FERDINAND I. of Austria, younger brother of Charles V. was born in 1503. He was elected king of the Romans during his reign, and succeeded him as emperor in consequence of the abdication of Charles, which was sanctioned by the diet of the empire iu 1558. Ferdinand had married, in 1521, Anna, daughter of Ladislaus VI., king of Bohemia and Hungary, and sister of Louis, who having suc ceeded his father in the crown of those realms, was killed in the disas trous battle of Mohacs, by the Turks, in 1526, and left no issue. Ferdinand, claiming a right to tho succession in the name of his wife, the states of Bohemia acknowledged him, but iu Hungary a strong party declared for John of Zapoli, palatine of Transylvania. This was the beginning of a long and desolating war, interrupted by occasional truces, In which Solyman, sultan of the Turks, interfered on behalf of John, and after John's death, in 1540, on behalf of his son, Sigismund, who continued to hold a part of Hungary till the death Ferdinand. In Bohemia the religious disputes between the Callixtines, who were a remnant of the Hussites, and the Roman Catholics, occasioned consi derable uneasiness to Ferdinand, who found at last that it was his policy to tolerate the former. At the same time however he effected a thorough change in the institutions of that kingdom, by declaring the crown of Bohemia hereditary in his family, without the sanction of the states. This gave rise to a confederacy which opposed Ferdinand by force of arms, but was at length overpowered and dissolved. On being proclaimed Emperor of Germany, after having signed certain conditions with the electors, which defined the boundaries of the impe rial authority, and gave security to the Protestant religion, Ferdinand notified his election to Pope Paul IV., expressing a desire to be crowned by his hands. Paul refused, under the plea that the abdica tion of Charles V. was effected without the consent of the papal see, and required a fresh election to be made. Ferdinand, indignant at these pretensions, ordered his ambassador to quit Rome. Paul, how ever, dying soon after, his successor, Pius IV., showed himself more
tractable in acknowledging Ferdinand as head of the empire. It was then resolved by the electors, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, that in futuro no emperor should receive the crown from the hands of the pope, and that, instead of the customary form in which the empe ror-elect professed his obedience to the head of the church, a mere complimentary epistle should be substituted. Thus ended the last remains of that temporal dependence of the German empire on the Bee of Rome, which had been the subject of so many controversies and wars.
Ferdinand continued throughout his reign to hold the balance even between the Protestants and Roman Catholics with regard to their mutual toleration and outward harmony; he even endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to effect a union of the two communions, by trying to persuade the Protestants to send deputies to, and acknow ledge the authority of the council assembled at Trent. This however they refused to do, unless their theologians were acknowledged as equal in dignity to the Roman Catholic bishops, and unless the council were transferred from Trent to some city of the empire. Ferdinand, ou the other side, in order to conciliate some at least of the various dissenting sects in his own hereditary states, attempted to obtain of the pope, among other concessions, the use of the cup at the communion-table for the laity, and the liberty of marriage for the priests. Pius IV., however, would not listen to the latter proposition, and the negociations were still pending with regard to the former, when the emperor died at Vienna, in July 1564. He left three sons : 1, Maximilian, who succeeded him as emperor, archduke of Austria, and king of Bohemia and Hungary ; 2, Ferdinand, whom he made count of Tyrol; 3, Charles, whom he appointed Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. Upon the whole, the administration of Fer dinand was able and enlightened ; he maintained religious peace in Germany, he effected some useful reforms, and be saw the closing of the council of Trent.