By killing his uncle, King Albert I of Germany, he foiled the first attempt of the Habsburg dynasty to install a hereditary monarchy in the Holy Roman Empire.

He passed his early days at the Bohemian court and the town of Brugg in the Swabian home territory of the Habsburgs, where he is mentioned as titular duke in a 1294 deed.

As John's father had been forced to waive his right to the Habsburg duchies of Austria and Styria in favour of his elder brother Albert I according to the 1283 Treaty of Rheinfelden, he felt deprived of his inheritance.

A Habsburg family banquet in Winterthur, held by Albert on the evening of 30 April 1308, gave rise to a scandal, when the invitee John rejected a floral wreath offered by his uncle, exclaiming that he would not be fobbed off with flowers.

In the same year, the prince-electors chose the Luxembourg count Henry VII as Albert's successor, who placed John under the imperial ban (Reichsacht).