The Children of Adam and Eve

COMMENT: It is not sure if Matthias is his father or not.

Ferdinand II (Holy Roman Empire) (1578-1637), Holy Roman emperor
(1619-37), king of Bohemia (1617-19), and king of Hungary (1621-25). He
was born in Graz, Austria, the grandson of Emperor Ferdinand I, and was
educated by Jesuits, from whom he acquired a deep antipathy toWard
Protestantism. Fearing that leadership by a militant Roman Catholic would
endanger their religious and possibly their civil rights, the Bohemians
rejected King Ferdinand in 1619, replacing him with Frederick V, elector
of the Rhenish Palatinate (1596-1632). This action by the Bohemian nobles
initiated the Thirty Years' War. Allied with Bavaria and the Catholic
League, Ferdinand, who had become Holy Roman emperor in 1619, defeated the
Bohemians at the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, deposing Frederick and
sending him into exile. Ferdinand was waging war simultaneously against a
force of Hungarian Protestants led by Gabriel Bethlen. Following his
victory Ferdinand negotiated with Bethlen and secured the title of king of
Hungary. The imperial forces, commanded by the count of Tilly and Albrecht
von WAllenstein, were successful in the war against the Protestant forces
in Germany in 1625.

By 1627 Ferdinand had outlawed all religions but Roman Catholicism and had
banished the Protestant laity and clergy from Bohemia. In 1629 the Edict
of Restitution empowered the Roman Catholic Church to recover all property
seized by Protestants since the Treaty of Passau had imposed a religious
settlement on Germany in 1552. The edict, However, alienated some of
Ferdinand's allies, and this, together with the assumption of Protestant
King Gustav II Adolph of Sweden and the assassination of WAllenstein,
weakened the imperial authority. Although his armies won the Battle of
N?ingen in 1634, Ferdinand was unable to carry out his plan to repress
Protestantism throughout the empire. The termination of the Thirty Years'
War was left to his son Ferdinand III.