After lengthy struggles with Adolf of Nassau, his father was elected King of Germany in 1298 and vested sixteen-year-old Rudolf as a co-ruler with the Austrian hereditary lands of the Habsburg dynasty.

Another opportunity for a Habsburg gain in power opened when in 1306 King Wenceslaus III, the last Bohemian ruler of the Přemyslid dynasty, was killed and Albert I was able to seize his kingdom as an escheated fief.

To further legitimate the Habsburg claims to the Bohemian and the Polish throne, Albert had Rudolph married to Elizabeth Richeza of Poland, widow of King Wenceslaus II.

Mocked as král kaše ("king porridge") for his thriftiness rather than stomach problems, Rudolf was rejected by several Bohemian nobles, who continued to hold out for Henry.

As Rudolf left no children, the first grab of the Habsburgs for the Crown of Saint Wenceslas failed when the Bohemian nobles restored Henry as king in return for a charter of privileges, who in turn had to renounce the throne in favour of Count John of Luxembourg three years later.