348 



AUSTRIA. 



Molmcs, acquired the kingdoms of Hungary and 

 Bohemia, with Moravia, Silesia, and Liisatia, the 

 appendages of Bohemia. Bohemia rejoiced to hail 

 I < rd'iwnd its king. Notwithstanding the divided 

 opinions of Uie nobles, and the rising fortune of his 

 adversary, John von Zapolya (see Hungary), he was 

 raised to the thronr of Hungary, Nov. 26, 1526, by 

 tlw Hungarian diet, and \va- crowned, Nov. 5, 1527. 

 But Zapolya resorted for assistance to the sultan 

 Solinian 11., who appeared, in 1529, at the gates of 

 Vienna. The capital was rescued from ruin solely 

 by the prudent measures of the count of Salm, gene- 

 ral of tlu- Austrian army, and the imperial lorces 

 compelled 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 

 IHistcrity were to be entitled to nothing but Transyl- 

 vania. Rut, after the death of John, new disputes 

 arose, in which Soliman was again involved, and 

 Ferdinand maintained the possession of Lower Hun- 

 gary only by paying the warlike sultan the sum of 

 0,000 ducats annually. This took place in 1562. 

 Ferdinand was equally unsuccessful in the duchy of 

 Wurtemberg. 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 em- 

 barrassment of Ferdinand in the Hungarian war. 

 With the aid of France, he conquered Wurtemberg ; 

 but France ceded it again to Ulrich in the treaty of 

 Caden, in Bohemia, concluded June 29, 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. The 

 remaining half of Bregentz, the county of Thengen, 

 and the city of Constance, were insufficient wholly 

 to compensate these losses ; nevertheless, the tei ri- 

 tory of the German line of the house of Austria was 

 estimated at 114,468 square miles. Ferdinand re- 

 ceived also the imperial crown in 1556, when his 

 brother Charles laid by the sceptre for a cowl. He 

 died July 25, 1564, with the fame of an able prince, 

 leaving three sons and ten 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, ob- 

 tained Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia ; Ferdinand, 

 the second son, received Tyrol and Hither Austria ; 

 and Cliarles, the third, became master of Stiria, Ca- 

 rinthia, Carniola, and Gorz. But, in 1595, after the 

 death of the archduke Ferdinand, the husband of 

 Philippine Welser, the fair maid of Augsburg, hjs 

 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 pos- 

 sessions reverted to his relations. In Hungary, 

 the emperor Maximilian met with far better for- 

 tune than his father had done. The death of Soli- 

 man at Sigeth, in 1566, was followed by a peace, 

 and, in 1572, Maximilian crowned his eldest son, 

 Rodolph, king of Hungary : he was afterwards 

 crowned king of Bohemia, and 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 Oct. 12, 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 Trans'ylvania, the persecutions of the Protestants, 

 who were all driven from his dominions, and the cir- 



cumstances which obliged him to cede Hungary, in 

 1608, and Bohemia : nd his hereditary estates in 

 Austria, in loll, to his brother Matthias. From this 

 time we may date the successful exertions of the Au- 

 strian sovereigns to put down the restless spirit of 

 the nation, and to keep the people in a state ot abject 

 submission. Matthias, who succeeded Maximilian on 

 the imperial throne, concluded a peace tor twenty- 

 years with the Turks ; but he was disturbed by tlu 

 Bohemians who took up arms in defence of their re- 

 ligious rights. Matthias died March 20, Kil9, before 

 the negotiations for a compromise were completed. 

 The Bohemians refused to acknowledge his successor, 

 Ferdinand, and chose Frederic V. the head of the 

 Protestant league, and elector of the palatinate, for 

 their king. After the battle of Prague, 1G20, Bohe- 

 mia submitted to the authority of 'Ferdinand* He 

 immediately applied himself to eradicate 1'rotesUmt- 

 ism 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. The 

 house ot Hapsburg has presented an example, which 

 stands alone in history, of the manner in which vio- 

 lence and tyranny can check the progress of civiliza- 

 tion ; and Bohemia, the land of Huss, the land win re 

 religious freedom has been defended with such heroic 

 zeal, is now greatly inferior in cultivation to every 

 other country of western Europe. The Austrian 

 states also favouring, in general, the Protestant reli- 

 gion, were compelled by Ferdinand to swear allegi- 

 ance to him, and Lutheranism was strictly forbidden 

 in all the Austrian dominions. The province of 

 Hungary, which revolted under Bethlen Gabor, 

 prince of Transylvania, was, after a long struggle, 

 subdued. This religious war dispeopled, impo\ erish- 

 ed, and paralyzed the energies of the most fertile 

 provinces of the house of Austria. During the reign of 

 Ferdinand III., the successor of Ferdinand (l6.'>7-57), 

 Austria was continually the theatre of war. In the 

 midst of these troubles, Ferdinand ceded Lusatia to 

 Saxony at the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635; and 

 when the war was ended, he ceded Alsace to Fnn 

 the peace of Westphalia, in 1648. The emperor 

 Leopold I., son and successor of Ferdinand III., was 

 victorious through the talents of his minister, Eugene, 

 in two wars with Turkey ; and Vienna was delivered 

 by John Sobiesky (q. v.) and the Germans, from the 

 attacks of Kara Mustapha, in 1683. In 1687, he 

 changed Hungary into an hereditary kingdom, and 

 joined to it the territory of Transylvania, which had 

 been governed by distinct princes. Moreover, by the 

 peace of Carlovitz, concluded in 1699, he restored to 

 Hungary the country lying between the Danube and 

 the Theiss. It was now the chief aim of Leopold to 

 secure to Charles, his second son, the inheritance of 

 the Spanish monarchy, then in the hands of Charles 

 II. king of Spain, who had no children to succeed 

 him ; but his own indecision, and the artful policy of 

 France, induced Charles II. to appoint the grandson 

 of Louis XIV. his successor. Thus began the w;.r 

 of the Spanish succession, in 1701. Leopold died 

 May 5, 1705, before it was terminated. The empe- 

 ror Joseph I., his successor and eldest son, continiH d 

 the war, but died without children, April 17, 171 1. 

 His brother Charles, the destined king of Spain, im- 

 mediately hastened from Barcelona to his hereditary 

 states, to take upon him the administration of the 

 government. He was elected emperor, Dec. 24 of the 

 same year ; but was obliged to accede to the peace of 

 Utrecht, concluded by his allies, at Rastadt and Ba- 

 den, in 1714. By this treaty, Austria received the 

 Netherlands, Milan, Mantua, Naples, and Sardinia. 

 In 1720, Sicily was given to Austria in exchange for 



