Rudolf II of Hapsburg, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia and Hungary, was an extraordinary ruler, a monarch whose court occupied a central position in 16th-century Europe - yet he remained a shadowy and fugitive figure. The decades around 1600 saw sweeping cultural changes in Europe, with the waning of an old-world view and the beginnings of the 17th-century intellectual revolution. The author argues that the conflict which played itself out in the Hapsburg lands during these years was a political manifestation of the intellectual confrontation between the old guard and and their preoccupation with the mystical, spiritual and hermetic sciences, and the rise of a more rational and empirical view of the world. Rudolf, as the embodiment of the old philosophy, failed to grasp this profound shift in the prevailing climate of thought: Professor Evans argues that it was this failure which led to his eventual tragic downfall.