by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

The Holy Roman Empire was a limited elective monarchy composed of hundreds of kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, prince-bishoprics, and Free Imperial Cities in central Europe. The Holy Roman Empire was not really holy since, after Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1530, no emperors were crowned by the pope or a bishop. It was not Roman but rather German because it was mainly in the regions of present-day Germany and Austria. It was an empire in name only – the territories it covered were mostly independent each with its own rulers. The Holy Roman Emperor directly ruled over only his family territories, and could not issue decrees and rule autonomously over the Holy Roman Empire. A Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and alliances, including marriage alliances, made him, and his power was severely restricted by the many sovereigns of the constituent monarchies of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 13th century, prince-electors, or electors for short, elected the Holy Roman Emperor from among the sovereigns of the constituent states.

Frequently but not always, it was common practice to elect the deceased Holy Roman Emperor’s heir. The Holy Roman Empire was an elective monarchy. No person had a legal right to the succession simply because he was related to the current Holy Roman Emperor. However, the Holy Roman Emperor could and often did, while still alive, have a relative (usually a son) elected to succeed him after his death. This elected heir apparent used the title King of the Romans.

Learn more at Unofficial Royalty: What was the Holy Roman Empire?

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Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (reigned 1619 – 1637), Archduke of Inner Austria (reigned 1590 – 1637), King of Bohemia (1st reign 1617 – 1619, 2nd reign 1620 – 1637), and King of Hungary and Croatia (reigned 1618 – 1637) was born on July 19, 1578, at the Schlossberg in Graz, Duchy of Styria, Archduchy of Austria, now in Austria. He was the sixth of the fifteen children and the second but the eldest surviving of the six sons of Karl Franz II, Archduke of Inner Austria and his niece Maria Anna of Bavaria. Ferdinand’s paternal grandparents were Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anne of Bohemia and Hungary. His maternal grandparents were Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria and Anna of Austria (daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor).

Ferdinand had fourteen siblings:

• Archduke Ferdinand of Austria (born and died 1572), died in infancy
• Archduchess Anna of Austria (1573 – 1598), married Sigismund III Vasa, King of Sweden, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, had five children but only one survived childhood
• Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria (1574 – 1621), married Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, no children, marriage dissolved
• Archduchess Katharina Renata of Austria (1576 – 1599), unmarried
• Archduchess Elisabeth (1577 – 1586), died in childhood
• Archduke Karl (1579 – 1580), died in infancy
• Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria (1581 – 1597), died in her teens
• Archduchess Eleanor of Austria (1582 – 1620), a nun
• Archduke Maximilian Ernst of Austria (1583 – 1616), unmarried
• Archduchess Margarete of Austria (1584 – 1611), married King Felipe III of Spain, had eight children including King Felipe IV of Spain and Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII of France and mother of King Louis XIV of France
• Leopold V, Archduke of Further Austria (1586 – 1632), married Claudia de’ Medici, had five children
• Archduchess Constance of Austria (1588 – 1631), married Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, deposed King of Sweden, the widower of her older sister Anna, had seven children
• Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria (1589 – 1631), married Cosimo II de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, had eight children
• Archduke Karl Joseph of Austria, Bishop of Wroclaw, Bishop of Brixen, and Grand Master of the Teutonic Order (1590 – 1624), unmarried

Ferdinand’s mother Maria Anna of Bavaria was a strong supporter of the Counter-Reformation, the reaction of the Roman Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. Ferdinand and his siblings attended Mass from the age of one and their first words were to be Jesus and Mary. Catholic priests tutored them, and Latin was to be a priority before their native German language. When he was eight years old, Ferdinand began to attend the Jesuit school in Graz. In 1590, 11-year-old Ferdinand was sent to the Jesuit University of Ingolstadt in the Electorate of Bavaria for secondary school and university because his parents wanted to isolate him from Lutheran nobles. His strong Jesuit upbringing resulted in Ferdinand’s strong rejection of Protestantism. Throughout his life, Ferdinand was a very devout Roman Catholic and attended Mass at least once a day. His strong religion also caused him to be prudish. As Holy Roman Emperor, he burned paintings from the imperial art collection that depicted nudity.

In 1590, Ferdinand’s father died and the twelve-year-old inherited the lands of Inner Austria: Styria, Carniola, Carinthia, and Gorizia. His much older first cousin, Rudolf II was Holy Roman Emperor and Head of the House of Habsburg and appointed regents to administer Ferdinand’s lands. In 1595, Ferdinand returned to Graz from his studies at the University of Ingolstadt. In 1597, after he came of age, he began to rule the lands of Inner Austria in his own right.

In 1598, Ferdinand began strong Counter-Reformation policies in the lands of Inner Austria. He took a solemn vow to make Catholicism the sole religion in his lands again at any price. He was famous for saying, “Better to rule a desert than a country full of heretics.” Ferdinand demanded that all the nobility practice the Roman Catholic faith. Protestant nobles could either convert or leave Inner Austria. The creation of a Catholic nobility forced the peasants who worked their lands also to become Catholic. Protestant churches and books were destroyed and Protestant ministers and scholars such as the very renowned astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler were expelled from Inner Austria. These policies caused a financial and intellectual drain in Inner Austria.

On April 23, 1600, at Graz Cathedral in Graz, Styria, Lower Austria, now in Austria, 22-year-old Archduke Ferdinand married his 26-year-old first cousin Maria Anna of Bavaria, the daughter of Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria and Renata of Lorraine, reaffirming the alliance between the House of Habsburg and House of Wittelsbach.

Ferdinand and Maria Anna had seven children but only four survived childhood:

• Archduchess Christine of Austria (born and died 1601)
• Archduke Karl of Austria (born and died 1603)
• Archduke Johann Karl of Austria (1605 – 1619), died in his teens
• Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor (1608 – 1657), married (1) his first cousin Infanta Maria Anna of Spain, had six children (2) Maria Leopoldine of Austria, had one son (3) Eleanor Gonzaga of Mantua, had four children
• Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (1610 – 1665), married her uncle Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, had two sons
• Archduchess Cecilia Renata of Austria (1611 – 1644), married Władysław IV Vasa, King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, had two children
• Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (1614 – 1662), unmarried

On March 8, 1616, Maria Anna died, aged 41, before her husband became King of Bohemia, King of Hungary and Croatia, and Holy Roman Emperor. She was interred in the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II (link in German) which her husband began building in 1614, next to Graz Cathedral on the site of a former cemetery.

44-year-old Ferdinand married for a second time to his first cousin once removed, 24-year-old Eleonora Gonzaga of Mantua, daughter of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Monferrato and his second wife and first cousin Eleonora de’ Medici. A marriage contract was signed on November 21, 1621, and on the same day, a proxy marriage was held in the Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara at the Ducal Palace in Mantua. The couple was married in person on February 2, 1622, in Innsbruck, Duchy of Austria, now in Austria. However, Ferdinand and Eleonora had no children.

There was displeasure in the Habsburg family with Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. His brother Archduke Matthias played a significant role in the family’s opposition, called the Brothers’ Quarrel. Matthias forced Rudolf to cede the crowns of Hungary, Austria, Moravia, and Bohemia to him. Rudolf lost what was left of his power and lived in isolation at Prague Castle in Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic. When Rudolf died on January 20, 1612, nine months after he had been stripped of all effective power, his brother Matthias was elected to succeed him as Holy Roman Emperor and also succeeded to all Rudolf’s hereditary titles.

Cardinal Melchior Klesl, Holy Roman Emperor Matthias’ chief minister, wanted to arrange a compromise between Catholic and Protestant states within the Holy Roman Empire to strengthen the empire. These policies were opposed by the more conservative Catholic Habsburgs, especially Matthias’s brother Archduke Maximilian, who hoped to secure the succession for their ardent Catholic cousin Archduke Ferdinand, the future Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Matthias was old, ill, and unable to prevent the faction of his brother Archduke Maximilian from gaining power. He died on March 20, 1619, aged 62, in Vienna, Austria. Archduke Ferdinand had already been crowned King of Bohemia in 1617 and King of Hungary in 1618. He was elected Holy Roman Emperor on August 28, 1619.

The Thirty Years’ War began in 1618 as a result of the inadequacies of Ferdinand II’s predecessors Rudolf II and Matthias. Ferdinand wanted to restore the Catholic Church as the only religion in the Holy Roman Empire and to eliminate religious dissent. However, Ferdinand’s acts against Protestantism caused the war to engulf the entire Holy Roman Empire. The Thirty Years’ War (1618 – 1648) was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, with an estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians dying as a result of battle, famine, and disease.

After the deaths of his two eldest sons Karl and Johann Karl, Ferdinand II’s third son, also named Ferdinand was named as his father’s successor and was prepared for his future role. Like his father, he was a devout Catholic, but he was not fond of the influence of the Jesuits in his father’s court. Ferdinand II passed to his son Ferdinand the Habsburg hereditary lands in 1621, the crowns of Hungary and Croatia in 1625, and the crown of Bohemia in 1627. In 1636, Ferdinand II arranged for his son to be elected King of the Romans, ensuring he would be the next Holy Roman Emperor as Ferdinand III.

On February 15, 1637, at the age of fifty-eight, Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor died in Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, now Austria. He was interred in the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II (link in German) which he had built next to the Graz Cathedral. The tombs of Ferdinand II, his first wife Maria Anna of Bavaria, and his son Johann Karl, who died in his teens, are coffin wall niches and marked by inscriptions

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Works Cited

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• Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor (2023) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor (Accessed: 14 June 2023).
• Flantzer, Susan. (2023) Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Bohemia, Archduke of Austria, Archduke of Further Austria, King of Hungary and Croatia, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/matthias-holy-roman-emperor-king-of-bohemia-archduke-of-austria-archduke-of-further-austria-king-of-hungary-and-croatia/ (Accessed: 14 June 2023).
• Maria Anna of Bavaria (1551–1608) (2020) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_of_Bavaria_(1551%E2%80%931608) (Accessed: 14 June 2023).
• Mausoleum Kaiser Ferdinands II. (Graz) (2023) Wikipedia (German). Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_Kaiser_Ferdinands_II._(Graz) (Accessed: 14 June 2023).
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• Wilson, Peter H. (2016) Heart of Europe – A History of the Holy Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.