Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

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Ferdinand in 1531, the year of his election as King of the Romans

Ferdinand I (Alcala de Henares (near Madrid), Kingdom of Castile (now Spain), 10 March 1503 – Prague, Bohemia (now Czech Republic), 25 July 1564) was an Austrian monarch from the House of Habsburg.

He was Archduke of Austria from 1521-1564. After the death of Louis II, Ferdinand ruled as King of Bohemia and Hungary (1526–1564). He succeeded his brother Charles V as Holy Roman Emperor (de facto in 1556, de jure in 1558)^[1], reigning until his death. His motto was Fiat justitia et pereat mundus ("Let justice be done, though the world perish").

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Ferdinand was born in Alcala de Henares, 40 km from Madrid, the son of Juana the Mad, Queen of Castile (1479–1555), and Philip I the Handsome, King of Castile (1478–1506), who was heir to Emperor Maximilian I on the 10 March 1503. He shared his birthday with his maternal grandfather Ferdinand, King of Spain.

Austrian Royalty House of Habsburg Armorial of the Holy Roman Empire Ferdinand I Children include    Archduchess Elisabeth    Maximilian II    Archduchess Anna, Duchess of Bavaria    Archduke Ferdinand    Archduchess Maria    Archduchess Catherine    Archduchess Barbara    Archduke Charles    Archduchess Johanna Grandchildren include    Archduchess Anna, Queen of Poland and Sweden    Ferdinand II    Archduchess Margaret, Queen of Spain    Archduke Leopold    Archduchess Constance, Queen of Poland and Sweden    Archduchess Maria Magdalena, Grand Duchess of Tuscany Maximilian II Children include    Archduchess Anna, Queen of Spain    Rudolf II    Archduke Ernest    Archduchess Elisabeth, Queen of France    Matthias    Archduke Maximilian    Archduke Albert Rudolf II Matthias Ferdinand II

Ferdinand was the younger brother of Emperor Charles V, who entrusted him with the government of the Habsburg hereditary lands (roughly modern-day Austria and Slovenia). In 1531 Ferdinand was elected King of the Romans, making him Charles's designated heir as emperor. He deputised as ruler during his brother's many absences from imperial lands.

After Charles's abdication as emperor in 1556, which was not formal until 1558, Ferdinand assumed the title of Holy Roman Emperor, Charles having agreed to exclude his own son Philip from the German succession, which instead passed to Ferdinand's eldest son Maximilian II (1527–1576).

[edit] Hungary and the Ottomans

Ferdinand I

After Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Bohemia and of Hungary, at the battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526, Ferdinand was elected King of Bohemia in his place. Nicolaus Olahus, secretary of Louis, attached himself to the party of King Ferdinand, but retained his position with the queen-dowager Mary of Habsburg. The throne of Hungary became the subject of a dynastic dispute between Ferdinand and John Zápolya, voivode of Transylvania. Each was supported by different factions of the nobility in the Hungarian kingdom; Ferdinand also had the support of Charles V. After defeat by Ferdinand at the Battle of Tokaj in 1527, Zápolya gained the support of Suleiman. Ferdinand was able to win control only of western Hungary because Zápolya clung to the east and the Ottomans to the conquered south. Zápolya's widow, Isabella Jagiełło, ceded Royal Hungary and Transylvania to Ferdinand in the Treaty of Weissenburg of 1551. In 1554 Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was sent to Istanbul by Ferdinand to discuss a border treaty over disputed land with Suleiman.

The most dangerous moment of Ferdinand's career came in 1529 when he took refuge in Bohemia from a massive but ultimately unsuccessful assault on his capital by Suleiman and the Ottoman armies at the Siege of Vienna. A further Ottoman attack on Vienna was repelled in 1533. In that year Ferdinand signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, splitting the Kingdom of Hungary into a Habsburg sector in the west and John Zápolya's domain in the east, the latter effectively a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1538, by the Treaty of Nagyvárad, Ferdinand became Zápolya's successor. He was unable to enforce this agreement during his lifetime because John II Sigismund Zápolya, infant son of John Zápolya and Isabella Jagiełło, was elected King of Hungary in 1540. Zápolya was initially supported by King Sigismund of Poland, his mother's father, but in 1543 a treaty was signed between the Habsburgs and the Polish ruler as a result of which Poland became neutral in the conflict. Prince Sigismund Augustus married Elisabeth of Austria, Ferdinand's daughter.

[edit] Government

Engraving by Martin Rota

The western rump of Hungary over which Ferdinand retained dominion became known as Royal Hungary. As the ruler of Austria, Bohemia and Royal Hungary, Ferdinand adopted a policy of centralization and, in common with other monarchs of the time, the construction of an absolute monarchy. In 1527 he published a constitution for his hereditary domains (Hofstaatsordnung) and established Austrian-style institutions in Pressburg for Hungary, in Prague for Bohemia, and in Breslau for Silesia. Opposition from the nobles in those realms forced him to concede the independence of these institutions from supervision by the Austrian government in Vienna in 1559.

In 1547 the Bohemian Estates rebelled against Ferdinand after he had ordered the Bohemian army to move against the German Protestants. After suppressing Prague with the help of his brother Charles V's Spanish forces, he retaliated by limiting the privileges of Bohemian cities and inserting a new bureaucracy of royal officials to control urban authorities. Ferdinand was a supporter of the Counter-Reformation and helped lead the Catholic response against what he saw as the heretical tide of Protestantism. For example, in 1551 he invited the Jesuits to Vienna and in 1556 to Prague. Finally, in 1561 Ferdinand revived the Archdiocese of Prague, which had been previously liquidated due to the success of the Protestants.

Ferdinand died in Vienna and is buried in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.

[edit] Name in other languages

German, Czech, Slovak, Croatian: Ferdinand I.; Hungarian: I. Ferdinánd; Spanish: Fernando I.

Anna, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary.

[edit] Marriage and children

On 25 May 1521 in Linz, Austria, Ferdinand married Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547), daughter of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and his wife Anne de Foix. They had fifteen children:

[edit] Ancestors

Ferdinand's ancestors in three generations

The Renaissance coin

[edit] Ferdinand I Coin

Ferdinand I has been the main motif for many collector coins and medals, the most recent one is the famous silver 20 euro Renaissance coin issued in June 12, 2002. A portrait of Ferdinand I is shown in the reverse of the coin, while in the obverse a view of the Swiss Gate of the Hofburg Palace can be seen.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor

• A pedigree of the Habsburg

[edit] Notes

v • d • e Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire Carolingian Empire Charles I · Louis I · Lothair I · Louis II · Charles II · Charles III · Guy · Lambert · Arnulf · Louis III · Berengar Holy Roman Empire Otto I · Otto II · Otto III · Henry II · Conrad II · Henry III · Henry IV · Henry V · Lothair II · Frederick I · Henry VI · Otto IV · Frederick II · Henry VII · Louis IV · Charles IV · Sigismund · Frederick III · Maximilian I · Charles V · Ferdinand I · Maximilian II · Rudolph II · Matthias · Ferdinand II · Ferdinand III · Leopold I · Joseph I · Charles VI · Charles VII · Francis I · Joseph II · Leopold II · Francis II

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