Ferdinand II 1578-1637
King of Bohemia and of Hungary, and Holy Roman Emperor

The grandson of Ferdinand I, he was born in Graz, Austria, and educated at the Jesuit University of Ingolstadt (1590-95). Privately genial and kind-hearted, he was ruthless in enforcing abolutism and religious orthodoxy as King of Bohemia (1617-27) and of Hungary (1618-26), and Holy Roman Emperor from 1619. He instigated the Thirty Years War (1618-48) by compelling the Protestant subjects on his Austrian lands to choose between conversion and exile. Threatened by the election of the Protestant Elector Palatine, Frederick V, as King of Bohemia, and of the Protestant Prince of Transylvania, Bethlen G�bor, as King of Hungary, he assembled a formidable pan-Catholic force. Troops from Spain and Bavaria overran the Palatinate, while the forces of the Catholic League routed the Bohemian Protestants at the White Mountain, near Prague (1620), and Polish forces under Sigismund III forced Gabor to renounce his throne. An alliance of Protestant nations was defeated by the Catholic League and the Imperial army under Albrecht von Wallenstein, resulting in the peace of L�beck (1629). The Protestants found Gustav II Adolf of Sweden a more effective leader, while Cardinal Richelieu of France provided financial support for the German Protestants. Although the Battle of L�tzen (1632) was a Protestant victory, Gustav Adolf was killed and the Swedish army was defeated at N�rdlingen (1634). The Edict of Restitution (1629) ordered the restoration within the empire of all Church lands, secularized by the Protestants since 1552, but Ferdinand failed to extirpate Protestantism. The compromise Peace of Prague (1635) was primarily effected by his son, the future Ferdinand III.