Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire

“ This deed was followed by the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635, primarily with John George I., elector of Saxony, but soon assented to by other princes; and this treaty, which made extensive concessions to the Protestants, marks the definite failure of Ferdinand to crush Protestantism in the Empire, as he had already done in Austria and Bohemia. It is noteworthy, however, that the emperor refused to allow the inhabitants of his hereditary dominions to share in the benefits of the peace. During these years Ferdinand had also been menaced by the secret or open hostility of France. ”

“ The true tendency of affairs manifested itself in 1629, when the emperor Ferdinand II. (1619–1637) , at the zenith of his fortunes, forced the Protestant princes of Germany to restore to the Roman hierarchy all the ecclesiastical territories they had secularized during the past seventy-four years. Then France, freed from the fear of domestic enemies, arose to help the heretics to harry the house of Habsburg. Arranging a truce between Poland and Sweden, she unleashed Gustavus Adolphus. ”

“ The Protestants looked forward with dread to his reign if he should receive the Imperial crown. Styria had become almost wholly Lutheran. When Ferdinand succeeded his father, he had driven out the Protestant families, and made the land altogether Catholic. No Catholic prince had ever shown himself more reckless as to the means by which he served his church. The Protestants, therefore, had good reason to fear that if he became Emperor he would renew the policy of Charles V., and try to bring back the old state of things, in which there was but one Church as there was but one Empire. ”

“ It was in the spirit of party that he embroidered a petticoat for the Holy Virgin, solely with the view of pleasing and cajoling the clergy; for, in his heart, Ferdinand is rather a devotee to pleasure than religion. In his habits he is remarkably domesticated; he rises at an early hour, and passes the greater part of the day in his wife's apartment, of whom he is passionately fond. The queen unites to a very graceful figure an interesting expression of countenance, that sometimes wears an appearance of sadness. ”

“ In 1493 Charles VIII. of France was preparing to invade Italy for the conquest of Naples, and Ferdinand realized that this was a greater danger than any he had yet faced. With almost prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander VI. and Ludovico il Moro, lord of Milan, having failed, he died in January 1494, worn out with anxiety. Ferdinand was gifted with great courage and real political ability, but his method of government was vicious and disastrous. ”

“ In spite of constant and harassing engagements Ferdinand was fairly successful both as king and emperor. He sought to consolidate his Austrian lands, reformed the monetary system in Germany, and reorganized the Aulic council (Reichshofrat) . Less masterful but more popular than his brother, whose character overshadows his own, he was just and tolerant, a good Catholic and a conscientious ruler. ”

“ Ten years afterwards, Ferdinand (King of Hungary and Bohemia since the death of Louis, slain in 1526 at the battle of Mohacz) was elected King of the Romans, and steadily refused all the entreaties afterwards made to him in behalf of Philip, to resign his crown and his succession to the Empire, in favor of his nephew. ”

“ On the 15th of February, 1637, the Emperor Ferdinand II. died, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, after having occasioned, by his policy, the death of 10,000,000 of human beings. Yet the responsibility of his fatal and terrible reign rests not so much upon himself, personally, as upon the Jesuits who educated him. He appears to have sincerely believed that it was better to reign over a desert than a Protestant people. As a man he was courageous, patient, simple in his tastes, and without personal vices. ”

“ All feelings of hostility had long since given way to devoted loyalty towards a government, which had uniformly respected the liberties of its subjects, and whose paternal sway had secured similar blessings to Barcelona with the rest of the empire. They thronged round the building, crying out that the king was slain, and demanding that his murderers should be delivered up to them. Ferdinand, exhausted as he was, would have presented himself at the window of his apartment, but was prevented from making the effort by his physicians. ”

“ That house then appeared at the summit of prosperity. Ferdinand, though seventy years of age, was still vigorous: he was rich, he had triumphed over all his enemies; he passed for the most able politician in Italy. His two sons, Alfonso and Frederick, and his grandson, Ferdinand, were reputed skilful warriors; they had an army and a numerous fleet under their orders. However, Ferdinand dreaded a war with France, and he had just opened negotiations to avoid it when he died suddenly, on the 25th of January, 1494. ”

“ King Ferdinand, his sovereign, notwithstanding the ambition of universal conquest absurdly imputed to him by the French writers, had no design to extend his acquisitions beyond what he could permanently maintain. His treasury, never overflowing, was too deeply drained by the late heavy demands on it, for him so soon to embark on another perilous enterprise, that must rouse anew the swarms of enemies, who seemed willing to rest in quiet after their long and exhausting struggle ”

“ The hostilities began almost as soon as Ferdinand II of the House of Habsburg had been elected Emperor. He was the product of a most careful Jesuit training and was a most obedient and devout son of the Church. The vow which he had made as a young man, that he would eradicate all sects and all heresies from his domains, Ferdinand kept to the best of his ability. Two days before his election, his chief opponent, Frederick, the Protestant Elector of the Palatinate and a son-in-law of James I of England, had been made King of Bohemia, in direct violation of Ferdinand's wishes. ”

“ Profoundly sagacious, he was ever ready to profit by the factional quarrels of his infidel enemies. He made large additions to his power by furnishing Castilian troops to aid the ambition or the enmity of Saracen partisans in return for the cession of important castles and fertile territory. As a pretended neutral, alternately supporting the pretensions and promoting the feuds of rival Moslem princes, the Crown of Castile was always the gainer. King Ferdinand was a worthy representative of the proselyting spirit which characterized his royal line from the very institution of the monarchy. ”

“ Several of the princes appealed to Ferdinand to relieve their dominions from the oppressive burden of war, but the emperor was weaker than his general, and dared not act against him. The whole of north Germany lay prostrate beneath the powerful warrior, and obeyed his slightest nod. ”

“ When free, he revenged himself with a ferocity which disgusted his allies. In his last years he prepared a change in the order of succession established by his dynasty in Spain, which angered a large part of the nation, and made a civil war inevitable. We have to distinguish the part of Ferdinand VII. in all these transactions, in which other and better men were concerned. It can confidently be said to have been uniformly base. He had perhaps no right to complain that he was kept aloof from all share in government while only heir apparent, for this was the traditional practice of his family. ”

“ Early in 1558 Charles carried out his intention to abdicate the imperial throne, and on the 24th of March Ferdinand was crowned as his successor at Frankfort. Pope Paul IV. would not recognize the new emperor, but his successor Pius IV. did so in 1559 through the mediation of Philip of Spain. The emperor’s short reign was mainly spent in seeking to settle the religious differences of Germany, and in efforts to prosecute the Turkish war more vigorously. ”

“ His government, though in a sense despotic, was popular and enlightened. In 1759 he became by succession King of Spain; and, under the obligation of existing treaties, he relinquished the Kingdom of Naples to his third [2] son, Ferdinand, aged only eight. In 1768 Ferdinand married Maria Caroline, daughter of the Emperor Francis and of Maria Theresa, and sister of Marie Antoinette.
Ferdinand IV., as he was then termed (afterwards Ferdinand I.) was a man of no great ability, but of vigorous physique, and sufficiently well-disposed as a sovereign ”

“ Ferdinand was still a vassal Prince, and by the terms of the Treaty of Berlin bound to remain a vassal Prince. The Provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, by the terms of the same treaty, only existed under the protection of the Austrian Empire. If the new Turkish administration should prove honest and successful, the schemers would be hard put to it for an excuse for the interference they had planned.
But excuses are easily found by men like Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The new Turkish Ministry gave a dinner in Constantinople to the representatives of the Great Powers. ”

“ His mother’s death removed an obstacle, for there could now be no question as to his son’s succession to the Spanish kingdoms. Religious settlement in Germany could no longer be postponed, and he shrank from the responsibility; the hand that should rend the seamless raiment of God’s church must not be his. To Ferdinand he gave his full authority as emperor, although at his brother’s earnest request formal abdication was delayed until 1558. In the Hall of the Golden Fleece at Brussels on the 25th of October 1555 he formally resigned to Philip the sovereignty of his beloved Netherlands. ”

“ Want of power to wield power made him love it the more.
The king’s birthday fell on the 30th of May. It was celebrated by the peasants of La Mancha, reunited at Aranjuez. In vain the soldiers repeated the patriotic cry of the peasants, even as the bodyguard at Versailles sang “O Richard! O mon Roi!” If France had not soon interfered, Ferdinand would have followed where Richard led Louis XVI. The militia marched on the people, and a townsman lifted his sword against Don Carlos—that last of the kings and one who waited so heavy a crown. ”

“ OF THE INQUISITION DURING THE REIGN OF FERDINAND VI. PHILIP V. left his crown to Ferdinand VI., his eldest son by his first wife, Gabriella of Savoy. This prince reigned from the 9th of July, 1746, to the 10th of August, 1759; he died without children. He was succeeded by his brother, Charles III. of Naples, the son of Philip V. and Isabella Farnese, his second wife. Don Francis Perez del Prado, Bishop of Teruel, held the office of inquisitor-general at the accession of Ferdinand. ”

“ Material has been sent off to the Univers, the organ of the Jesuits in France; and "an Englishman, well known for certain transactions in Italy, is to do all the pen fighting work for Ferdinand in London. Really," says the Daily News, "the princes of this epoch have much to redeem. Almost every crowned, or would-be crowned, head, as he appears on the scene, does so as a mean intriguer, a lying varlet, a wearer of false colors. None have the courage to avow the nature of their policy or claims ”

“ Prince Ferdinand frequently employed him on missions to England, when there was any important military business to transact, and he seems to have been equally in the confidence of the Prince and the English Government. The King also entertained a warm regard for him, and took much pleasure in his society; no one perhaps being more constantly his Majesty’s attendant in his rides. ”

“ Ferdinand was fond of power, and his first steps showed that he would strive to maintain it. Not a few of the discontented, because disappointed, nobles retired from Toro in disgust, assembled others of the same faction at Valladolid, and wrote letters to Philip, then governor of Flanders, pressing him to come and assume the administration of the kingdom. The archduke, eager to seize his consort’s inheritance, had the insolence to order his father-in-law to retire into Aragon, against whose every act of government, since the death of Isabella, he equally protested. ”

“ In order to oppose one monarch to another, and by the presence of their sovereign to animate the courage of the troops, Ferdinand, in the ardor of the moment, had offered himself to be the leader of his army; but little trouble was required to overturn a resolution which was the offspring of despair alone, and which yielded at once to calm reflection. But the situation which his dignity, and the duties of administration, prevented the Emperor from holding, might be filled by his son, a youth of talents and bravery, and of whom the subjects of Austria had already formed great expectations. ”

“ It is a futile accomplishment, as nearly all his occupations and amusements are futile. Compared with such a king as our own, who does an immense amount of hard, useful work, in an unassuming way; or even with the Kaiser, who makes a lot of fuss, but certainly gets a good deal done, this Ferdinand is surely a make-believe monarch. ”

“ The Spanish monarch made no attempt to retain these acquisitions; but, having dismantled some of the towns, which offered most resistance, returned loaded with the spoils of victory to his own dominions. "Had he been as good a general as he was a statesman," says a Spanish historian, "he might have penetrated to the centre of France." [25] Ferdinand, however, was too prudent to attempt conquests which could only be maintained, if maintained at all, at an infinite expense of blood and treasure. ”