FERDINAND IL, Emperor of Germany, 1619-37,, was b. at Gratz, 9th July, 1578. He was grandson of Ferdinand I., his father being Charles, archduke of Styria, the younger brother of Maximilian. F.'s mother, Maria of Bavaria, early inspired him with hatred against the Protestants. He was educated by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt, along with Maxi milian of Bavaria; and at Loretto he had taken a solemn oath, before the altar of the Mother of God, to reinstate Catholicism as the sole religion of his dominions, at any cost. As soon as he succeeded to the government of his own duchy of Styria, he set about putting down Protestantism by force. Ile attempted the same in Bohemia and Hungary, of which countries he had been elected king during the lifetime of Matthias Corvinus; but though at first unsuccessful, and even in danger of losing his dominions, he ultimately managed, with the aid of the Catholic league and of the elector George 1. of Saxony, to subdue them. Bohemia lost all its priVileges. By hanging, confiscation of property, and the banishment of innumerable families, the wretched land was reduced to obedience; and the introduction of the Jesuits, and rigorous persecution of Protes tants, re-established Catholicism. Meanwhile, F. had been elected emperor of Ger many (1619). The war, which properly ended with the subjugation of Bohemia, was at the same time transferred to the rest of Germany, and took the character of a religious war—the famous "thirty years' war" (q.v.). The two imperial generals, 'filly and Wallenstein, were opposed by a confederacy of the Protestant states of Lower Saxony, with Christian IV. of Denmark at their head; but the confederates were defeated by
Tilly at the battle of Lutter, in Brunswick, and forced to conclude peace (Lubeck, 1629). Confident in the ascendency which he had acquired, F., in the same year, issued an edict of restitution for the whole of Germany, taking away from the Protestants nearly all the rights they had acquired by a century of struggles; and the troops of Wallenstein and of the league were immediately set to work to carry it out in several places. But further proceedings were soon arrested by the dismissal of Wallenstein, on which the diet of the empire at Regensburg had insisted; and by the opposition of Richelieu, who put every wheel in movement to curb the power of the house of Austria. At this time also a formidable opponent to the schemes of the emperor appeared in the person of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (q.v.). After the murder of Wallenstein, the connivance at which is an ineffaceable blot on F.'s memory, the imperial commander, Gallas, gained, 1634, the battle of Nordlingen, which had the effect of detaching Saxony from the Swedish alliance; but the ability of the Swedish generals, for whom Austria had none that were a match, and the open part that France now took in the contest, brought back the balance of victory so far to the Protestant arms, that when F. died, Feb. 15, 1637, he had given up the hope of ever attaining his objects. His reign is one of the most disastrous in history; for Germany owes him nothing but bloodshed, and misery, and desolation.