From this time the house of Austria has furnished an unbroken succession of German emperors. Hungary and Bohemia were lost for a time by the death of Albert V, and, after the unhappy contests with the Swiss, under Frederick III, the retrains of the Hapsburg estates in Switzerland. But several territories were gained; and, to increase the rising splen dor of the family, the Emperor conferred upon the country the rank of an archduchy. The dispute which broke out between Frederick and his brothers Albert and Sigismund, relating to the divisions of their paternal inheritance, ended with the death of Albert in December 1464. In the course of the troubles which resulted from this quarrel the Emperor was besieged in the citadel of Vienna by the citizens, who favored the cause of the murdered prince. Sigismund now succeeded to his portion of the estate of Ladislaus and Frederick became sole ruler of all Austria. His son Maximilian, by his marriage with Mary, the surviving daughter of Charles the Bold, united the Netherlands to the Austrian dominions. But it cost Maxi milian much anxiety and toil to maintain his power in this new province, which he adminis tered as the guardian of his son Philip. After the death of his father, 19 Aug. 1493, he was made Emperor of Germany, and transferred to his son Philip the government of the Nether lands. Maximilian I added to his paternal in heritance all Tyrol, and several other terri tories, particularly some belonging to Bavaria. He also acquired for his family new claims to Hungary and Bohemia. During his reign Vienna became the great metropolis of the arts and sciences in the German empire. The mar riage of his son Philip to Joanna of Spain raised the house of Hapsburg to the throne of Spain and the Indies. But Philip died in 1506, 13 years before his father, and the death of Maximilian, which happened 12 Jan. 1519, was followed by the union of Spain and Austria; his grandson (the eldest son of Philip), Charles I, King of Spain (see CHARLES V), was elected Emperor of Germany. In the Treaty of Worms, 28 April 1521, and of Ghent, 7 May 1540, he ceded to his brother Ferdinand all his hereditary estates in Germany, and re tained for himself the kingdom of the Nether lands. The house of Austria was now the pro prietor of a tract of country in Europe com prising 360,230 square miles. The Emperor Charles V immediately increased the number of provinces in the Netherlands to 17, and confirmed their union with the German states, which had been concluded by his grandfather, under the title of the circle of Burgundy. In 1526 Austria was recognized as a European monarchy.
II. From 1526 to 1740. Ferdinand I, by his marriage with Anna, the sister of Louis II, King of Hungary, who was killed in 1526 in the battle of 'Mohacs, acquired the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia, with Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia, the appendages of Bohemia. Bo hemia rejoiced to hail Ferdinand its King. Not withstanding the divided opinions of the nobles, and the rising fortune of his adversary,John von Zapolya (see HUNGARY), he was raised to the throne of Hungary 26 Nov. 1526, by the Hungarian Diet, and was crowned 5 Nov. 1527. But Zapolya resorted for assistance to the Sul tan, Soliman II, who appeared in 1529 at the gates of Vienna. The capital was rescued from ruin solely by the Count of Salem, general of the Austrian army, and the Imperial forces com pelled Soliman to retreat. In 1535 a treaty was made by which John von Zapolya was allowed to retain the royal Title and half of Hungary, and his posterity were to be entitled to nothing but Transylvania. But after the death of John new disputes arose, in which Soliman was again involved, and Ferdinand maintained the possession of lower Hungary only by paying the warlike Sultan the sum of 30,000 ducats annually. This took place in 1562. Ferdinand was equally unsuccessful in the duchy of Wiirtemberg. This province had been taken from the restless Duke Ulrich by the Suabian confederacy, and sold to the Emperor Charles V; and when his estates were divided it fell to Ferdinand. Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, the friend of Duke Ulrich, took advantage of the opportunity offered him by the embarrassment of Ferdinand in the Hungarian War. With the
aid of France he conquered Wiirtemberg; but France ceded it again to Ulrich in the Treaty of Baden, in Bohemia, concluded 20 June 1534 on condition that the province should still be a fief of Austria, and after the extinction of the male line of the Duke that it should revert to that country. Ferdinand received also the Imperial crown in 1556, when his brother Charles laid by the sceptre for a cowl. He died 25 July 1564, with the fame of an able prince, leaving three sons and 10 daughters. According to the directions given in his will, the three brothers divided the patrimony, so that Maximilian II, the eldest son, who succeeded his father as Emperor, obtained Austria, Hungary and Bo hemia; Ferdinand, the second son, received Ty rol and Hither Austria; and Charles, the third, became master of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Georz. But in 1595, after the death of the Archduke Ferdinand, the husband of Philip pine Weiser, the fair maid of Ausburg, his sons Andrew (cardinal and bishop of Constance and Brixen, and governor of the Netherlands for Spain) and Charles (Margrave of Burgau) were declared incompetent to succeed their father, and his possessions reverted to his rela tions. In Hungary the Emperor Maximilian met with far better fortune than his father had done. The death of Soliman at Szigeth in 1566 was followed by a peace, and in 1572 Maximilian crowned his eldest son, Rodolph, King of Hun gary; he was afterward crowned King of Bo hernia, and was elected King of Rome. In his attempts to add the Polish crown to his Aus trian dominions he was equally unsuccessful with his fourth son, Maximilian, who engaged in a similar enterprise after the decease of Stephen Bathori in 1587. Maximilian died 12 Oct. 1576, and Rodolph, the eldest of his five sons, succeeded to the Imperial throne. The most remarkable events by which his reign is distinguished are the war against Turkey and Transylvania, the persecutions of the Protes tants, who were all driven from his dominions, and the circumstances which obliged him to cede Hungary in 1608, and Bohemia and his hereditary estates in Austria in 1611, to his brother Matthias. From this time we may date the successful exertions of the Austrian sov ereigns to put down the restless spirit of the nation, and to keep the people in a state of abject submission. Matthias, who succeeded Maximilian on the Imperial throne, concluded a peace for 20 years with the Turks; but he was disturbed by the Bohemians, who took up arms in defense of their religious rights. Matthias died 20 March 1619, before the negotiations for a compromise were completed. The Bohemians refused to acknowledge his successor, Ferdi nand II, and chose Frederick V, the head of the Protestant League, and elector of the palatinate, for their king. After the battle of Prague, 1620, Bohemia submitted to the authority of Ferdinand. He immediately applied himself to eradicate Protestantism out of Bohemia proper and Moravia. At the same time he deprived Bohemia of the right of choosing her king, and of her other privileges. He erected a Catholic court of reform, and thus led to the emigration of thousands of the inhabitants. This large exodus of inhabitants did much to retard the growth of Bohemia. In fact the religious wars waged upon Bohemian soil for so long a time, dating back to the first out breaks of the Hussites, with the subsequent agitations and conflicts consequent upon the Reformation, long and seriously hampered that state's general development up to modern times. The Austrian states also favoring, in general, the Protestant religion, were compelled by Fer dinand to swear allegiance to him, and Luther.. anism was strictly forbidden in all the Austrian dominions. The province of Hungary, which revolted under Bethlem Gabor, Prince of Transylvania, was, after a long struggle, sub dued. This religious war dispeopled, impov erished and paralyzed the energies of the most fertile provinces of the house of Austria. Dur ing the reign of Ferdinand III, the successor of Ferdinand II (1637-57), Austria was con stantly the theatre of war.