Albrecht II Succeeds Sigismund

1437

The Habsburg archduke, already king of Bohemia and Hungary through his wife, inherited the German crown from his father-in-law Sigismund. The Habsburgs held their first united bloc of Central European crowns. His sudden death a year and a half later nearly undid the arrangement, but the precedent was set. His brief reign established the Habsburg practice of accumulating crowns through marriage rather than conquest.