His brother's failure to ensure that Rudolf would be adequately compensated for relinquishing his claime on the throne caused strife in the Habsburg family, leading to the assassination of Albert by Rudolph's son John Parricida in 1308.
His father King Rudolf also made him Duke of Swabia, a province in long-term disarray where the last duke, the underage Conradin, had been killed in 1268 and where the Habsburgs themselves were the most powerful provincial lords.