Birthday Greetings #47

Happy birthday to Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor.  Matthias was emperor from 1612-1619 although its fair to say that he seems to have gained most of his power prior to that date.  Matthias was the younger brother of the emperor Rudolf II a gloomy depressive who spent most of his time in Prague castle hoarding artworks and attempting to turn lead into gold.  In addition to his imperial title Rudolf was also Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and King of Bohemia.  As an emperor he didn't seem to be quite up to snuff.  Certainly he didn't seem so to Matthias.

Matthias started off his career by becoming governor of the Netherlands.  This was a little awkward as the Netherlands were then in revolt against Philip II of Spain (a relative) and Philip was less than pleased with Matthias inserting himself into the mix.  A measure of the success Matthias achieved can be seen in the fact that the Netherlands declared formal independence shortly afterwards and Matthias unemployed and humiliated slunk back to Austria.

Still you can't keep an ambitious princeling down forever and Rudolf, becoming less and less interested in the ruling of his territories, appointed Matthias as governor of Austria.  This brought Matthias face to face with the Hungarians and specifically the war which Rudolf was fighting unenthusiastically with the Ottoman Turks over that land.  Given command of Habsburg forces Matthias didn't achieve much but by comparison with Rudolf he must have seemed like a military genius.  There was also a protestant revolt in Hungary which Matthias dealt with by giving them everything they wanted.  As a result he persuaded the nobles of Hungary to appoint him king and the various members of the Habsburg family to make him head of the family which must cheered up the emperor no end.

Tossing concessions around like confetti Matthias clashed increasingly with Rudolf (one of whose titles he had just pinched after all) and managed to convince a large group of people that he would be the better ruler.  Pausing only to marry his cousin (a fine Habsburg tradition) Matthias moved against Rudolf and seized control of the Austrian and Moravian lands of the Habsburgs.  This left Rudolf with only the titles of Emperor and King of Bohemia.  A year or so later Matthias essentially imprisoned Rudolf in Prague castle and persuaded him of the necessity to hand over the title of King of Bohemia as well.  When Rudolf finally died, possibly of depression but more likely exasperation, Matthias gained the imperial title which was the only one left.

Now, however chickens starting coming home to roost in battalions.  Matthias had cut deals with protestants for their backing for his ambitions which had alienated the remaining, maniacally catholic, members of his family.  What's more the protestants seized the opportunity to launch revolts in the hopes of gaining more concessions.  Matthias, who had hoped to bring about a compromise between the two now found himself roundly distrusted and hated by both parties.  In the last months of his reign the ultra catholic Habsburgs managed to essentially do unto Matthias what Matthias had done to Rudolf squeezing the titles of King of Hungary and King of Bohemia out of him for his ultimate successor Ferdinand II.  Fortunately for him he died just before everything went completely to hell in the Thirty Years War which opened in the year of his death and ran for three decades to packed houses all over central Europe.