FERDINANDO II, EMPEROR. — Firstborn of Carlo, archduke of Styria, and of Maria, sister of the duke of Bavaria, born at Graz on 9 July 1578, died at Vienna on 15 February 1637. Educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt together with his cousin Massimiliano of Bavaria, in 1596 he assumed the government of the countries of central Austria, from which he expelled the Protestants.
He was king of Bohemia in 1617 and of Hungary in 1618; in both kingdoms he encountered opposition from the Protestants. He was crowned emperor on 28 August 1619. Two days earlier, the rebellious Bohemians had set against him Federico V of the Palatinate (the winter king). But after the victory at White Mountain (1620), F. sought to restore Catholicism in Bohemia, Moravia, and Austria. When the Thirty Years’ War spread to Germany, Cristiano IV of Denmark came to the aid of the Protestants; compelled by the forces of Tilly and Wallenstein to withdraw from Germany, he accepted the Peace of Lübeck (1629). In order to make the Catholics prevail in Germany, F. issued the Edict of Restitution (1629), so that ecclesiastical properties secularized after the Treaty of Passau (1552) might be restored.
The conflict with the Protestants thus became more acute; they were now aided by Gustavo Adolfo of Sweden, who, under the pretext of saving Protestantism, invaded Germany. After Tilly’s army had been annihilated at Breitenfeld (1631), F. recalled Wallenstein, whom he had sacrificed the previous year to the hatred of the princes at the Diet of Regensburg. The Swedish king fell at Lützen (1632). F.’s enemies began negotiations with Wallenstein in order to separate him from the Emperor; but the commander was assassinated at Eger (1634). F. concluded the separate Peace of Prague (1635) with Saxony and the other Lutheran princes. F. died before seeing the end of the conflict: his final political act was the election of his son as King of the Romans (December 1636).