Alternative History
Rudolf of Mühlberg
Iván el Terrible y su hijo, por Iliá Repin
The Duke and His Son by Gustav Calame,
1884, depicting the death of Rudolf
Burgrave of Mühlberg
Reign 1482-1487
Predecessor Title Created
Successor William
Born 1 August 1464
Arnstadt, Thuringia,
Holy Roman Empire
Died 15 December 1487
Frankfurt, Holy Roman Empire
Issue William of Mühlberg
House House of Jenagotha
Father Thin White Duke
Mother Maria of Sommerschenburg
Religion Roman Catholicism

Rudolf of Mühlberg (1 August 1464 - 15 December 1487) was a Thuringian statesman and the third son of the Thin White Duke. In 1482 he was created Burgrave of Mühlberg by his father, and he reigned until his death five years later. Rudolf is most famous for his death at the hands of his own father, which occurred during a fit of rage during the Lenzburg-Premyslid War.

As a young man Rudolf was described as capable and intelligent, taking after his two older brothers. He is said to have been well learned and an avid reader, writing a biography on the life of Pope Gregory XI. Following the commencement of war with the Swiss Confederacy, Rudolf stayed in Germany and traveled between Thuringia and Frankfurt with his father, while command of Thuringian forces was placed in the hands of Rudolf's older brother William of Talstein. According to an account by Archbishop Diether von Isenburg of Mainz, on one occasion in 1484 Rudolf was responsible for discovering a plot to assassinate his father, thus saving his father's life.

In late 1484 Rudolf's brother William fell in battle near Voralberg, causing the Thin White Duke to episodically go into fits of rage and sadness. The Duke became increasingly paranoid and erratic for the remainder of the war, ordering several cruelties upon occupied peoples, much to the dismay of Rudolf and other advisors. During one such fit of rage, the Thin White Duke struck Rudolf in the head, inadvertently inflicting a mortal wound. Although the circumstances of Rudolf's death were suppressed until long after the conflict's end, several contemporary reports would confirm the event, including the memoirs of Rudolf's older brother Wolfgang the Wanderer. Published posthumously in 1493, Wolfgang wrote of the event: "And then there was the incident with Rudolf. I had read the disturbing letter from one of the Duke’s assistants. He had detailed to me how Rudolf, my own brother, had come to the [the Duke] gravely upset, angered by his handling of things, and so the Duke beat him with his cane over the head. He was barely conscious with a bleeding wound across his face, when it finally dawned on the Duke what he had done, so he dropped to his knees, started kissing the limb boy and screaming, 'May I be damned! I've killed my son! I've killed my son!' And within days it had come to pass that he was right. All this was greatly covered up and never reached the public, only the eyes of me, Rudolf’s brother. The next day the Duke had already moved on from the matter, having had the matter discreetly taken care of." Rudolf would be succeeded by his two year old son, William.

This article is part of Merveilles des Morte.