August 28, 1619 – Ferdinand II Installed as Holy Roman Emperor

Ferdinand II was born in 1578 into the House of Habsburg. His cousin, the childless Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the head of the Habsburg family, appointed regents to administer his lands. Ferdinand was installed at age 18 as ruler of the Inner Austrian provinces in 1596. He was also charged with the command of the defense of Croatia, Slavonia, and Southeastern Hungary against the Ottoman Empire.

Ferdinand was a devout Catholic and regarded the regulation of religious issues as a royal prerogative. He introduced strict Counter-Reformation measures from 1598. He ordered the expulsion of all Protestant pastors and teachers and established special commissions to restore the Catholic parishes.

Ferdinand initially supported Rudolph II’s brother, Matthias, to be the next Emperor, but Matthias’ concessions to the Protestants in Hungary, Austria, and Bohemia outraged Ferdinand.

Matthias was nevertheless elected Emperor after Rudolf’s death on January 20, 1612. He too however failed to produce any heirs.

Matthias died of natural causes at age 62 on March 20, 1619, and Ferdinand, who had previously been crowned King of Bohemia (1617) and of Hungary (1618), succeeded Matthias as Holy Roman Emperor on August 28, 1619.

Ferdinand II, 1635 (two years before his death)

The Thirty Years’ War had already begun in 1618 driven by the contest for European dominance between Hapsburgs in Austria and Spain and the French House of Bourbon. But Ferdinand’s acts against Protestantism caused the war to engulf the whole empire. As a zealous Catholic, Ferdinand wanted to restore the Catholic Church as the only religion in the Empire and to wipe out any form of religious dissent. Simon Winder writes in his entertaining history Lotharingia, “The Emperor Ferdinand II was one of Europe’s truly chilling leaders, whose unshakable belief that he had been put on his throne to cleanse Europe of heretics lay at the heart of the disaster.”

The war left the Holy Roman Empire devastated with its cities in ruins. The population took a century to recover. Estimates of military and civilian deaths range from 4.5 to 8 million, while up to 60% of the population may have died in some areas of Germany.

Ferdinand died in 1637, leaving to his son Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, an empire still engulfed in a war. Ferdinand II was buried in his mausoleum in Graz. His heart was interred in the Herzgruft (Heart Crypt) of the Augustinian Church, Vienna.