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Ferdinand I Holy Roman EMPEROR

Male 1503 - 1564  (61 years)


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  • Name Ferdinand I Holy Roman EMPEROR  [1] 
    Birth 10 Mar 1503  Madrid Find all individuals with events at this location  [1] 
    Gender Male 
    Death 25 Jul 1564  [1] 
    Notes 
    • Ferdinand I (10 March 1503 ? 25 July 1564), Holy Roman Emperor (1556?1564), was born in 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 Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg.

      Ferdinand was the younger brother of Holy Roman 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, 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 (1527?1576
      Hungary and the Ottomans
      After Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Bohemia and of Hungary, at the battle of Mohˇcs on 29 August 1526, Ferdinand was elected King of Bohemia in his place. The throne of Hungary became the subject of a dynastic dispute between Ferdinand and John Zˇpolya, voivode of Transylvania. Each was supported by different factions of the nobility in the Hungarian kingdom; Ferdinand also had the support of Charles V, and Zˇpolya, after defeat by Ferdinand at the Battle of Tokaj in 1527, the support of Suleiman. Ferdinand was able to win control only of western Hungary because Zˇpolya clung to the east and the Ottomans to the conquered south. In 1554 Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was sent to Istanbul by Ferdinand to discuss a border treaty over disputed land with the Sultan, 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 Zˇpolya's domain in the east, the latter effectively now a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.

      In 1538, by the Treaty of Nagyvˇrad, Ferdinand became Zˇpolya's successor, but he was unable to enforce this agreement during his lifetime because in 1540 John II Sigismund Zˇpolya, infant son of John Zˇpolya and Isabella Jagiello, was elected the new king of Hungary. He was initially supported by King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland and Lithuania, his mother's brother, but in 1549 a treaty was signed between the Habsburgs and the Polish ruler as a result of which Poland became neutral in the conflict, Sigismund Augustus marrying Elisabeth von Habsburg, Ferdinand's daughter.

      [edit] Government
      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 Wroclaw (Breslau) for Silesia. Opposition from the nobles in those realms forced him in 1559 to concede the independence of these institutions from supervision by the Austrian government in Vienna.

      In 1547 the Bohemian Estates rebelled against Ferdinand when he ordered the Bohemian army against the German Protestants. After suppressing Prague with the help of his brother'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 fight-back 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; and in 1561 he revived the archbishopric of Prague.

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

      Names in other languages: German, Czech, Slovak, Croatian: Ferdinand I.; Hungarian: I. Ferdinˇnd
    Person ID I21215  Main Tree

    Father Philip I The Handsome King Of CASTILE,   b. 22 Jul 1478, Bruges Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 25 Sep 1506 (Age 28 years) 
    Relationship Natural 
    Mother Juana Queen Of CASTILE,   b. 06 Nov 1479   d. 12 Apr 1555 (Age 75 years) 
    Relationship Natural 
    Marriage 1496  [1] 
    Family ID F07046  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Anna Of Bohemia And HUNGARY,   b. 23 Jul 1503   d. 27 Jan 1547 (Age 43 years) 
    Marriage 1521  [1] 
    Children 
     1. Charles II Archduke Of AUSTRIA,   b. 03 Jun 1540   d. 10 Jul 1590 (Age 50 years)  [Natural]
     2. Magdalena Of AUSTRIA,   b. 14 Aug 1532   d. 10 Sep 1590 (Age 58 years)  [Natural]
     3. Margaret Of AUSTRIA,   b. 16 Feb 1536   d. 12 Mar 1567 (Age 31 years)  [Natural]
     4. Archduchess of Austria Maria Of HABSBURG,   b. 15 May 1531   d. 11 Dec 1581 (Age 50 years)  [Natural]
     5. Johanna Of AUSTRIA,   b. 24 Jan 1547   d. 10 Apr 1578 (Age 31 years)  [Natural]
     6. Ursula Of AUSTRIA,   b. 24 Jul 1541   d. 30 Apr 1543 (Age 1 year)  [Natural]
     7. Eleonora Of AUSTRIA,   b. 02 Nov 1534   d. 05 Aug 1594 (Age 59 years)  [Natural]
     8. Ferdinand II Archduke Of AUSTRIA,   b. 14 Jun 1529   d. 24 Jan 1595 (Age 65 years)  [Natural]
     9. Johann Of AUSTRIA,   b. 10 Apr 1538   d. 20 Mar 1539 (Age 0 years)  [Natural]
     10. Catharine Of AUSTRIA,   b. 15 Sep 1533   d. 28 Feb 1572 (Age 38 years)  [Natural]
     11. Helen Of AUSTRIA,   b. 07 Jan 1543   d. 05 Mar 1574 (Age 31 years)  [Natural]
     12. Elisabeth Of AUSTRIA,   b. 09 Jul 1526   d. 15 Jun 1543 (Age 16 years)  [Natural]
     13. Barbara Of AUSTRIA,   b. 30 Apr 1539   d. 19 Sep 1572 (Age 33 years)  [Natural]
     14. Maximilian II Holy Roman EMPEROR,   b. 31 Jul 1527, Vienna Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 12 Oct 1576 (Age 49 years)  [Natural]
     15. Anna Of AUSTRIA,   b. 07 Jul 1528   d. Between 16 and 17 Oct 1590  [Natural]
    Family ID F17431  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Sources 
    1. [S03581] Wikipedia Encyclopedia.


  

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