Thursday, March 10, 2011

Birthday Greetings #22

Happy birthday to Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. It was Ferdinand's sad lot to spend most of his life in the shadow of his much more famous brother Charles V. Charles was Holy Roman Emperor, Duke of Burgundy, King of Spain and ruled over a goodly chunk of mainland Europe. Such a broad domain was too much for one man to handle (although Charles arguably did a better job than the current European Union) and he delegated the job of ruling the traditional Habsburg territories (Austria and Bohemia) to Ferdinand. Ferdinand also served as a sort of deputy emperor when Charles happened to be busy elsewhere.

In being given Austria and Bohemia to take care of Ferdinand pretty much got the short straw. While Charles was swanning around in Spain (now almost sinking under the weight of the gold and silver extracted from the Americas) Ferdinand was stuck in what was then the arse end of civilised Europe with truculent Poles to the north, an aggressive Ottoman Empire to the south and various bitching vassal states in between. Still Ferdinand played the cards he was dealt and managed to get himself elected King of Hungary although the ruler of Transylvania (then a sort of semi independent Hungarian vassal state thingy) challenged him for the throne and dialled in the support of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. After some years of war they decided on a judgement of Suleiman option and divided Hungary between them. Transylvania became a vassal of the Ottomans and Ferdinand settled down to somewhat nervously rule western Hungary. Southern Hungary had already been conquered by the Ottomans who on a couple of occasions attempted to extend southern Hungary to the gates of Vienna. Somehow Ferdinand managed to survive all of this but one suspects that he slept very lightly for much of his life.

Meanwhile back in the Holy Roman Empire Catholicism was under threat from the emergent Protestant faith and Charles tapped his brother to deputise for him at a Diet in Augsberg which was supposed to sort out the mess once and for all. Ferdinand did so more or less in so far as he managed to stop Protestants and Catholics killing each other (much) but ultimately his measures sowed the seeds of greater discord to come.

Then in 1556 came the summons to the big league. Charles V, having decided that he was sick to death of all the travelling, abdicated his titles. The kingship of Spain went to his son Phillip and the imperial title was to go to Ferdinand. The imperial bureaucracy moved at its usual breakneck pace and two years later confirmed Ferdinand in the title. Ferdinand immediately set about attempting to centralise power (not in the Empire, the princes weren't having any of that) in his hereditary lands which is to say Austria, Bohemia and such of Hungary as he had managed to keep his hands on. Unfortunately the local nobility were no more supportive of such measures in their area than the princes of the Empire and ultimately Ferdinand had to accept that each of his territories was going to have to be ruled pretty much separately. Over the next four centuries various Habsburgs would make spasmodic attempts to weld their polyglot empire into a functioning whole with a dramatic lack of success.

After six years as emperor he decided it wasn't funny anymore and died. According to rumour he refused the last rites on his deathbed leading to suspicions that he may have been a closet Protestant. Sounds unlikely to me although he was a strong supporter of reform within the Catholic church.

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