of May, 1816, and on the 5th of November, 1817, the Princess Charlotte died in childbed. For many years Prince Leopold continued to live quietly, alternating his residence between London and Claremont. At the commencement of 1830, the three powers England, Russia, and France, who had undertaken the settlement of the affairs of Greece, concurred in offering to Prince Leopold the throne of that country. He found, however, that the Greeks were dissatisfied with the limits assigned by the powers to the new kingdom; and he definitively declined the proffered crown on the 21st of May, 1830, the powers having refused assent to his request to annex Candia to Greece. In the meantime, George IV. had died, and the niece of Prince Leopold, her present majesty, become the heir-presumptive to the throne of Britain. It was not long before the prince received the offer of another throne, and like that of Greece, the product of revolution. Belgium had thrown off the yoke of Holland, and was in quest of a king. There were objections raised by some of the great powers to the first two candidates for the new throne, the Duke de Leuchtenberg and the Duke de Nemours. The Belgian congress offered it to Prince Leopold. After negotiations, the aim of which on the part of the prince was to silence claims made by a section of the Belgian people, and likely to embroil Belgium with Europe, Prince Leopold accepted on the 26th of June, 1831, and on the 21st of July was formally installed king of the Belgians. Externally and internally the new monarch had great difficulties to front. Holland refused to accept the settlement of Belgium by the powers, and King Leopold had once more to take the field and command a portion of the Belgian army. By marrying, on the 9th of August, 1832, Louise, daughter of Louis Philippe, he consolidated an alliance with his most powerful neighbour, and French intervention forced the king of Holland to give way. After this King Leopold had to deal with the claims made by his subjects to such Dutch territory as the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, and it was not until the end of 1838 that any good understanding was established between Holland and Belgium; the final treaty of separation being signed on the 19th of April, 1839. It required all his majesty's prudence to cope successfully with the "religious difficulty" in Belgium, produced by the constant controversy between the so-called parti prêtre and the liberals, the king being himself the protestant sovereign of a catholic country. A constitutional sovereign, King Leopold always endeavoured to govern in strict accordance with the wishes of a parliamentary majority. He tried in turn coalition-ministries, ministries purely liberal, and ministries purely catholic. In 1857, the efforts of the parti prêtre to abolish the law of mortmain and the secular administration of charities, produced an excitement which it tasked all his majesty's tact and sagacity to appease; but his own general popularity remained unimpaired, as was proved by the universal enthusiasm displayed by the Belgians on the occasion of the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his accession. In the revolutionary year of 1848, his majesty had assembled the leaders of the chief political parties, and reminding them of the circumstances under which he accepted the crown, calmly offered to resign it if it was the general wish that Belgium should become a republic; for himself he desired nothing better than to be allowed to return to Claremont. The royal offer, made in the interest of the tranquillity of his kingdom was declined, and the revolutionary bands which appeared on the Belgian soil from France were easily and quickly repulsed. King Leopold did much to promote the internal prosperity of Belgium. In 1834 he inaugurated a grand system of railways, and in 1835 the national bank was founded. His commercial policy was liberal, and his government negotiated commercial treaties with the leading countries of the world. By his discreet and wise counsels, indeed, he acquired an influence which was felt, not only throughout Europe, but even in America. Under his majesty's auspices, Brussels acquired a new reputation, as the head-quarters of European discussion on philanthropic, social, literary, and artistic subjects; witness the numerous non-political congresses which were held in it. His civil list was a small one, yet he was a patron of the useful and the beautiful. On accepting the throne of Belgium he surrendered his pension from England. The royal family of Belgium has been noted for the simplicity of its habits. King Leopold became a widower on the 11th October, 1850. His own death occurred on the 10th
