Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/345

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. a war ensued in which he was vanquished. He was compelled to give up Austria, Styria, and Carinthia to Rudolph. The struggle was soon renewed, and Ottokar lost his life in the battle on the Marchfeld (1278). Shortly afterwards the Emperor (1282) conferred the duchies of Austria, Styria, and Carinthia on his sons, Albert and Rudolph.

Fostered by the Hapsburg family policy, which was maintained for centuries without regard to its effect upon Germany, the power of Austria and the Hapsburgs grew together. Albert, while attempting to subdue the rebellious Swiss, was murdered near Rheinfelden (1308) by his nephew, John of Swabia, whom he had deprived of his hereditary possessions. Frederick the Handsome, one of his five sons, was chosen (1314) by a party to the Imperial throne, but the election was contested, and he was defeated (1322) by his rival, Louis of Bavaria. The House of Hapsburg was already so powerful that it excited the jealousy of the German princes. Another of the sons of Albert. Leopold, was de- feated at Morgarten (1315) in his attempt to reduce the Swiss cantons which had thrown off their allegiance under Albert I. At last, on the death of all his brothers. Albert II. reunited the Austrian possessions. After his death (1358), two sons, Rudolph and Albert III., successively followed in the duchy of Austria. Another son, Leopold, held the other lands, but lost his life at Scmpach (1386), in seeking to regain the Haps- burg possessions in Switzerland. From Albert and Leopold were derived the two ducal lines of Austria and Styria (the latter afterwards subdi- vided into the lines of Styria and Tyrol). Dur- ing Albert III.'s reign. Tyrol and other districts were acquired by Austria. After his death (1395), the dukedom was held by his son, Albert IV. Albert V., who succeeded his father in 1404, and who married the daughter of the Emperor Sigismund, was chosen successor to that monarch in Hungary and Bohemia, and was at the same time raised to the dignity of Holy Roman Em- peror, as Albert II. (1438). The Imperial dig- nity was henceforth uninterruptedly held by the Hapsburgs, with the exception of one brief inter- val, down to the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. With Ladislas, Albert's son, the Aus- trian line of the house became extinct (1457), and its possessions went to the Styrian line. To this line belonged the Emperor Frederick III., who made Austria an archduchy, of which he came into full possession after the death of Ladislas and of his own brother, Albert, in 1463.

In 1477 his son, Maxmilian I., married Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, and thus acquired the opulent provinces of the Netherlands. Becoming Emperor on the death of his father (1493), he gave the govern- ment of the Netherlands to his son Philip. Tyrol now fell again to the chief branch of the House of Austria, and several districts were acquired from Bavaria. The court of Vienna became an important centre of German art and science. The marriage of the Emperor's son, Philip, with Joanna of Spain placed the House of Hapsburg on the throne of Spain and the Indies. Philip died in 1506; and on the death of Maximilian I., in 1519, Philip's son, Charles I. of Spain, more powerful by his heredi- tary possessions than any other monarch in Europe, was elected German Emperor as Charles

V. On account of his large interests outside of Germany, Charles was required by the electors to sign an agreement (Wahlkapitulation) to the effect that he would not further the interests of Spain at the expense of the Empire; and this practice was continued with his successors. In 1521 Charles relinquished the sole sovereignty over the bulk of the old hereditary possessions of the House of Austria to his brother, Ferdi- nand (originally joint possessor with him), the founder of the Austrian branch of the House of Hapsburg, as distinguished from the Spanish. In 1556 Charles V. abdicated the Imperial throne of Germany, and was succeeded by Fer- dinand I. Ferdinand had married the sister of Louis II. of Hungary and Bohemia, and after the death of that king on the field of Mohács, where the Turks laid low the power of Hungary, in 1526, Ferdinand was chosen to succeed him in Bohemia, and was also elected king by a part of the nobles in Hungary. John Zápolya, Way- wode of Transylvania, was chosen King of Hungary by the National party, and was sup- ported by Sultan Solyman the Magnificent, who established the Turkish sway over a great part of Hungary, and whose forces laid siege to Vienna in 1529. After contests extending over twenty years, Ferdinand was allowed to retain possession of Upper Hungary on condition of paying an annual tribute to the Sultan. The catastrophe of Mohacs may be said to have given birth to the peculiar political organism now known as the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, with such discordant elements as Germans, Magyars, and Slavs united under the sway of a single dynasty. The Bohemian realm in the time of

Ferdinand I. included (besides Bohemia) Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia. On the death of Ferdinand I., in 1564, his eldest son, Maximilian II., received the Imperial crown, together with Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia; a second son, Ferdinand, received Tyrol; a third, Charles, obtained Styria and Carinthia. Maximilian II. was fond of peace, tolerant in religion, and a just ruler. He died in 1576, and of his five sons, the eldest, Rudolph II., who had been crowned King of Hungary and of Bohemia, succeeded him as Roman Emperor. Under him the possessions of the Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol, who had married Philippine Welser, the beautiful daughter of an Augsburg burgher, reverted to the other two lines, Ferdinand's children not being considered noble. Rudolph II. adhered to the old feudal usages, and was an incapable sovereign, leaving everything to his ministers and the Jesuits. His war with the Porte and Transylvania brought him little credit; and the Protestants of Bohemia, oppressed by the Jesuits, extorted from him a charter of religious liberty. He died January 20, 1612, having already relinquished Hungary, the Archduchy of Austria, and Moravia, in 1608, and Bohemia, in 1611, to his brother Matthias, who succeeded him as Roman Emperor. Matthias concluded a twenty years' peace with the Turks, and had his cousin Ferdinand, son of the Archduke Charles of Styria, third son of Maximilian II., chosen King of Bohemia, Hungary, and of the Romans. Bohemia, where the religious strife kindled the Thirty Years' War in 1618, refused to acknowledge the new King, who was a fervent Catholic, and chose the Elector Palatine, Frederick V., the head of the