Albert of Austria

ALBERTO d'AUSTRIA. - Cardinal, son of Emperor Massimiliano II, born at Neustadt in 1559, died at Brussels in 1621. He was sent at an early age to the court of Filippo II of Spain, in order to be educated there in the genuine Habsburg tradition and to maintain closer relations between the two branches of the House. A candidate for the cardinalate on the part of his father and his great cousin, he was granted it by Gregorio XIII in 1577. He was Archbishop of Toledo, an excellent prelate by reason of his integrity of life and his reforming activity. Since Filippo II had fixed his attention upon him in order to make him head of the Low Countries, which needed pacification and reorganization, with the intention of restoring them, at least nominally, to their longed-for independence, he was released from his ecclesiastical vows and given as husband to Isabella d'Asburgo, lady of those lands. He contended with France, from which he wrested Calais, Amiens, and other important strongholds; he then fought against Holland and finally attempted to reconcile his State with that country. Ambrogio Spinola fought in the Low Countries under his command. He was an excellent head of State; but he did not succeed in restoring independence to the kingdom of Belgium, as he should have done and as the people expected of him, not so much because he left no direct descendants as because, by inclination and by will, he maintained Belgium as a fief of Spain. He should not, however, be judged, as is usually done, according to the ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries, that is, as a reactionary.