Page:History of the Thirty Years' War - Gindely - Volume 1.djvu/64

 elevation of Ferdinand. There can therefore be no doubt that danger threatened the Hapsburgs.

The convocation of the Diet to determine the succession awakened a great sensation in Bohemia, and called forth a mighty stir among the party leaders. The Catholics hailed this step with unconcealed joy, for it opened to them the prospect of being ruled by a prince who would not pursue towards the Protestants the feeble policy of his predecessor, but had given proof in his previous course that he was resolved upon aggression as well as defence.

Ferdinand, afterwards Emperor and the second of this name, was the eldest son of the Archduke Charles and the Bavarian Princess Mary. Charles, who in the division which his father, Ferdinand I., made of his territorial possessions, received Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, died in 1590, when his eldest son was but twelve years of age, so that the government must be a regency. The youthful prince had begun his studies in Gratz, under the direction of the Jesuits, and continued them in the University of Ingolstadt, which was also a Jesuit institution. His teachers testified that he was commendably diligent, and excelled in the mathematical sciences. But he manifested above all a deep sense of religion, and was untiring in his attendance on the services of the Church, participating in processions and prayers. He had a monkish nature, which repelled him from youthful pleasures, and drew him to ascetic contemplation, and a life of self-denial. The Jesuits, without perceiving the injury they were doing their pupil by rendering him less fit for the position to which he was called, fully developed this native tendency. Ferdinand squandered his time in scrupulous acts of piety, and so continued through life. He