Читать книгу The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648 - Samuel Rawson Gardiner - Страница 12

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§ 1. The Austrian dominions.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century the dominions of the German branch of the House of Austria were parcelled out amongst the various descendants of Ferdinand I., the brother of Charles V. The head of the family, the Emperor Rudolph II., was Archduke of Austria—a name which in those days was used simply to indicate the archduchy itself, and not the group of territories which are at present ruled over by the Austrian sovereign—and he was also King of Bohemia and of Hungary. His brother Maximilian governed Tyrol, and his cousin Ferdinand ruled in Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola.

§ 2. Aristocracy and Protestantism.

The main difficulty of government arose from the fact that whilst every member of the family clung firmly to the old creed, the greater part of the population, excepting in Tyrol, had adopted the new; that is to say, that on the great question of the day the subjects and the rulers had no thoughts in common. And this difficulty was aggravated by the further fact that Protestantism prospered mainly from the support given to it by a powerful aristocracy, so that political disagreement was added to the difference in religion. Ferdinand had, indeed, contrived to put down with a strong hand the exercise of Protestantism in his own dominions so easily as almost to suggest the inference that it had not taken very deep root in those Alpine regions. But Rudolph was quite incapable of following his example. If not absolutely insane, he was subject to sudden outbursts of temper, proceeding from mental disease.

1606

§ 3. Rudolph and Matthias.

In 1606, a peace having been concluded with the Turks, Rudolph fancied that his hands were at last free to deal with his subjects as Ferdinand had dealt with his. The result was a general uprising, and if Rudolph's brother Matthias had not placed himself at the head of the movement, in order to save the interests of the family, some stranger would probably have been selected as a rival to the princes of the House of Austria.

In the end, two years later, Austria and Hungary were assigned to Matthias, whilst Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia were left to Rudolph for his lifetime.