JOHN OF AUSTRIA, or DON JUAN D'AUSTRIA, was a natural son of the emperor Charles V., and was born at Regensburg, on Feb. 24, 1546. It is uncertain who his mother was. He was early brought to Spain, and after the death of his father he was acknowledged by his half-brother, Philip II.; honors and an annual allowance were bestowed upon him, and he was educated along with the prince of Parma and the infant Don Carlos. He was intended for the church; but his own inclination was for military employment, and in 1570 he received the command of an army sent against the rebel liouS Moors in Granada, whom he completely rooted out of the country—signalizing• himself at once by valor and by cruelty. In 1571 he was appointed to the command of a maritime expedition—in which the forces of Spain, the pope, and Venice were united! agaihst the Turks—and defeated the Turks in a great battle near Lepanto (Oct. 7). Dis cord breaking out among the allies, Don Juan separated himself from the rest, took: Tunis, and conceived the design of forming a kingdom for himself in the n. of Africa
But Philip, jealous of this design, sent him to Milan, to observe the Genoese; and after wards, in 1576, as viceroy to time Netherlands. In this capacity he sought to win the favor of the people by mildness; but being left unsupported by Philip, he was hard* pressed for a time, till the arrival of the prince of Parma with troops enabled him to restore the fortunes of Spain by the victory of Gemblours over William the silent in 1577. But Philip was now apprehensive that Don Juan might make himself king of the Netherlands; and the untimely death of the latter in his intrenched camp at Namur, Oct. 1, 1578, was not without suspicion of poison.—See Dusmenil's flistoire, and Have man n's Leben (Gotha, 1865) of John.