Ferdinand I of the Holy Roman Empire
Ferdinand I of Habsburg (Alcalá de Henares, March 10, 1503-Vienna, July 25, 1564) was an Infante of Spain, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia and, to from 1558, Holy Roman Emperor.
He was the son of Felipe el Hermoso and Juana I of Castilla and, therefore, the result of the strategic matrimonial policy of his grandparents Maximilian I of Habsburg, on the one hand, and Fernando II of Aragon, called «the Catholic "and Isabel I of Castilla, on the other, the so-called "Catholic Monarchs". Along with his older brother Carlos, he was the potential heir to extensive domains in Western Europe of the House of Habsburg, the House of Burgundy and the House of Trastámara. and again thanks to the planning of his paternal grandfather, he had the opportunity to aspire to the kingdoms of the Jagiellon dynasty in Central Europe thanks to his marriage to Anne of Bohemia and Hungary.
Although his brother Carlos was the heir to most of their parents' lands and titles, the complication of administering such varied territories and especially the problematic imperial politics in the Holy Roman Empire during the religious wars of the century < span style="font-variant:small-caps;text-transform:lowercase">XVI and the Turkish threat led Ferdinand to end up inheriting the Habsburg heritage core in Central Europe. Thanks to his marriage, he united to this nucleus the lands of the Bohemian Crown and, between disputes with the Ottoman Empire and other claimants, the titles of the crown of Saint Stephen. This union laid the foundations of what is sometimes called the Habsburg Empire, which would eventually become the Austrian Empire and the subsequent Austro-Hungarian Empire.
His rule was marked by continuous wars against German Protestants, the aristocracy and cities reluctant to central power in their domains, the rival kings they supported, and the Ottoman Empire on their eastern border. In these conflicts he received the key support of his older brother, Emperor Charles V, of whom in turn he was a strategic ally against Protestants and Turks. Despite this, both brothers also had a rivalry over the distribution of the inheritance and the prioritization of dynastic resources in the midst of the perpetual conflicts of his day, with Ferdinand being the central figure of eastern Habsburg politics. When his brother abdicated his titles in 1556 after decades of reign, Ferdinand succeeded him to the imperial throne, consolidating the separation of the Habsburg house between the Spanish Habsburgs and their Central European cousins.
His reign as emperor was characterized by his diplomacy, his attempt to create state structures, and his promotion of counter-reformation in his domains, laying the foundations of regional politics in the following century. He has been considered the best organizer of the House of Austria and the founder of its imperial administration. Although his direct military involvement was scant, his organizational skills were key in the military revolution of the 16th century that created the imperial austrian army.
On his death in 1564 his territories were divided among his sons Maximilian II, Ferdinand II and Carlos II, which would mark the imperial dynamics in the following generations until his grandson Ferdinand II of Habsburg reunified the empire.
Early years of life
Family, birth and early years
Fernando was the son of Felipe el Hermoso, Duke of Burgundy and son of Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg, and his wife Juana de Trastámara, daughter and heiress of the Catholic Monarchs. After the death of his uncles Juan and Isabel, his parents had gone to Spain in 1502 to be recognized as heirs of his maternal grandparents, kings of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, before the courts of the respective crowns. While his father, Philip of Burgundy, returned to his domain in the Netherlands, his pregnant mother stayed behind at her parents' request.
Fernando de Habsburgo was born in the archiepiscopal palace of Alcalá de Henares on March 10, 1503, being named in honor of his maternal grandfather, on whose birthday he came into the world. Her grandmother Isabel, at the suggestion of Cardinal Cisneros, would grant a tax exemption to Alcalá de Henares in honor of the event. Juana would later return to her husband, leaving her second son to spend the next few years at her grandmother's court in Arévalo and Segovia. Fernando would thus remain in the hands of Catalina de Hermosillo, the infant's mistress, and Diego Sarmiento, overseer responsible for his house.
After the death of her grandmother Isabella of Castile in 1504, her mother eventually became Queen of Castile despite her grandfather Ferdinand's misgivings about leaving power to his foreign son-in-law, Felipe el Hermoso, and his unstable daughter Juana. Similarly, the Flemish administration of Felipe was the focus of tensions in the country. Felipe arranged for his second son to be raised in Simancas, while his Aragonese grandfather appointed the Dominican Álvaro de Osorio for his education. The early death of Philip I in 1506 left a power vacuum in Castile with Juana as nominal queen and the young Carlos, being educated at the Burgundian court, as co-regent theorist.
The young Fernando was then the focus of a confrontation between the Flemish governor of Tordesillas, Charles de Poupet, and the Chancery of Valladolid. Both wanted to gain control of the infante, the only male member of the ruling house present in the country during the power vacuum. The intervention of the listeners of the chancellery, who mobilized soldiers from the city, meant that the prince ended up in Valladolid. Meanwhile, Cardinal Cisneros established a regency in the crown of Castile, returning Fernando the Catholic to power. Osorio then arranged for his pupil to move from the Chancery Palace to the Colegio de San Gregorio that his order had in the city.
Childhood and education
In this context, the infante Fernando seems to have been the favorite grandson of Fernando the Catholic, being educated in Spanish under the tutelage of his Aragonese grandfather. Said grandfather appointed Pedro Núñez de Guzmán as the boy's tutor, in charge of of a proper court for the infant. Said court was initially found in Burgos, while his mother was in Arcos de la Llana and the Catholic king frequently approached.
The grandson would accompany his grandfather on his travels through Spain when the king faced the last representatives of the old Philippine administration, such as Pedro Fernández de Córdoba y Pacheco, Marquis of Priego or Juan Manuel, Lord of Belmonte. The young prince thus visited, as a prince with his grandfather, in 1508, various towns in Castile and Andalusia such as Medina del Campo, Olmedo and El Espinar, crossing the Sierra de Guadarrama to continue to Toledo, where they stopped for six days., and continue through Ciudad Real, Caracuel, Pedroche and Adamuz. They finally arrived in Córdoba in September, where their grandfather punished the Marquis of Priego, and ended with a royal entry into Seville on October 28 in which the German queen of Foix. The king also confronted in Seville the rebellious attitude of the houses of Medina Sidonia and Téllez-Girón.
In 1509, grandfather and grandson ended their journey by returning to Castile and visiting Cáceres, Madrigal de las Altas Torres (where they visited the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de Gracia, birthplace of Isabella the Catholic and home of Ferdinand's two illegitimate daughters el Católico) and Medina del Campo, before returning to Valladolid. Significantly, Fernando el Católico then ordered his daughter to be locked up in Tordesillas and, likewise, her father, Felipe el Hermoso, was buried in that town. The king finally left the young infant in Madrid in 1510. During this period, Fernando spent two years with fevers, some authors speculate that it could have been a case of pulmonary tuberculosis, the consequences of which would drag Fernando until his death.
In 1511, the young prince would travel to Seville again to see the preparations for his grandfather's military expedition against North Africa, but finally both Fernandos returned to Burgos due to the escalation of the war with France caused by the Italian wars. Fernando would visit the Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña in Burgos, since the Crónica particular del Cid of 1512 is dedicated as a treatise for the prince's instruction.
Ferdinand of Habsburg grew up with Spanish as his first language and would not learn the German language of his future subjects until he was older. His teachers were the Dominican, and shortly after Bishop of Astorga, Álvaro Osorio and the humanist and doctor Juan de la Parra. His education was based on Hispanic scholasticism and Hispanic chivalrous ideals. His first friends would be members of the Hispanic nobility, such as the children of Martín Sanz de Salinas, his grandmother Isabel's former secretary, or those of Sancho de Paredes, her former waiter. Fernando was very close to that circle and Osorio wrote that he disliked being treated with deference to them for reasons of birth.
Contemporary and later authors have reviewed the lasting influence of this childhood in Spain. Thus, they point out how his writings in Spanish to his ambassadors and his secretaries show his Hispanic education. Fernando would maintain a personal fondness for the news from America that circulated in Spain and still years after leaving the Iberian Peninsula he followed the news with interest. literature published in Spain. Even close to his death, the authors record that he would find solace in the Hispanic court of his daughter-in-law, where he could speak popular Castilian. They have also pointed out that Fernando showed a personal inclination for Spanish horses (precedent of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna) and by the Spanish-style stables and how his future subjects saw his way of riding as foreign. Fernando was also fond of hunting with a Spanish-style crossbow. Spanish influences in the gardens of his palaces, in memory of those he had known in his youth and a favoritism for planting in said gardens, typical fruit trees of e Spain He also brought with him to Austria the Spanish cuisine and, in particular, the representative olla rotida.
Ferdinand of Habsburg would remember in the future the teachings of his homonymous grandfather and his example in dealing with the estates to create a modern state and in administering a set of multiple territories. It is quite possible that it was also in this training that developed his interest in artillery, which was changing the arts of warfare and which in his grandfather's army had begun to be used in the war in Granada and in the Italian wars. His other grandfather, likewise, had developed another of the pioneer artillery foci in Europe and both Maximiliano and Fernando el Católico commissioned scale models and cannons for the training of his grandson in the new art. As was customary among male aristocrats of his era, Ferdinand would also show great fondness for collecting armor and hunting throughout his life.
Planning for your future
Fernando was invested as regent in Castile in a will made in 1512, which also reserved for him the mastership of the rich Spanish military orders. Ferdinand the Catholic thus showed his concern that Carlos governed from his Burgundian domains and saw Fernando as the grandson he had raised in the Spanish kingdoms. The Catholic king also tried to negotiate his betrothal with Princess Renata of France, which was not only an important dynastic link against the possible candidacy of his brother Carlos, but also it would potentially have given him claims to the Duchy of Milan that Renata's father, Louis XII of France, had conquered. The French king, however, showed no interest in such a match.
The subsequent intervention of Hadrian of Utrecht, Carlos' tutor, led the King of Aragon to reconsider the will in favor of Carlos. Fernando de Aragón had intentions of changing his will again in favor of his namesake grandson but was dissuaded by his advisers. The king's trusted circle feared, not only that the kingdoms would be divided, but that the infant, still too young to reign, could expose himself to a worse fate, of becoming a threat to his brother.
Ferdinand the Catholic seems, however, to have continued to aspire to endow his second grandson with a kingdom in Italy, following the Italian wars during his last years, whether in fiefdoms of the kingdom of Naples such as Taranto or Brindisi, either in lands conquered from Milan or Venice, or through a marriage with Renata, which he continued to propose, or with a combination of these strategies. A second testament of the Catholic king in 1515 left the infant Fernando as regent for his brother Carlos in both the Castilian and Aragon crowns. Even in the testament in which he finally named Carlos heir, the Catholic king reserved for his grandson Fernando rents 50,000 ducats a year on account of his rich Neapolitan kingdom.
While Fernando was still with his homonymous grandfather, whom he accompanied to Plasencia where the king was going to punish another rebellious nobleman, the Duke of Béjar, the Polish-Lithuanian victory in the battle of Orsha against the principality of Moscow changed the political scene in Eastern Europe. His other grandfather, Maximilian I of Austria, had until then used the Muscovites to counterbalance the Jagiellon power on Austria's borders. Given the victory of his rival, Maximilian held in 1515 an interview with the Jagiellon kings, Sigismund I Jagiellon the Elder of Poland-Lithuania and Vladislao II of Bohemia and Hungary where a Habsburg-Jagellon alliance was concluded. The terms of this alliance would mark Ferdinand's life by including the commitment, within the weddings between both dynasties, of Ana Jagellón of Hungary and Bohemia with one of Maximilian's grandsons, who should receive the title of king. However, the time mention that the grandson in question would be Fernando, who would have promised by proxy to the princess in 1515. The commitment included an inheritance agreement between the two dynasties, if one of them died out, a stipulation that had been repeated multiple times in previous agreements between both houses.
The dispute over inheritance
On the death of the Catholic king in 1516, Carlos also succeeded him in the Crown of Aragon and in the effective government of Castile. The old king had finally revoked the regency of Fernando that same year after being convinced by his advisers, finishing consolidating his brother Carlos as heir to the Hispanic thrones. Fernando, who was in Guadalupe, was surprised by the annulment of the will with his regency. Both Adriano de Utrecht, on behalf of his brother Carlos, and Cardinal Cisneros, regent of the late king's administration, disputed power in Castile. The dispute reopened the factions that had formed in the years previous ones with the sector that had opposed the late Catholic king such as the flamenco Guillermo de Croy, the already mentioned lord of Belmonte or the Manrique de Lara, dukes of Nájera and marquises of Aguilar de Campoo, backing Carlos and Adriano.
The court around the infante Fernando was particularly a focus of opposition to Carlos, and came to bring together an important faction that, in addition to the Bishop of Astorga, included the Suárez de Figueroa family, being the brother of the Count of Feria a waiter at the infante, Suero del Águila, alderman of Ávila and groom of the same, Sancho de Paredes, alderman of Cáceres and butler of Fernando, or Ramiro Núñez de Guzmán, influential nobleman of León, key keeper of the Order of Calatrava and brother of the tutor of the infant Spanish historiography of the 16th century XVI identified Ferdinand's court as a commoner proto-party. Key in the organization of this faction was Francisco de los Cobos, a powerful minister of the Catholic king who had been appointed secretary to the Infante Fernando and who served as a link with his grandfather's former administration. However, the infante's youth and the few alliances his court had established added to his the division of the Aragonese sector (because the bastard son of the Catholic king, Alonso de Aragón, was the regent in the Aragonese crown) and the lack of legitimacy to confirm the royal will to Carlos as heir and meant that Fernando had few real options to oppose to his brother.
Trying to secure the throne, Charles separated his young brother Ferdinand from his court in 1517 by decree issued from Midelburg. Charles accused the court surrounding his young brother of embezzling the infante's funds as well as he disrespected the new government and, despite the infante's complaints, his court was finally dispersed and he himself was placed under guards loyal to his brother in Aranda. Carlos thus isolated his brother, bordering on mistreatment, due to the growing conflicts, including riots in Zaragoza and the Indies between the sector of the high Castilian nobility that defended the rights of Juana and Carlos and another sector that brought together the administration of the late Catholic king and the Aragonese nobility.
Charles' remote management and his use of his Flemish trusted men made Carlos lose support in Castile as well and soon after, in the summer of 1517, Carlos personally arrived in Spain. Both brothers saw each other for the first time in person in October in Mojados. The political climate in Spain already evidenced opposition to the presence of Flemings in the administration in the Cortes of Valladolid in 1518. Significantly, these courts included requests that Ferdinand, Carlos's childless heir apparent, not leave the country showing that Ferdinand was indeed well regarded in the crown. In the crown of Aragon, nobles and prelates made similar requests during Carlos's visit. Within this framework, the courts of Zaragoza in 1518 would be slow and complicated for Carlos, who also had his brother as heir to the second crown. Fernando continued while in Aranda in charge of a Burgundian butler named Borrebot.
Despite this, the infante was sent to Flanders, with Juan de la Parra as one of the few of the small court allowed, probably to prevent discontent from crystallizing in his name. Officially, Carlos argued that with him in Spain his Flemish domains demanded the presence of a prince of royal blood, although he hid the plan from Fernando himself. At his farewell he was made a knight of the order of the Golden Fleece. Infante Fernando left Santander, where he was already introduced to the typical French language, culture and cuisine in Flanders. During the journey the infant spent four days in Kinsale (Ireland) because a storm diverted the route of the fleet before finally reaching its destination.
Stay in the Netherlands
Fernando was thus politically relegated under the tutelage of his aunt Margarita of Austria. His aunt, an experienced politician who had had conflicts with her nephew Carlos over her independence as governor, would be another important influence in Fernando's formation. Margarita was not only an important advisor in politics, but as a patron, she greatly influenced the interest of the young prince who would retain that facet throughout his life. His court, in the middle of the Flemish Renaissance, was one of the cultural epicenters of Europe and Fernando would be influenced by the shows, tournaments and hunts. Fernando would thus know the Habsburg palaces such as Groenendael or his aunt's court in Mechelen, the work of the Ghent-Bruges school (of which he would have several works, including a book of hours from 1520) or the Burgundian music school, which he later introduced to Austria.
Another great influence of his stay in the Netherlands would be Erasmus of Rotterdam, his brother's former tutor. Erasmus's ideas showed openness towards the need for church reform, precursors in a sense of the Protestant Reformation that followed, but they nevertheless rejected Luther's doctrine. Fernando throughout his reign showed ecumenical tendencies that can be seen rooted in Erasmian ideas. Despite this, Erasmus refused to be Fernando's tutor directly.
Ferdinand's new personal court was composed mainly of Flemings, to which were added some remnants from his former Spanish background and some Italians and Germans from other Habsburg domains. Charles also appointed an Austrian-born steward to the new court Burgundian from his brother, Wilhelm von Roggendorf, who would be in the future one of his trusted advisors. In this period, the young Habsburg prince added to the Spanish and Latin that he had learned with his grandfather, the handling of French and Flemish, languages of the Netherlands, and rudiments of Italian and German.
Ferdinand returned to the political scene with the death of his other grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I, who left his two grandsons as co-heirs to share the Austrian and Burgundian inheritance. Despite the fact that Maximilian I had planned to integrate the territories In a kingdom for Ferdinand, inspired by the Burgundian state of his deceased wife, the project ended up being discarded due to Carlos's opposition to the fact that in this way the leadership of the dynasty could be fragmented. Likewise, Carlos aborted the idea from his aunt that Fernando concur in 1519 to the election for the imperial throne that Maximilian had left vacant, although trying to calm things down, he promised his family that he would cede part of Maximilian's possessions once elected. Despite All of this, Fernando refused to face his brother. Over the years, their relationship would come to be compared by both as one of father and son, rather than fraternal. From 1519, Erasmo de Róter also Dam showed more favoritism for Ferdinand, whom he viewed as the more intellectual of the brothers while Carlos had fallen into the political path of his other teacher, Hadrian of Utrecht.
Although Charles was finally elected emperor in October 1520, he still did not cede control of any territory to his brother as he had promised. By November the ceding to Ferdinand of Maximilian's former territories in the southern Holy Roman Empire was a rumor at court but not public. Also, once on the imperial throne, Charles did not personally wish to marry Anne of Bohemia and Hungary. while the uncertainty about his inheritance from Ferdinand meant that he lacked the status agreed upon in the engagement. As a consequence, the agreed wedding was delayed and the alliance with the Jagiellon family was in danger. Meanwhile, Suleiman the Magnificent became the new sultan in 1520 of the Ottoman Empire, initiating a new stage of Turkish offensives in the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea against which the Hungarian Jagiellon appeared to be the first objective. At the beginning of 1521 representatives of both brothers met in Cologne and again in April in Worms to discuss the inheritance that corresponded to Fernando.
Archduke of Austria
Access to your inheritance
Austria and Inner Austria
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Shortly after, with the edict in Worms of April 21, 1521, a Carlos who was already facing parallel revolts in Spain (war of the Communities and Germanies), the Netherlands (Arumer Zwarte Hoop) and Austria (with the expulsion of the Habsburg municipal administration from Vienna in 1519 and the refusal of the ducal diets to cooperate with the regency), general conflict in Germany over the spread of Martin Luther's doctrines and a war against France, he ceded Ferdinand the possession of the main Habsburg patrimonial nucleus that Maximilian had proposed to leave him, although he delayed the agreed transfer as much as possible and initially kept it secret under a "regency" formality.
Those territories, the quinque ducatus or five duchies to be governed as archduke and which were the base of the Erblande or Habsburg patrimonial lands, were the Alta and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. These encompassed the eastern Marche, the southeastern border area of the German Empire facing Hungary and facing the Slavic states of the Balkans. Over the years, these territories had absorbed the eastern to the former Cili County (integrated into Styria), Ortenburg County (integrated into Carinthia) and the former Vindic Marches (integrated into Carniola) and the Slovenes had become a significant part of the population of Carniola, Carinthia and Styria. Ferdinand also inherited the Hungarian border towns that had been pledged to his grandfather in the Treaty of Wiener Neustadt, of which Güns was especially relevant as a border fortress in the East.
The de facto capital of all these territories was Vienna, in Lower Austria, in the Danube river basin on which a large part of Ferdinand's political action would end up being articulated. Vienna was a commercial emporium that centralized products from Central Europe (Hungary, Poland and Bohemia) and from where the region was linked to the Italian and French markets. Trying to strengthen it as an urban center, the Habsburgs had created a university in the city. On that bank in Upper and Lower Austria were other smaller but relevant population centers such as Steyr, Wels, Sankt Pölten, Krems, Klosterneuburg and Linz. A little to the south was Wiener Neustadt (New Vienna), which had been the seat of from Maximilian's court due to the great municipal autonomy of Vienna, and would also initially function as Ferdinand's court. The young archduke soon built an armory and gardens at his new court in the city. That Upper and Lower Austria had a population of approximately 900,000, while that the other three duchies (the so-called Inner Austria: Styria, Carinthia and Carniola) added up to as many.
Despite the weight of Vienna, each duchy maintained its own diet and institutions in Linz, Graz, Klagenfurt, and Laibach (present-day Ljubljana), respectively. Ferdinand would often travel between them, especially visiting Linz and Graz. Gmunden, in Upper Austria, Judenburg, in Styria, and Sankt Veit an der Glan in Carinthia, completed the urban network of the territory, which involved numerous exclaves of the bishoprics with imperial immediacy of Freising, Bamberg and Salzburg within Inner Austria. The bishops of Vienna, Lavant, Seckau and Laibach were instead vassals of the respective duchies while the status of Gürk's bishopric was more ambiguous, as it had one vote in the imperial diet but the duke had a vogtei or protectorate over the territory.
Despite its lower population density, Inner Austria was equally relevant for its economic resources. European mining had one of its main focuses in the Eisenwurzen, a mining area that extracted iron and that extended through Styria and neighboring areas. The mining and subsequent processing of iron in ironworks to create tools and weapons for export to Germany, Venice, and Eastern Europe was one of the main occupations in Ferdinand's new states. The taxes on this sector were another of his main sources of income, complementary to the typical feudal agricultural income, since the Bergregal or right over the subsoil belonged to the sovereign. Also important were the Idria mercury mine in Carniola and the Bleiberg lead mines in Carinthia. These exploitations also implied important economic relations with neighboring territories, since mercury and lead were critical materials for the chemical processes of copper separation. and silver from neighboring mines. Copper was in turn imported in the foundries of Inner Austria, being strategic to obtain bronze cannons in Fuggerau, while silver was vital for the minting of coins, a sovereign privilege.
A proto-industrial activity had developed around these activities in Inner Austria dedicated to the manufacture of carpentry products, bricks, glass and paper, to which was added the fur trade and obtaining leather from imported cattle. of Hungary. Another economic focus for Ferdinand was the state monopoly on salt, which had been an important source of income for his grandfather Maximilian's control of the Salzkammergut in Upper Austria. Ferdinand thus obtained almost 64,000 guilders for land rent and ducal taxes, 32,000 guilders for duties, 71,500 guilders for its salt monopoly and 20,000-30,000 for its mineral rights.
Wedding and geopolitical context
The change in his fortune reactivated the marriage project with the Jagiellonians. Ferdinand left Worms on April 30 and marched to his new domains with Cardinal Lang von Wellenburg passing through Heidelberg, Bruchsal, Vaihingen an der Enz, Ulm and Augsburg, where he rested in a building owned by the cardinal. His stay in Augsburg was significant, because at the reception held, Ferdinand met Jakob Fugger, head of the wealthy Fugger family of Augsburg. Ferdinand's life throughout his reign. Ferdinand continued his journey through Regensburg on May 18, where he embarked for Linz along with other princes. On May 26, Linz's wedding to his fiancée Ana took place. This not only meant financial relief for Fernando as he was able to finance himself with his wife's dowry, valued at 200,000 ducats, but it was of diplomatic interest and guaranteed the alliance of the Habsburgs with the Jagiellons, especially with his now double brother-in-law Louis II of Bohemia and Hungary, whose extensive states bordered to the north, east and southeast with the new territories of Fernando.
Despite the theoretical power of Louis's kingdom, the Ottomans were a growing threat that Hungary was having trouble controlling, with the Jagiellon awaiting Habsburg support. In 1521 Suleiman had taken the city of Belgrade, which had been the southern stronghold of the Hungarian kingdom in the preceding decades. Ferdinand's attempts to send reinforcements to the square came late but show that he was aware of the importance of the Ottoman danger even before to personally reach Austria. Louis II of Hungary's response against the Turks was weak, as he was heavily in debt, which meant that part of the nobility in the border areas in both countries began to bet on said Habsburg support. In Hungary there was a faction of the court in favor of a policy closer to the Habsburgs that had been headed by the bishops and chancellors Jorge Szatmári and Tomás Bakócz. In Austria the counts of Hardegg, the lords of Starhemberg or those of Harrach, Austrian nobles with possessions on the northern border of the archduchy also had interests in Bohemia while others had received the Hungarian fortresses as pledge. The situation was not simple, however, because the alliance sealed by the wedding of his sister Maria was opposed by another sector of the Hungarian court. Preserving this alliance not only determined Ferdinand's wedding but would be one of the initial axes of his foreign policy.
To the south, with Bosnia in Ottoman hands, Turkish incursions were beginning to reach through Croatia to Carniola, Carinthia and even Friuli. During the conflicts in the time of Maximilian I, the Hungarian kings had allowed the passage to the Turks to attack Inner Austria as a weapon against the Habsburgs, accentuating the problem. The Türkengefahr or Turkish fear was a notable focus of German politics in the 16th century and significantly meant that the cities and nobles of Inner Austria would have accepted greater ducal power in times of Maximilian and Charles and that during the early reign of Ferdinand they refrained from religious claims to other territories. Under Ferdinand's rule, cooperation developed between the Croatian and Inner Austrian nobility to confront the Turkish raids. Evidencing that it was necessary to stop them outside the borders of Austria, Croatia would be the other great strategic priority of Fernando.
To the northwest were the Wittelsbach dukes of Bavaria William IV and Louis X, also opposed to the Habsburgs. As well as being the main rival dynasty in the southern Holy Roman Empire, Maximilian I had recently taken Kufstein, Kitzbühel, Rattenberg, Mondsee and the Zillertal from them, which they wanted back. Ferdinand would therefore back the third brother, Ernst of Bavaria, excluded from the succession by William and Louis. Border states included the Archbishopric of Salzburg of Matthew Lang of Wellenburg, close to the Habsburgs but unpopular amid the rise of Protestantism in his principality, and the county of Schaunberg, which the dukes of Austria they had tried to reduce to vassal but that often maintained its own policy. Both Bavaria and Salzburg also controlled salt pans in the same area as Ferdinand, being competitors for the Central European salt market. Outside their new domains, imperial or ecclesiastical cities in the Bavarian and Swabian part of the Danube basin such as Passau, Regensburg, Nuremberg and Augsburg were strategic for the Habsburgs and would be regularly visited by Ferdinand as places of imperial diets or negotiations with the princes, especially at the beginning of his reign. In general, his dynastic role as the emperor's brother would be the third major focus of his politics, especially as patron of the gentry of the southern empire.
The problems with the initial distribution of the inheritance
The border brand character of these Austrian territories implied high military costs, exceeding the income obtained locally from the states themselves. His grandfather Maximilian had accumulated copious debts despite having obtained the payment of subsidies from imperial taxes from the Holy Empire diets. Maximilian left about six million florins in debt, which would be divided between Carlos and Ferdinand. Patrimonial debt had also been increased by the expenses of the imperial election of Carlos.
His brother Carlos, in addition to the imperial crown, had inherited the rich territories of Burgundy, a great source of income for the Habsburgs that came to rent almost seven million guilders a year, for which reason he had to subsidize Fernando throughout his reign to to keep the empire's southeastern border secure. As early as 1521 the brothers inventoried and melted down the jewels and other valuables that Maximilian kept in Wiener Neustadt to pay off debts.
Given the ad hoc nature of the imperial and ducal taxes and the concessions demanded in return by the feudal estates, this need for income also meant for Fernando an important political weakness. Thus, the city of Vienna and the counts of Hardegg had accumulated considerable power in Austria during the reigns of Maximilian and Charles. The ducal diets were not only important financially, but also militarily for summoning the lehnsaufgebot and landesaufgebot, the provincial feudal levies. These required the approval of the diet, something politically complex for campaigns that were not defensive or that ran outside each duchy. On the contrary, since the defeat of his great-grandfather Charles of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy (1477) and, especially since the time of his grandfather Maximilian and his victory at Guinegate (1479) the use of expensive professional infantry armies had begun to spread. In the empire the use of mercenary forces called lansquenets had spread while in the Italian wars the so-called condottieres had spread. Ferdinand had to resort to these mercenary forces for most of his campaigns at great cost to his coffers, supplemented by the corresponding feudal levies when available. When Ferdinand summoned the diets of his estates in June 1521 to receive the traditional homage and request taxes from them to organize the defense against the Turks, he found their opposition to extending the taxes paid.
During the beginning of his reign, Ferdinand had to resort to the Neapolitan income from his maternal grandfather's will to pay for his court and administration, and even to get into debt with German princes such as the wealthy Hohenzollern Margrave of Ansbach George of Brandenburg-Ansbach or with the bankers of neighboring Augsburg, where metal mining had generated a thriving capital market. Both said margrave and bankers with interests in mining, such as the Fuggers, the Welsers, the Hochstetters, the Herwarts or the Manlichs would be recurring characters in Fernando's life.
Dispute over inheritance division
Ferdinand, who although outside the imperial succession remained as Maximilian's successor in practice, aspired to a greater fraction of his paternal grandfather's inheritance and notably maintained claims to the rich Burgundian territories that had been the source of wealth of this. He kept in his official list of titles those of Duke of Burgundy, Brabant and Luxembourg and that of Lord of Salins as well as the use of symbols of the house of Burgundy. In documents between brothers he requested the cession of Franche-Comté and the Viscounty of Auxonne. Ferdinand also continued his grandfather's propaganda and artistic work, sponsoring the completion and publication of Dürer's engravings such as the Triumphzug, which glossed over Maximilian's victories, and the Weisskunig, a chivalric novel based on Maximilian that his grandfather and his secretary had co-written. The diets of the Austrian duchies also showed their opposition to the division that Charles had made, since he retained part of the states that had been of the Habsburgs by dividing historically linked areas.
On January 30 and February 7, 1522, after the talks in Brussels, some family pacts were reached: Carlos would retain the coveted territories of the house of Burgundy, but would transfer the rest of the Habsburg patrimony to Ferdinand. With this, Carlos also granted him the coast that he had separated from Carniola and Carinthia in the first distribution as well as Tyrol and Previous Austria in Swabia and Alsace whose reunification with Austria had been one of the successes of Maximilian's reign. Ferdinand was also named imperial vicar or representative of his brother in the empire. The commitments between brothers to distribute the inheritance aspired to Ferdinand being named king of the Romans or heir presumptive to Carlos in the Holy Empire, but since Carlos had not yet Having been formally crowned by the pope and Ferdinand's election could undermine his brother's position, the scope of the pact was kept secret. Ferdinand would initially be titled only as his brother's representative (Statthalter). it also limited the cessions in Alsace to the life of Ferdinand, having to revert after his death to the Spanish-Burgundian branch of the dynasty due to its strategic interest.
Financially, Fernando would assume only 800,000 guilders of Maximilian's debt. Fernando would thus be responsible for the mortgages and charges on the titles he received but Carlos he would assume the rest and, especially, the debts with Jorge de Saxony, with whom the Habsburgs had a strong debt that went back to the times of Maximilian. Roggendorf, who had managed Ferdinand's court by Charles's appointment, was removed, suspected of having abused Ferdinand's trust. Charles also raised to 60,000 ducats span> Fernando's Neapolitan income, in exchange for his acceptance of the invalidation of the will of his Aragonese grandfather. Carlos, in conflict with the regents left by the Catholic king, wanted to annul said will but did not want to reopen succession disputes with Fernando.
Tyrol and Vorarlberg
Territorially, Ferdinand added to his share of the inheritance Anterior Austria, a set of scattered Habsburg landholdings in their homelands in Alsace and Swabia. The most notable territory of that Former Austria was the county of Tirol, with his grandfather Maximilian's capital, Innsbruck, which housed his palace with another treasury that Ferdinand would soon melt down to repay debts. Although Ferdinand would often travel between the capitals of his domains, Innsbruck would be the habitual home of his family and his favorite residence.
The county, despite the name, had imperial immediacy as a princely county (Gefürsteter Graf) and therefore had a position in the imperial diet similar to Ferdinand's duchies rather than normal counties. Its extension was also similar, ranging from Kufstein and Maximilian's conquests in the north to Bolzano and Merano in the south, already on the limits of Italy, although the population of this alpine area was smaller than in the archduchy, hovering around approximately 100,000 inhabitants. Most of the petty lords represented in the diet were Germans, although there was a Romance-speaking minority that would participate little in Ferdinand's government, usually hiding behind their intermediate vassalage to the bishops of Trent and Brixen. These bishoprics were theoretically independent of the Tyrolean county but the count acted as vogt or military protector of these as regulated by the landlibell . Said landlibell nevertheless enshrined the autonomy of the territory, with the Schützen being a defensive force and restricted to the territory and said service limiting the taxes owed by the estates to the count. These Tyrolean feudals were worth only 30,000 guilders.
Innsbruck and Tyrol were also strategic, controlling a historic Alpine route between Italy and Germany, valuable for its tolls and military interest, and for being the base of the arms industry his grandfather had developed. The county It also included the important Schwaz silver and copper mine that had been key to the financing of his grandfather Maximiliano and was already being so for the companies of his brother Carlos and for those of Fernando. Ferdinand would get about 250,000 guilders a year thanks to the mine, although at the beginning of his reign he would get smaller figures. Around him, a mint had also been generated in Hall in Tirol, which was a critical point of trade in metals and salt.The presence of copper had made Maximilian install a key armory there for his armies. Ferdinand would maintain the cannon foundry at Innsbruck, competing with his brothers for the employment of master foundries and other specialists that were necessary for a modern army.:nowrap">130,000-160,000 guilders rent.
Immediately next to Tyrol, Ferdinand also received the lordships of Feldkirch, Hohenegg and Dornbirn and half of the county of Bregenz, all purchased from the house of Montfort in addition to the lordships of Sonnenburg and Bludenz, acquired from other dynasties. Territory was separated from the Three Leagues of the thriving Swiss Confederation through other independent lordships in the hands of small Swabian houses such as the Montforts, von Sulz, the von Werdenberg-Sargans or the von Hohenems. To the south, Ferdinand inherited seigneurial rights over eight valleys partially integrated into the Swiss leagues. For this reason, although Fernando maintained a governor in Luzein who exercised high justice and collected taxes, he encountered opposition from the local administrations who refused for years to carry out the feudal homage. A little further south he obtained the town of Tarasp as an exclave in Tyrol, surrounded by Lower Engandine disputed with the League of the House of God and the Bishop of Coria. Swiss military success had jeopardized Habsburg interests in the area, although the recent Swiss defeat at Marignano had cooled the expansionism of the Swiss Confederation. These territories between Tyrol, Switzerland and Swabia formed the area known as Vorarlberg, which was taking on its own character as a border area and had a population of approximately 30,000 inhabitants.
Anterior Austria and Swabia
The Habsburgs had also had strong interests in Swabia, which they had come to call themselves princes. Thus, also as exclaves but separated from both Switzerland and Tyrol by Lake Constance, Ferdinand received the reichslandvogtei of Altdorf, which grouped properties around the towns of Altdorf and Gebrazhofen, and the county of Nellenburg in around Stockach, which would be reinforced by the purchase that Carlos and Fernando made that same year of the nearby but discontiguous county of Tengen. Despite his economic limitations, for Fernando consolidating his possessions in the area was strategically important because, although he maintained the nominal title of Count of Kyburg, his assets remained isolated in the region given the loss of the former Habsburg domains in Thurgau to the Swiss.. It was through this area and the free imperial city of Lindau that Ferdinand's domains connected to the West.
Further north, Ferdinand received more titles fragmented by Swabia and separated from Tyrol by various Swabian states. Thus he obtained the margraviate of Burgau on the upper reaches of the Danube with Burgau and Günzburg as main towns, to which the small counties of Berg-Schelklingen and Kirchberg-Weißenhorn had been associated as well as Wiblingen Abbey. The territories were still on the riverbank with the five towns on the Danube (Mengen, Munderkingen, Riedlingen, Saulgau and Waldsee) as well as the vogtei over the Holy Cross Monastery. Ferdinand also gained the county of Hohenberg on the upper reaches of the Neckar with Rottenburg, Horb and Oberndorf as main towns as well as the lordship of Binsdorf and the Upper Hohenberg exclave to the south.
To the north of Hohenberg Charles finally ceded to him the duchy of Württemberg, whose last duke had been deposed by the Swabian League. His territory, with its capital at Stuttgart in the same Neckar basin, had been sold in 1520 by the it binds Charles given its strategic value in order to consolidate those possessions and allow a possible connection between the lands of Ferdinand and Burgundy. This territory was extensive, having previously absorbed the duchy of Teck and the palatine county of Tübingen and conquered borderlands of the Palatinate, and with 300,000-400,000 inhabitants, densely populated. However, the colossal debt Ulrich left behind had forced the Treaty of Tübingen which gave great power to the Württemberg states in exchange for them repaying the debt, leaving only 22,000 rent guilders to the duke.
Swabia was a highly conflictive area, as the consolidation of the imperial micro-states into proto-state entities had generated tensions between the great magnates, the petty imperial barons and knights whose power was disappearing, and the peasants. The Swiss Confederation formed as an alliance against the Habsburgs and especially its canton of Zurich, which continued to aspire to expand into Konstanz, as well as the dispossessed Ulrich of Württemberg, now reduced to Count of Montbéliard but eager to recover his former duchy, were sources of opposition to Fernando. The spread of Anabaptism, which Ulrich Zwingli had come to power in Zurich, and Luther's doctrine threatened any Habsburg political action in the area, adding to the political tension. In particular, the free imperial cities of Swabia were foci of the new doctrines.
Likewise, Carlos himself continued to delay Fernando's access to his inheritance whenever possible and in accordance with the Brussels pacts Fernando had to bear numerous mortgages on those territories that dated from the time of Maximilian and were many times reduced. their powers to a nominal authority. Such was the case in the Burgau margraviate, pledged to the bishops of Augsburg, although numerous subfiefs and seigneurial rights had been mortgaged to bankers or small local powers. Thus the Fuggers had a mortgage on Kirchberg-Weißenhorn and the Waldburgs had pledged the Danube cities while Ehingen and Schelklingen were pawned to Louis of Freyberg. The local Burgau estates had received low justice in exchange for exceptional taxes.
In favor of Ferdinand, the Swabian League grouped the nobility from the south of the Empire and had traditionally been a supporter of the Habsburgs. The petty Swabian nobles combined independent fiefdoms with imperial immediacy and therefore only dependent on Charles's imperial administration, with subfiefdoms and offices in Ferdinand's new temporary domains. Thus ministerial and small counts such as the Montforts, von Waldburg, Furstemberg, Werdenberg, Sulz, Hohenems or von Helfenstein, and even the most important counts of Hohenzollern and the margraves of Baden-Baden and Baden-Durlach were part of the network of influences of the Habsburgs in Swabia and would be part of Ferdinand's reign throughout his government.
Alsace and Breisgau
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To the west Ferdinand obtained a lifetime cession of the Alsatian lands from the Habsburgs. These included the historic Habsburg landgraviato in Sundgau Alsace, on the left bank of the Rhine south of the city of Mulhouse. The territory had grown over the years, incorporating the county of Ferrette in Alsace to the west with Ferrette and Belfort as the main cities and now reaching the gate of Burgundy in contact with the Franche-Comté that Charles retained. to the north they added the small lordships of Ensisheim, Issenheim, Haut-Koenigsbourg and Weiler and the rights over the landvogtei of Haguenau in pledge of the fines of the Palatinate. This landvogtei, which had in turn absorbed the reichsvogtei of Kaysersberg, encompassed forty imperial towns and villages (Reichsdörfer and Reichsweiler) scattered throughout northern Alsace as well as other properties such as the Haguenau forest or the Kaysersberg castle and certain prerogatives over ten independent imperial cities.
Across the Rhine, the territory had extended through Breisgau to include the strategic position of Breisach, the city of Freiburg, the vogtei over St. Trudbert's Abbey (Münstertal), and the lordships of Triberg, Kenzingen, Neuenburg, Endingen and Herbolzheim. Breisach and Freiburg in particular were key to controlling traffic in the Rhineland, both north-south towards the Netherlands and east-west towards the rest of Former Austria. In addition to trade, the region was famous for its wine cultivation which had generated a Influential rural petit bourgeoisie in the municipal government of Freiburg. The city was also relevant as the seat of the second university in Ferdinand's domain, which counterbalanced the influence of the University of Heidelberg located in the territory of the counts of the Palatinate. Thanks to jurists and theologians such as Ulrich Zasius and Johann Eck, it was a source of jurists for the Habsburg administration and a focus of opposition to Luther's doctrines. The reception of medieval Roman law, a recovery of ancient Roman law in European universities against feudal customary law, was one of the trends of the nascent absolute monarchies and would be one of the dynamics of Ferdinand's reign.
The exclaves of this nucleus were the vogtei over Schuttern Abbey (Friesenheim) to the north and the lordships of Villingen and Bräunlingen to the east. North of Breisgau and just like on the other bank of the Rhine, Maximilian it had wrested from the Palatinate its half of the Ortenau landvogtei with a series of imperial possessions in the south Rhineland around the free imperial cities of Offenburg, Gengenbach and Zell.
South of Breisgau lay the county of Hauenstein (which included the bailiwicks of Schlücht, Schwarza, Todtmoos, Schönau and Todtnau together with the vogtei over the abbeys of St. Blaise and Säckingen) and the forest villages (Rheinfelden, Laufenburg, Säckingen and Waldshut), the last remnants of Habsburg Aargau. These cities were governed together with the county through a waldvogt in the Fricktal valley. The fortresses in the area (Letzen) were Ferdinand's second area of contact with Switzerland, with a local force of around a thousand men.
The political situation was as complicated as in Swabia. As landvogt, or imperial administrator, Ferdinand became the imperial representative to the free imperial cities and ecclesiastical authorities in Alsace beyond the direct control of the landvogtei's imperial villages. These cities had formed a league to preserve their rights and were strongly independent. The Swiss Confederation, especially the canton of Basel and the newly included city of Mulhouse, complicated the political landscape. Montbeliard, in the hands of the deposed Duke of Württemberg, was in a strategic position to connect or isolate many of these states. The Electorate of the Palatinate, in the hands of another branch of the rival house of Wittelsbach, similarly aspired to recover the recently lost landvogtei of Alsace.
The territory was as mortgaged as in Swabia. It was common for territories to be ceded as pledges for loans to cover interest with the income generated, which left seigneurial rights (Pfandherr) in the hands of the lenders and was another cause of social discontent. Among other cases, the county of Ferrette had been pledged to the Reich von Reichenstein, while the city itself was mortgaged to its municipal council, the lordships of Belfort and Delle to the barons of Morimont, and those of Rougemont and Altkirch to the counts. from Sulz. The landvogtei of Ortenau in turn was pledged to the house of Furstemberg and the bishopric of Strasbourg. Finally, it is worth mentioning how the cities of Rheinfelden and Laufenburg were pledged in the hands of Ulrich von Habsberg, an important local lord from a distant branch. of the Habsburgs.
The government used to be delegated to an untervogt or governor appointed from among the minor Alsatian nobility vassal to the Habsburgs, who often received pledged territories for financing government activities. As in Swabia, the local gentry from Alsace, the Rhineland, or Wetterau had regularly collaborated with the Habsburgs.
The Adriatic coast
Finally, the territories that Charles ceded to him in February 1522 gave him a small outlet to the sea strongly related to Carniola that encompassed the northern Istrian lordships of Trieste, Pazin, and Rijeka. Just to the north, the Marche Vindica stretched out into the valleys towards Carniola. The coastline was completed to the west by the small county of Gorizia, which Maximilian had inherited thanks to the support of the local magnate Virgil von Graben. The county of Gorizia included Lienz in eastern Tyrol and the valley of the Isonzo that through Duino and Cormòns reached the city of Gorizia next to Istria.
The last element of that coastline was the border recently seized by his grandfather Maximilian from the Republic of Venice during the Cambrai League war. The conquered territory included Rovereto near Tyrol, the towns on the Isonzo of Cortina d'Ampezzo, Plezzo, Tolmin and Gradisca, as well as the city of Aquileia and the fort of Marano on the coast and seven villages in Istria. As in other territories, some of these towns had been mortgaged by Maximilian, such as Cormòns to the Elector of Saxony or the Heinfels castle to the von Graben family.
Carlos had initially retained all these areas as such due to the influence of the Triestine bishop Pietro Bonomo, who wanted to preserve the independence of his homeland and had advocated associating them with Carlos's Italian lands. Despite this, the division had generated strong criticism from the states in Carniola and the final distribution of Brussels included the transfer of these territories to Ferdinand. Bonomo did manage to obtain from Ferdinand that his city receive tax exemptions and confirmation of its privileges traditional and would become Ferdinand's first chancellor.
The acquisition was important for the economy of Ferdinand's estates since it gave him control of ports for the export of cattle, minerals and manufactures that were produced in Inner Austria, but it also strongly conditioned his foreign policy. Despite the treaty of Noyon, Gradisca was claimed by the Republic of Venice, since in addition to having been conquered recently, it turned Monfalcone into an exclave. The exile of the Patriarchs of Aquileia in Venice due to the Habsburg occupation of their city was another diplomatic front. open between Ferdinand and the republic. The southern Istrian peninsula was also in Venetian hands and was another source of continuing friction during Ferdinand's reign. Especially the Valbona forests around the abandoned Venetian fortress of Rašpor were sources of conflict, the arrival of settlers loyal to one power or another given the permeability of the borders and the fact that the ecclesiastical borders did not coincide with the political ones (notably making the Franciscan monastery of Pazin dependent on the Franciscan province of Dalmatia, controlled by Venice). In turn, Ferdinand maintained claims to the lordship of Pordenone, in Friuli, which had belonged to his grandfather before he was lost in those conflicts. with Venice.
Ferdinand began his reign with an antagonism against Venice for this reason. Venice was in 1522 supporting France in the war against the Habsburgs although in April the imperial victory at Bicoca aborted immediate threats against Ferdinand's domains. The principalities-bishoprics in the Habsburg orbit of Brixen and Trent and the bailiwick of An der Etsch acted as border states.
Ferdinand's first government
First acts of government
On March 16, 1522, Charles issued a public decree with the Brussels agreements, and Ferdinand began to receive tributes from his dominions once the new pact confirmed him as ruler. However, after the death of Maximilian I, he had their autonomy was considerably increased due to the absence of Carlos from the territory and the ambiguity and reservations that he had shown in his transfer to Fernando.
The young Ferdinand thus had little success in his first forays into imperial politics during the Nuremberg diet that had been held since March. Lacking funds and military forces of his own, he could not face the revolt of the knights in Trier, which was instead suppressed by Louis of the Palatinate and Philip of Hesse despite Ferdinand being the theoretical representative of the emperor. Finally, the attempts at reform imperial prosecutor were aborted by the appeal of the cities to Carlos, who rejected the new taxes and the antimonopoly measures defended by Ferdinand in the diet.
In addition, after Ferdinand had received Hungarian embassies in the preceding months aspiring to sponsor their cause before the imperial diet, his delegate von Dietrichstein failed to convince the German states to decisively support Hungary, which was a failure for its strategic position. The testimonies of the Hungarian ambassadors or the aspirations of a crusade that would lift the siege of Rhodes were in vain. Faced with Louis's serious financial problems, the Imperial states had doubts that the Hungarians and Poles would do their part in a joint offensive (with particular doubts as to whether Louis could provide food and ammunition to the forces sent by the Imperial states) while the confrontation between Carlos and Francisco de Francia had to prevent the emperor from prioritizing the Turkish front.
Turkish incursions into Croatia, Carniola and Carinthia began to increase in the face of this lack of response. In 1522 a Turkish offensive captured Knin and Skradin from the Croats and one of their incursions reached Postojna in Carniola. In Croatia the local nobility came to ask Ferdinand directly for help. Ferdinand had a delicate diplomatic situation trying not to antagonize with his brother-in-law responding to Croatian demands, but he still deployed forces from his personal domains and soldiers commanded by other imperial states. His performance against the Turks was rather poor, given funding problems, although the Turkish offensive was arrested. The large number of dispatches addressed to the young Archduke shows the personal interest Ferdinand took in the campaign. Notably, that same summer Ferdinand received reports from his forces in Croatia, alerting him to the need to reinforce the border on the Una River and the fortress of Bihać after the loss of the Croatian defensive line. Since then Ferdinand began to develop a network of influences in Croatia, gaining with his support the loyalty of Pedro Keglević, ban of the disputed fortress of Jajce, and creating an intelligence network with Bernardin Ričanin. Croatian politics was, however, no less complex than the German one and Fernando therefore had conflicts with the Frankopans, who despite having been allies of Maximilian were at odds with Keglević.
Consolidation on the throne
Ferdinand soon succeeded in limiting the autonomy of his estates again and from 1522 he appointed procurators such as Markus Beck and Johannes Cuspinian who confronted the local powers they saw as traitors. The model was similar to the corregidores his Spanish grandparents had used to establish central authority over towns and municipalities. At the Wiener Neustadt executions of June 1522 Ferdinand had Martin Siebenbürger, Burgomaster of Vienna, executed along with several followers. with whom he had taken de facto power in the city after Maximilian's death and had been responsible for the events of 1519 against Charles V. Hans von Puchheim and Michael Eitzing, members of the gentry who had meant themselves in opposition to Habsburg absolutism from the diets of Upper and Lower Austria, respectively.
Fernando strove to create a central authority that would ensure the internal consistency of his territories and centralize the administration. To do this, in 1522, he recovered the Regiments or executive bodies on behalf of the monarch that Maximilian had established in the past. Ferdinand maintained the scheme of two distinct Regiments that his grandfather had used, with one in Vienna for Austria and Inner Austria and one in Innsbruck for Former Austria. In addition, Fernando suspended the privileges of Vienna, ending its autonomy.
The government of Salamanca and economic policy
The young prince has been characterized by historians as intelligent and restless, although temperamental and manipulative by his court. Early in his reign, Ferdinand relied on the Spaniard Gabriel de Salamanca, Maximilian's former chancellor and well-connected with the court that Fernando had had as an infant. Salamanca had been Ferdinand's representative during the inheritance negotiations and would now be his chief minister. Salamanca raised taxes to meet the debts but faced local rejection, both due to his tax measures and his foreign origin. This opposition to Salamanca allowed the nobility opposed to Ferdinand's absolutism to channel their opposition to the archduke without confronting him head-on after the executions at Wiener Neustadt. The young archduke was proud and ambitious, seen by the population as a foreigner and with a prime minister equally foreign.
In these beginnings in government, Fernando delegated, in addition to Salamanca, Beck and his Spanish-Flemish personal court, former members of Maximilian's administration, such as Siegmund von Dietrichstein and Ludwig von Helfenstein-Wiesentheid who were part of his family by being married to bastard daughters of the late emperor. Both would occupy important roles as interlocutors with the imperial princes, before whom Fernando was a foreigner. One last family member that Fernando would lean on would be his uncle Jorge de Austria, Maximilian's bastard son and destined for religious life.
Other members of his grandfather's court would continue Ferdinand early in his reign such as the diplomat Sigismund von Herberstein, who would represent Ferdinand before Muscovy and other Eastern European powers. Meanwhile, the older von Starhembergs, border lords with Bohemia and Schaunberg and former supporters of Maximilian, gave way to a new generation with Hans von Starhemberg representing Ferdinand in Prague. The Bishop of Laibach, Christopher Rauber, had not only been employed by Maximilian but also by his brother Charles, and Ferdinand continued to trust him, especially as ambassador to Hungary. Württemberg councilor Beato Widmann, who had collaborated with Maximilian during the conflicts with Duke Ulrich he also became part of Ferdinand's inner circle, being influential in his politics in the duchy but also in the Tyrolean chancellery and as ambassador.
Improving the economic situation was complex. In August 1522 Ferdinand created Reitkammers to manage the finances of each Regiment. The administrative reforms he carried out in Württemberg, aimed at strengthening tax collection, were the greatest contribution of his administration to the duchy. Raising revenue was difficult even with such chambers, given the absence of a modern state apparatus for collecting complex taxes. Instead, Salamanca opted to establish tolls and taxes on the sale of basic necessities (Akzise). Although this increased the box office in Austria by almost 20,000 guilders, the Akzise was highly unpopular and was abandoned in the long term. Also in 1522 an attempt was made to develop a new mercury mine in Idria, directly owned by Ferdinand (the Fürstenbau or prince's well) although its profitability was problematic and Ferdinand eventually came to support a monopsony of de facto to the Hochstetter, restricting imports from Bohemia and Swabia and guaranteeing them supplies of Idria in exchange for more than 80,000 guilders per year. In Tyrol, the states locals blocked his attempts to correct taxation inefficiencies in the province.
In 1523 Fernando resumed minting coins at the Hall in Tirol mint thanks to advances of silver from metal merchants on account of the coins to be minted. Despite the increase in income, Ferdinand always showed a favorable attitude to spending, resorting to borrowing when necessary.For example, in 1523 he subsidized Count Rodolfo de Sulz to maintain the Habsburg clientele network in Swabia and Vorarlberg. Rudolf was the independent lord of several strategic castles in front of Switzerland that he would reinforce with this help from Ferdinand, and appointed its governor in Previous Austria he would defend the area for the Habsburgs. In September of the same year Ferdinand also bought Hugo de Montfort-Bregenz his part of the county of Bregenz to consolidate his domain of Vorarlberg.
Under Salamanca's rule, Ferdinand continued to reestablish his authority among the imperial domains and in August 1523 regained the regency of Ensisheim, a former institution that Sigismund I had used as the capital of Alsace. Subject to the Innsbruck chamber, it served as Ferdinand's governorship for his Alsatian and Black Forest domains, which, one week from Vienna and four days from Innsbruck, formed the area furthest away from his regiments. Despite these measures, the ambiguity on the distribution of the inheritance would limit the action of the Fernandina administration in Alsace until as late as 1525.
Developing a foreign policy
In the Lent of 1523 another Turkish incursion devastated Carniola. Ferdinand held a diet in Augsburg, where the weakness of the defensive system of the province in the face of the Turkish advance was confronted. According to the accounts of the Carnian envoys, the province had suffered a great depopulation by the Turkish incursions before which the few ducal garrisons could not offer resistance. To remedy this, taxes and budget items were approved to put the border in order against the Turks committing all their states in Austria. This was to maintain a permanent contingent of light cavalry on the border with Croatia and to put the Ljubljana castle in condition. Commanding this force was Johann Katzianer, a local Carnian lord who would become one of the most influential military leaders of Ferdinand during the beginning of his reign even despite raising numerous criticisms. In parallel, the development of a network of bonfires began on the border of Gorizia, Carniola and Styria to warn of raids (Grmada in Slovene), of rural shelters (tabori) and silos for military logistics in case of mobilization.
In the autumn of that year he met his brother-in-law Louis II of Hungary, first on October 12 in the Hungarian city of Sopron, in what was the first in-person meeting between the two, and later in a conference in Wiener Neustadt from 15 to 22 of the same month, which was also attended by Polish delegates. The objective of both assemblies was to confirm Ferdinand's support for his brother-in-law against the Turks and to try to articulate a proposal that would be acceptable to the diet of the Holy Empire. The meetings would continue in November, when Fernando met the influential Elek Thurzó in person for the first time, a Hungarian nobleman who would later be one of his most prominent collaborators. In November Fernando received envoys from his domains, with those from Istria and Carniola influencing his concern about the Ottoman threat.
Imperial Vicar
Ferdinand while he adapted his interests to the policy of his brother the emperor although he was absent from the imperial affairs occupied by the Italian war of 1521-1526. As its regent, he had to maneuver diplomatically to prevent the Protestant princes from joining France against the Habsburgs. Charles's intentions that Ferdinand open a new front against France in Burgundy show the emperor's distance from political reality in the Sacred Empire and the precarious situation of his brother. A sector of the German nobility preferred Louis of the Palatinate as imperial vicar and another directly suggested the abolition of the vicariate while Fernando found barriers due to his youth, his Hispanic customs and his little command of German. Charles was not, however, the only member of the Habsburg alliance who had these expectations and Henry VIII of England sent the Archbishop of York at the end of 1523, at the head of an embassy that also included the Baron de Morley, Sir William Hussey and Sir Thomas Wriothesley, to make Ferdinand a Knight of the Garter and urge him to fight France and her allies protest before. Fernando received them in Nuremberg in December, where he had gone to attend an imperial diet.
Religiously, Fernando had shown a relative tolerance during his stay in Flanders due to the influence of Erasmus and the humanists. More practical in political affairs than his brother Carlos, he soon became convinced of the impossibility of ending Lutheranism through the strength and sought a solution to the religious conflict through dialogue. In this spirit, he participated in the diet of Nuremberg in April 1524 and in the meeting of Catholic princes in Regensburg in July 1524, which decided on a first Catholic reform in southern Germany that included a reduction in holy days, criticized by the Protestants, and the delivery to the secular princes of the fifth of the ecclesiastical revenues. Even so, Carlos's tendency to undermine Ferdinand despite being his representative in the empire slowed down the tax and religious reforms approved in the Nuremberg diet. Learning from this, Ferdinand hid the Regensburg deliberations from Carlos until the last moment., trying to obtain from Cardinal Campeggio the support of the church against the Turks.
Ferdinand was more inflexible with Anabaptism, executing the Calvinist preacher Caspar Tauber in his domain in September 1524 and prosecuting others such as Johann Eggenberger, Hans Voystler, Jakob Peregrin and Johann Väsel. Ferdinand relied on a Faith Council of Twelve, which included the Bishop of Vienna, Johann von Revellis and the future Bishop Johann Fabri, as well as his Uncle George of Austria, who was appointed Bishop of Brixen. By mid-1524 Ferdinand was already foreseeing the fragmentation of the Reformation beyond Luther, and many of the new faiths displayed more politically revolutionary tendencies than Lutheranism. Despite this focus on Anabaptism, Ferdinand disapproved of his sister Elizabeth of Austria's conversion to Lutheranism in 1524.
The wars in Italy, Croatia and Austria Previous
In Italy, the French-held Duchy of Milan had become the main point of contention between France and the Habsburgs. Fernando, recovering his grandparents' projects, proposed to his brother that he join their states, which were neighbors to the north. Between October 1524 and January 1525 Fernando sent his brother reinforcements from Tyrol, despite his precarious economic and military situation. Approximately half of the forces in the battle of Pavia had been sent by Ferdinand and Carlos would have a better relationship with his brother after his providential help in Italy.
It was not the only front open to Fernando. In October 1524 a Turkish incursion devastated Carniola again, reaching almost as far as Carinthia. The measures taken the previous year proved insufficient and only a victory by the Hungarian leader Tomori against the raiders prevented greater evils. The weakness of the Christian border in Croatia was revealed to be critical and in October 1524 Ferdinand received new requests for troops from Croatia, vetoed by Luis, and which would be repeated the following year. Ferdinand would send forces and funds unofficially through Iván Karlović, Iván Kobasic and Nicolás Jurišić.
With this, he expanded his clientele network in Croatia to Karlović, former ban of Croatia; Kobasic, influential nobleman on the border in the Bihać sector; Stejpan Blagajski, Count of Blagaj; or branches of the Frankopans as he spread his intelligence sources south of the border with the senator of the republic of Ragusa, Michael Bocignolo or the Serb commander in Ottoman service, Petar Ovčarević. Ferdinand notably succeeded in having the permanent contingent financed by the provinces of Inner Austria and headed by Katzianer authorized to serve as part of the forces under Jurišić outside the borders of Austria with which he would man two fortresses of the Zrínyi, another important noble house. Croatian who had asked him for help. Despite the opposition of Louis II, Croatia was a strongly autonomous territory and in the face of the Turkish threat, Ferdinand's envoys came to function as de facto governors. Up to seven Croatian fortresses received Austrian soldiers to reinforce the Croatian local forces.
At the same time, to the west of Ferdinand the Swiss confederation (and particularly the radical canton of Zurich, which had ambitions to expand on the border), was a source of trouble. In late 1524 a radical Swiss-backed preacher, Baltasar Hubmaier, seized power in Waldshut, a town in Ferdinand's domain but on the Swiss border. Both Waldshut and Rheinfelden were geographically exposed to possible Swiss expansion, but the loyalty of the other Fricktal towns to Ferdinand's government and local magnate Ulrich von Habsberg's opposition to the Anabaptists put a stop to the problem.
Ulrich of Württemberg, meanwhile, had raised an army to recover his dukedom with Swiss support, but Charles V's victory at the Battle of Pavia in February 1525 caused the Swiss to withdraw their troops for fear that the forces of the The emperor, who were occupying Milanese, reached its borders. Instead, the mercenary landsquenets vacated after the imperial victory reinforced the army of Marshal of Württemberg, George of Waldburg, against the peasant forces that Ulrich had assembled. In March, the mercenary leader Guillermo de Furstemberg was the one who seized Ulrich and sold the lordships of Héricourt, L'Isle-sur-le-Doubs and Clémont, Montbeliard territories adjacent to Franche-Comté to Ferdinand. he would pawn his favorite Gabriel de Salamanca.
Peasant Wars
The Beginnings
It would be during the German Peasants' War of 1525 that Ferdinand would come to be most personally in danger. In the midst of the prevailing discontent, after the proclamation of the Twelve Articles in February, peasant insurrections had been on the rise in the south of the Holy Empire. These had an anticlerical character, rejecting tithes and ecclesiastical hierarchies, and opposed to the introduction of Roman law, which codified servile obligations, compared to the traditional customary law.
Fernando tried to execute the leaders of the protests and gave in on issues such as the maintenance of traditional rights but insisted that the payment of the taxes approved since 1523 be complied with. To this was added the mobilization of the League of Swabia that same March. In Ferdinand's domains, uprisings took place in April 1525 in towns in Alsace such as Eschentzwiller, Helfrantzkirch and Habsheim. In Swabia the Swabian truchsess (seneschal) George von Waldburg dispersed a band of peasants in Leipheim but one of Ferdinand's governors in Württemberg, his uncle Ludwig von Helfenstein, was killed during the riots in Weinsberg and control of the capital of the duchy, Stuttgart, was lost.
Revolts spread throughout Swabia, the Palatinate, Franconia and other parts of the empire further afield. The situation was personally difficult for Ferdinand, given the spread of Anabaptism and peasant discontent in Wurttemberg, Vorarlberg and Tyrol. In practice, Ferdinand could hardly consider himself safe outside his preferred residence, Innsbruck. However, the massacre at Weinsberg turned public opinion against the uprisings, which were condemned by Luther and drew action from the Swabian League and the intervention of princes like Antonio de Lorraine, Luis del Palatinado, Felipe de Hesse and Jorge de Saxony against the bands in their respective domains.
With the forces that came from the Italian wars, Jorge von Waldburg, who had already been responsible for the suppression of poor Konrad's peasant revolts in previous years, was redirecting the situation in Würtemberg and Swabia. That April he defeated another band of peasants at the Battle of Wurzach and achieved with a peace at Weingarten the demobilization of part of the rebels. In addition, Austrian troops entered Füssen, a key Augsburg bishopric city to prevent the rebels from Former Austria, Tyrol and Salzburg from meeting and which neither the bishop nor the Bavarians showed interest in defending.
Despite this, many lesser nobles in the south evaded Ferdinand's call to arms as imperial vicar and the Swabian League, and despite attempts to organize among themselves, misgivings between Austrians and Bavarians caused problems for face the rebels together. The League, meanwhile, delayed declaring a general mobilization. Given the insecurity, the very choice of a place for the League council was a problem, since the princes preferred to avoid risks by not going to locations distant. Ferdinand particularly objected to going to Mühldorf for a council. Also the local levies were of dubious loyalty, so Ferdinand resorted mainly to professional troops from Italy. In order to pay for them, he went into debt to the Fuggers.
The Swabian Phase
The rebels, poorly armed and poorly coordinated among themselves, were thus gradually confronted with advantage by the professional troops of the imperial princes in various provinces, despite the equally uncoordinated princely response. These actions against the rebels did not prevent Freiburg, one of Ferdinand's main cities in Breisgau, from being besieged on May 2 and falling a few days later. The municipal authorities, however, managed to negotiate a neutral status, making it explicit that the city would not oppose Fernando. A pogrom against the Fuggers, Salamanca and the Tyrolean bishops also sacked the strategic Hall in Tirol on the 14th of that month, in the very vicinity of Innsbruck. In Alsace, the key city of Belfort also fell to rebels, albeit with a settlement like Freiburg.
However, other imperial princes scored successes in May against other peasant bands in Thuringia, where Philip of Hesse and George of Saxony scored a significant victory at Frankenhausen. In the vicinity of Ferdinand's domains, Antonio de Lorraine stood out against the Alsatian rebels, whom he decisively defeated at Saverne on May 17 and again a few days later at Scherwiller. However, as Ferdinand's local rival, he did not continue the campaign against the rebel bands in Habsburg territory.
In parallel, von Waldburg reestablished control of Stuttgart in May and annihilated another rebel band in Böblingen, restoring order in Wurttemberg. The Baltringer Haufen, one of the main peasant bands, was defeated by von Waldburg in Baltringen while the Black Company, considered the band with the most military force, was also expelled from Swabia by Waldburg and its leader Jäcklein Rohrbach, responsible for the massacre of Weinsberg, burned at the stake. Many other peasant leaders were executed or, like the radical preacher Christoph Schappeler, exiled to Switzerland. The black company would be finally defeated at Ingolstadt in Bavaria in late May while Louis of the Palatinate put down the revolts in his domain by the end of the month.
By June 1525 imperial order was generally restored and Ferdinand was in Füssen negotiating a peace with the last of the Swabian rebels to finish pacifying Former Austria in exchange for ending the villainous status of the peasants. Other princes They also reached agreements with the last insurgents in the south of the Empire and thanks to the mediation of the city of Basel an armistice was obtained with the peasants who were still in arms in Alsace. Ferdinand also sponsored the reconstruction of Bad Wildbad in Würtemberg in 1525, which had been burned during the conflict and in which a fountain (Ferdinandbrunnen) and a stone inscription (Ferdinanstein) are preserved, commemorating its role.
As part of the measures, Ferdinand temporarily occupied ecclesiastical territories against which the peasants had complaints such as Füssen or the bailiwicks of the Teutonic Knights. The territories occupied by Ferdinand would be returned to their owners under pressure from the Swabian League and Bavaria, in exchange for compensation for war expenses. The only lasting territorial gain would be the mediatization of the monastery of Saint Peter in the Black Forest near Freiburg. Despite the signed truces, Ferdinand's forces defeated and captured at the beginning of July Hans Müller von Bulgenbach, leader of the Black Forest rebel group that had taken Freiburg.
The Tyrolean Phase
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Despite these victories, until December 1525 the backlash continued in the Austrian territories. While Ferdinand was in Füssing, the Tyrolean diet assembled in Merano had approved a series of anti-church claims with the support of miners and peasants. In Salzburg the peasants seized power by expelling the bishop, while new uprisings broke out in neighboring domains. from Ferdinand. In Styria Governor Dietrichstein was defeated and captured by rebels at Schladming on 3 July while in Carniola and Carinthia local nobles soon put down uprisings on their territory, with Katzianer's light cavalry preemptively occupying Krainburg. The negotiations with the peasants of the governor of Carinthia, Veit Welzer, calmed the situation in their states allowing reinforcements to be sent to Salzburg and Styria. Dietrichstein escaped execution and ended up being released amid negotiations for the Salzburg rebels to lay down their arms.
The biggest direct threat to Ferdinand was neutralized by internal rebel divisions, with peasants in South Tyrol clashing with those in North Tyrol and failing to establish themselves as a long-term threat. In July Ferdinand promulgated a new Landsordnung or legal code, convened in Augsburg the first general diet of all his domains to receive their grievances, exempted the peasants of Trent from taxes and temporarily occupied the bishopric. de Brixen calming the situation. Bavaria in turn occupied various ecclesiastical territories on the Danube, while Ferdinand had a struggle with them for control of Salzburg. It had to be again the Swabian League that returned the principality to the archbishop because neither Ferdinand nor his rivals showed interest in Lang's return.
Ferdinand's domains were one of the few places in the Empire where, after the revolts, certain reforms took place to improve the conditions of the peasants, and in the following years the political situation in Tyrol stabilized. Fernando banned the former leader of the revolt in Tyrol, Michael Gaismair, who nevertheless escaped from prison and fled to Swiss territory. Gasmair, close to the radical preacher Zwingli and to Anabaptism, would try over the following years to recruit an army with Swiss support to resume the revolution in Tyrol. Fernando would maintain during the rest of his reign a policy of zero tolerance with the Anabaptism that had led the revolt, expelling preachers such as Jacob Hutter from his domain in the following years.
In August the former peasant leader Müller, held captive since his defeat, was tortured and executed. Heinrich Wetzel, another peasant leader offended by the breach of the June armistice, rose up in arms again in Alsace. Although the new revolt achieved the extension of the armnestices to the Sundgau in September, Wetzel was finally defeated in November and forced to take refuge as Gasmair abroad. In December it was Baltasar Hubmaier who was finally defeated and exiled to Switzerland, Ferdinand recovering the control of Waldshut. Both Swabia and Alsace, peasants and municipalities were sentenced to pay fines as compensation for the costs of the war.
Peace in Italy, Vienna, the Diet of Speyer in 1526 and the Battle of Mohács
His brother Carlos, meanwhile, reneged on the family plans to consolidate a kingdom in northern Italy to add to the Habsburg lands managed by Fernando. Despite writing to Fernando that the victory of Pavia had been theirs, in In July 1525 Charles had handed over to the Sforzas the coveted Milan territory of which they had been dukes in exchange for a substantial payment. Charles also made a peace with the Republic of Venice, accepting a fine in lieu of the delivery of territories to Fernando. Fernando received the promise of a part of said income and Carlos was in a position to attempt his desired reconquest of the Duchy of Burgundy. Some authors speculate that Carlos had doubts about his brother's ability to govern such disputed territories, given his youth and his weak position in the empire. Ferdinand would continue in the following years to insist on the cession of Milan, proposing a reorganization of Italy for pacify the country. In this way, Fernando in Lombardy and Carlos in Naples would divide Italy according to Fernandino's schemes.Despite ignoring these plans, in 1526 Carlos appointed his brother also his vicar or representative in Italy.
Consolidated on the throne, Ferdinand restored Vienna's autonomy in March with a Stadtordnung that would remain in force until the 19th century XVIII. Despite formalizing a municipal administration, it contained important changes with respect to previous privileges: the guilds of craftsmen were excluded from the administration and the supervisory powers of the duke's envoys were confirmed. In general, the Augsburg diet of 1525-1526 marked a turning point in his relationship with the Austrian nobility, giving way to a new collaboration between sovereign and parliament.
In August, Ferdinand participated as the emperor's representative in a new diet in Speyer, where measures tolerant of Lutheranism were approved that were once again ignored by Carlos. Significantly, at the suggestion of Erasmus, through Faber and Ferdinand, the request for an ecclesiastical council was included. Although the pope also disregarded the measure, it would be the beginning of a project that Ferdinand would pursue throughout his reign until it culminated in the Council. of Trent. A territorial division of confessions was also admitted, which Fernando would recover decades later in his peace of Augsburg. Finally, Fernando obtained the approval by the imperial diet of military aid for his brother-in-law Luis. Concerned about the situation on the Croatian border, Fernando he had written to the Croatian nobility in early August asking them to reinforce the border, as well as personally subsidizing the garrison at points such as Topusko Abbey.
This aid was approved too late, however. Suleiman while he had decided to finally confront the Hungarians and planned a large-scale military offensive. On August 29, 1526, Suleiman defeated Louis II of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács, in which much of the kingdom's high aristocracy died, before Ferdinand could send the aid approved in Speyer. In particular, Luis II himself died in battle without leaving any descendants, which opened up a succession dispute. Ferdinand was in Innsbruck supervising recruitment for the wars in Italy when, on September 8, news reached him of the death of his brother-in-law.
King Ferdinand I
Ascension to the throne
Election to the Bohemian throne
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Following a governing council on September 15, Ferdinand claimed the thrones of Bohemia and Hungary through his wife Anna and the Habsburg-Jagellon pacts. At the suggestion of his aunt Margarita of Austria, Fernando began a diplomatic campaign to win the election for the different diets. This fit both in the political scenario, where the recognition of local privileges was key to gaining popular support, and in the military since Ferdinand had all of his resources mobilized into an army under George of Frundsberg in support of his brother in Lombardy.
Ferdinand began looking for the Bohemian throne and the crown of St. Wenceslas, which covered more territories than Bohemia itself, since the lands of the Bohemian Crown had expanded in the preceding centuries with the mark of Moravia, Upper and Lower Lusatia and the Silesian duchies. The population, which was around 3.6-4 million against the two million Austrian duchies, included different West Slavic and Germanic groups. It was a territory of great political complexity given the power of the nobility in the election of kings and the spread of Hussite doctrines far from European orthodoxy, to which Protestantism was already being added. These were organized with a set of independent royal lieutenants and diets who shared a single king.
In Bohemia his ambassadors, Hans von Starhemberg and Siegmund von Dietrichstein advised Ferdinand to recognize the electivity of the title. The Bohemians elected him king at the diet of October 24, thanks especially to the support of Chancellor Adam of Hradce, the division of the opposition in multiple alternative candidacies and that geostrategically only Fernando seemed to be able to assume the economic and military burdens that Luis left without turning Bohemia into a new battlefield. Fernando swore to respect local laws and the authority of the diet, committing a good part of the resources of Bohemia in gifts. Ferdinand also inherited about 300,000 guilders in debts for the war expenses of his Jagiellon predecessors. However, this victory inflamed the rivalry he maintained with the dukes of Bavaria, who they had also tried to take the crown.
The Kingdom of Bohemia
Bohemia was a predominantly Czech territory whose population had been largely supporters of the reformer Jan Hus, which had done away with the Catholic ecclesiastical structure in the kingdom. Following the subsequent Hussite wars, the Hussites had split into groups such as the Utraquists, moderates open to reconciliation with the Catholic Church, and the more radical Moravian Brotherhood, sympathetic to Lutherans. While he would try to reconcile the Utraquistas, with whom he even shared personal sympathies for his erasmism, Fernando would show a tougher attitude towards other faiths.
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Politically, Bohemia was characterized by a strong regional nobility grouped in diet and weak royal power, in addition to local district diets (circles). The strength of this small nobility did not prevent some great magnates of the kingdom, who shared the twelve great positions of the crown, monopolizing power in a strong position against Fernando. These included the Rosenbergs, lords of Český Krumlov and first lineage of Bohemia, Zdeněk Lev of Rosental, burgrave of Prague and considered in 1526 one of the country's leading politicians, the Count of Schlick, enriched by silver mining in Joachimsthal and who had gone on to mint coins (the famous thalers), to Václav de Wartenberg, heir to extensive estates in Česká Lípa, to the house of Pernstein, influential in the eastern part of the kingdom, and to the Austrian house of Hardegg, who had acquired Kladsko county.
In particular, the King of Bohemia had little stable income, depending on diet to finance anything beyond the minimal functioning of royal institutions. Likewise, the Bohemian military forces had to reach an agreement with the King before act outside its borders. This had given the nobles the opportunity to negotiate privileges in exchange for extraordinary taxes or military support and some activities that in Austria were the exclusive power of the sovereign, such as mining, minting, collecting of tariffs or high justice, were in Bohemia shared with the nobility. The regalia or royal patrimony that Fernando obtained was thus reduced mainly to the mint and silver mines of Kutná Hora, the part of it in internal tolls and the contributions of the royal cities.
Not only was the nobility a problem, but the numerous royal cities, which by 1526 were in their forties, enjoyed great autonomy with their municipal authorities escaping the effective power of the monarch. Although their taxes (census) were the sovereign's main regular source of income, they had their own self-government and voice in diets. In addition, many municipal corporations owned large territories as feudal lords, and some of these cities, the queen's cities, had the income pledged as dowry from the Bohemian queen, who in this case was her widowed sister Maria hers.
Some areas, such as Egerland or Kladsko, participated only in their local diets rather than those of the kingdom, although they considered themselves part of it. Egerland, a more recently crown-acquired German territory, also maintained a local assembly and strong relations with the German Vogtland area. Thus the lordship of Asch, technically part of the Upper Palatinate outside the borders of the kingdom, was in the hands of Czech nobles while the German house of Plauen, expelled from their domains in Saxony, took refuge in their other Bohemian fiefs. As a residue of the old Bohemian interests in the Upper Palatinate, Störnstein and the Hiltpoltstein castle were still in Bohemian hands, although the latter had been pledged to the city of Nuremberg, so the vassalage was barely nominal. Kladsko was a county created by the Premyslids on the eastern border with Silesia and enjoyed great autonomy, often referred to as "foreign territory" (vnější kraj). Also on the eastern border were the cities of the queen under the administration of the burgrave of Hradec Králové with a certain autonomy of their own.
Despite all these problems, the kingdom of Bohemia was a densely populated territory, numbering approximately 1.6 million inhabitants, and as a result it had developed a rich primary sector and was an important market. Ferdinand thereby also obtained control of a new and rich mining area on the border with Saxony as well as a link to the river route of the Elbe River. The capital of the kingdom, Prague, where Ferdinand would frequently reside after his election, was an important cultural center with a reputed university. The kingdom, in addition to being one of the main and most autonomous states of the Empire, was an electorate and therefore key in the election of future emperors.
The Bohemian Crown
The other territories of the crown, which had not participated in the Bohemian diet that chose Ferdinand to maintain their own institutions, later confirmed him as king under the title of his wife Ana. Thus, shortly after, the Moravian diet chose also to Fernando in a parliament in Olomouc held from November 11 to 18. Moravia was another Czech territory with 800 000 inhabitants and many characteristics in common with Bohemia. Neighboring Austria, it was becoming a refuge for the Anabaptists that Ferdinand expelled to the south and would welcome Balthasar Hubmaier and Jacob Hutter in the following years. Ferdinand continued in Moravia the persecution of the Anabaptists that had already begun in his archduchy, even despite the reproaches of his mentor Erasmus. Although he would visit less often than Prague, Brno acted as the royal seat with diets alternating between Olomouc and Prague.
As in Bohemia, in Moravia there were numerous autonomous royal cities (highlighting, in addition to the aforementioned Brno and Olomouc, Jihlava, Znojmo, Uničov and Hradiště), a small nobility that divided up most of the territory and a governor (capitaneus terrae Moraviae, Moravský zemský hejtman) in the name of the king. Some Bohemian houses such as the Pernstein (who owned Helfštýn) and the Lipé (lords of Moravský Krumlov) also had fiefdoms in Moravia and were the great aristocrats of the margraviate together with the Bishop of Olomouc, in turn lord of a semi-autonomous territory centered in Kroměříž. In 1526 John III of Pernstein was the governor of Moravia and would remain one of the great magnates of the margraviate throughout Ferdinand's reign. The Olomouc miter was held by Stanislaus I Thurzó, a member of a family that would influence Ferdinand's various estates through his interests in Poland, Silesia, Moravia, Hungary, and Austria.
Lusatia was made up of the historical territories of the Sorbs, Slavs but in the XV century more Germanized and related to the neighboring Saxony and Brandenburg. Thus, for example, it depended ecclesiastical on the diocese of Meissen in Saxony and was subject to a strong Protestant influence given the preaching of Luther in neighboring Wittenberg that was already seen in the cities and monasteries of the region. With 150,000-200,000 inhabitants, it was the smallest of the territories of the crown and was divided into a Lower Lusatia to the north and an Upper Lusatia to the south, following the topography. Royal power was exercised from Bautzen with a landvogt for each Lusatia, which in 1526 was held by Heinrich Tunkel von Bernitzko and Charles of Münsterberg. Although without an election as such, the Lusacias also passed under the control of Fernando.
Lower Lusatia had four cities in the hands of the sovereign (Calau, Guben, Lübben and Luckau) in addition to numerous Standesherrschaft or direct fiefdoms of the crown exempt from feudal taxes and the Dobrigluk monasteries and Neuzelle. However, Brandenburg had acquired in the peace of Lübben as exclaves under theoretical Bohemian sovereignty the towns of Cottbus, Peitz, Teupitz and Bärwalde, which it had gradually expanded with Sommerfeld and a mortgage on Beeskow while Saxony had acquired Senftenberg. Further south, Upper Lusatia shared with neighboring Bohemia a major municipal movement led by the Lusatian League, which confederated six cities: Bautzen, Görlitz, Kamenz, Lubań, Löbau and Zittau. They disputed regional power with the local nobility and with the monasteries of Marienthal, Marienstern and Lubań. Görlitz in particular was a thriving commercial city thanks to the trade in fabrics and dyes that passed through the area from Thuringia to Eastern Europe.
Eventually, the Silesian Diet also approved Ferdinand's election on December 5 at a session in Leobschütz in exchange for his promise to respect their traditional privileges. Silesia was a territory of Polish origin with approximately 1,200,000 inhabitants, divided into small duchies inheritors of the decomposition of the Piast dynasty that aspired to imperial immediacy to escape vassalage to Bohemia. The capital of Silesia was Wroclaw, seat of royal institutions which included an Oberlandeshauptmann or governor and a Catholic bishop. In addition to Wroclaw, the duchy of Jawor passed to the royal patrimony of Ferdinand. They had been territories of little Hussite influence thanks to the force of said bishop, but given the relations with the north of the Holy Empire they were suffering a considerable Lutheran influence. The governor in 1526, Frederick II of Legnica, was a prominent introducer of the Reformation.
Some duchies were still in the hands of different piast branches, such as the aforementioned Frederick II (Legnica-Wohlau-Brzeg), John II (Opole-Racibórz) or Casimir II (Teschen-Oels-Glogovia-Troppau) or the old Bohemian royal house of Poděbrady as Charles (Münsterberg-Oels). But many others had ended up in the hands of neighboring powers with claims to the region, such as Saxony (the duchy of Sagan), Poland (the duchies of Auschwitz and Zator as well as the duchy of Siewierz in the hands of the Archbishop of Kraków), the Margraviate of Brandenburg- Ansbach (duchies of Jägerndorf and Beuthen and barony of Bohumín), the margraviate of Brandenburg (duchy of Crossen) or the von Kurzbach of Franconia (Standesherrschaft of Milicz and Żmigród). The fragmentation and sale of the titles had also brought Nysa into the hands of the Bishop of Wrocław and Pless into the house of Thurzó.
The conflict in Hungary
In Hungary Ferdinand faced a competitor for the throne: John I of Zápolya, hereditary Count of Szepes whose domains in northern Hungary extended through the neighboring counties of Liptó, Sáros, Torna and Trencsén. Juan Zápolya had also been appointed voivode of Transylvania by the late Luis II, which made him viceroy of one of the most autonomous provinces of the kingdom as well as holder of various border military commands such as the county of Sicels or the Banat of Severin. He was thus one of the main magnates of the kingdom and had been the main enemy of the recently deceased Chancellor Jorge Szatmári, who favored a rapprochement with the Habsburgs, while Zápolya was seen as the head of the popular Magyar faction. Zápolya also had ties dynastics with Poland, which with strong interests in northern Hungary was another important influence in the kingdom. Eager to become related to the royal house, Zápolya had sought in the past the hand of the king's sister, eventually married to Ferdinand.
John Zápolya had escaped defeat at Móhacs by arriving too late to take part in the battle, after which he had been proclaimed king on November 10 at Székesfehérvár in a diet dominated by Magyar nobility. Fernando did not recognize the decision of said diet, alluding that he had not followed the established procedures. Juan was supported, among others, by the prestigious nádor or palatine of Hungary, Esteban Werbőczy, who was the highest authority in the country after the king and who, as such, acted as count and judge in the capital. In the south the important Count Christoph Frankopan commanded the main surviving organized Croatian force and also favored Zápolya. He was also recognized by the Cognac League, which grouped France, Venice, Bavaria and other enemies of the Habsburgs.
The disputed lands were vast and included a large stretch of the Danube basin populated by Magyars or Hungarians, but also Yasic and Cuman groups. To the north it also included the former duchy of Nitra, which in addition to Magyars was inhabited by a large Slavic and German population, to the east Transylvania with a mixture of Magyars, Vlachs, Sicels and Saxon settlers, and to the southeast the remnants of the Serbian despotate in the Banat. and Sirmia. To the south was the Slavic kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia in personal union but retaining parliaments (sabor), governors (banes), and institutions of their own for both Croatia and Slavonia.
The territory had around four million inhabitants and was organized into counties where authority was exercised by an ispán, sometimes appointed by the king and sometimes hereditary or associated with other titles. Despite the Turkish victory, Suleiman had been unable to occupy these territories effectively and had settled for looting them, consolidating his control of the key Belgrade fortress and the borderlands south of the Sava (Sirmia) river, incorporating Petrovaradin upstream on the Danube. This pointed to the river as the axis of future Turkish expansion towards Buda and Vienna, with the southern defensive system of the Hungarian kingdom dismantled. Meanwhile, the Ottoman forces continued the siege of the fortresses in Bosnia and Croatia that formed the last remnants of the kingdom's southern defensive line.
The creation of a Fernandino party in Hungary
In contrast to Zápolya, Fernando had key support, such as that of his sister, the widowed queen María de Habsburgo who, after Mohács, had notified Fernando of the situation in September, believing that his support against the Turks was necessary for the kingdom. A good part of the high administration of the late King Louis was grouped around this project, such as Tomás Nádasdy, from the noble Hungarian Nádasdy family and former royal secretary, Archdeacon Nicolás Olahus de Komárom, also former royal secretary and then secretary of the queen or the queen's secretaries Gaspar Serédi, Ferenc Újlaki and Georg von Reicherstorffer. He also had the support of Tomás Szalaházi, a clergyman who had served in the royal chancery and who, appointed bishop of Veszprém, was part of the queen's entourage. Some members of the queen's service and the royal secretariat nevertheless supported Zápolya.
María, with the key collaboration of Nádasdy, won Ferdinand's support from Stephen VII Báthory, who had been named nádor by Louis II before being deposed by the nobility in favor of Stephen Werbőczy. Báthory in turn was critical in convincing his former secretary Ferenc Révay and the provost of Pécs László Macedóniai, as well as his former palatal lieutenant Imre Nagy. Finally, Stephen's addition to Ferdinand's party brought the support of his brothers, Andrés and Jorge Báthory, who held the title of Count of Somogy and control of the Babócsa fortress.
María and Nádasdy also obtained the support of nobles such as the Batthyány family, lord of fiefs on the Austrian border such as Németújvár, of György Cseszneky, castellan of Tata, the sons of the Baron of Szent-Györgyi, lord of properties in the border with Moravia and Austria as Bazin and Szent-Györgyi. They also won the support of Gáspár Horváth, who was married to one of Maria's ladies. Some, such as the Batthyány, nevertheless showed some initial equidistance between Ferdinand and Zápolya. Although Ferdinand promised to compensate his supporters for expenses and losses arising from their support, the pro-Habsburg faction suffered from a shortage of funds.
This support for Fernando was especially concentrated in the north and west of the country, contiguous with Fernando's domains and where many such as the Thurzó family, Moravian lords such as the Pernsteins, or the Margrave of Ansbach had interests on both sides from the border Some cities on the border such as Trencsén had a notable bohemian influence in their municipal government. Even within the Hungarian kingdom, the German margrave George of Ansbach, who had already financed Ferdinand in years past, had inherited from his late wife the Hunyadi possessions in Bekes County such as Gyula Castle. His sister Maria in turn had received large areas in Moson, Zolyom, Borsod and Maramaros as a dowry. Elek Thurzó, Count of Körmöcbánya and royal waiter, was another important owner in the north-eastern mining area with family ties to the Fuggers, the Bohemian crown and Poland and was, along with Esteban Bathory, one of the few great magnates who backed Ferdinand.
Ferdinand also had the sympathies of the German minority in the mining towns of the north and in Transylvania where Zápolya was seen as the candidate of the Slavic population. Although the Slavs were the majority of the population in the north, the Germans they formed an urban patriciate that controlled the municipal government in towns such as Bartfa, Nagyszombat, Selmecbánya, Lőcse, Eperjes or Moder as well as in seven Transylvanian cities. Some German families had been accepted into the Hungarian nobility. The Saxon Pemfflinger family were barons with possessions in Upper Hungary and good relations with the Dowager Queen. The Hallers were another important German merchant family who supported Ferdinand.
Fernando also had sympathies in various royal cities. Thus he had a strong presence in Pozsony (known as Pressburg in German and currently better known by its name in Slovak, Bratislava), an important city in the northwest of the kingdom near the border and where his sister was taking refuge. Another city where Ferdinand's candidacy achieved support was Kassa, the second city of the kingdom and head of Upper Hungary. There Fernando added the support of the royal judge Mihály Kakuk and the German minority. They also obtained support in the city of Pécs, the capital of Baranya and key to communications in the south of the country. In that city they had the provosts László Macedóniai and Alberto Peregi, and a large German merchant colony. The city of Sopron, on the border with Austria, also leaned towards the Habsburg faction given the presence of German troops in the city after Mohács and being in the area of economic influence of Ferdinand's domains.
A final focus of support for Ferdinand were the border areas with the Ottomans, such as Croatia, where there was interest in Habsburg support to stop Turkish incursions. As early as October 1526 two emissaries of Ferdinand, Johann Pichler and the aforementioned Nikolas Jurišić, had arrived in Croatia to enlist the support of the Croatian nobility, and in November Ferdinand personally received a Croatian delegation in Vienna. However, in Slavonia Zápolya's intact army had been providential to avoid further losses after Mohács and sentiments in the region favored John I as it was feared that Ferdinand would attract the Turkish focus. Despite this, also in Slavonia he managed to add supporters such as Luis Pekry, Baltasar Bánffy de Tallóc or Ferenc Zay. Valentin Török, a former ban of Belgrade's historic anti-Turkish stronghold, was also recruited into Ferdinand's party although he initially had an apparent cooperation with Zápolya. He was still in command of Subotica on the Serbian border and near the family strongholds of Ferenc Révay.
Despite all this support, Ferdinand's position in Hungary was weak compared to Zapolya's. Ferdinand was a foreign candidate and only in Croatia did he have widespread popular support. Thus, on November 25, Ferdinand had to postpone an assembly with Hungarian nobles in Komárom in the face of a lukewarm reception.
The diets of Pressburg and Cetin and the coronation in Prague
Nádasdy, together with Matías Majláth and Juan Szalai, performed a great service to Ferdinand by obtaining for him the royal Hungarian crown jewels, a requirement for one to be crowned King of Hungary according to the kingdom's traditions. Juan Bornemisza, the guardian of the crown of Saint Stephen, locked himself in the castle of Pressburg with the queen after learning of the defeat of Mohács and was not willing to hand it over to anyone, not even the widowed queen Maria of Habsburg. Bornemisza would only give it to the one who was legitimately elected as Hungarian king. However, he soon died and the crown passed into the hands of Ferdinand. Tomás Nádasdy received part of Bornemisza's estates for keeping Pressburg under Ferdinand's control and protecting the royal treasures, which were handed over to the monarch upon his coronation. Ferdinand was thus eventually also elected King of Hungary in a rival diet controlled by his sister. in Pressburg on December 17, 1526.
Following a parliament lengthened by the Christmas festivities, Croatian nobles confirmed him as king of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia at an election in Cetin in January 1527. In return, Ferdinand promised to uphold the kingdom's traditional laws and customs. and defray the costs of the defense against the Turks, providing 200 cavalry, 200 infantry, and funding for 800 more Croatian cavalry. Unlike the kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary, whose titles were elective, Ferdinand achieved recognition that the succession it was by right of inheritance and that it extended to his heirs.
Maintaining this southern border was complicated, as it required Ferdinand to divert already meager funds from his Austrian fiefs, as Croatia barely collected 3,000-6,000 guilders a year, and the strength of the diet from its new Bohemian territories. it prevented new taxes for purposes outside their crown. The Croatian nobility was also unwilling to cede the fortresses on the border to the king for their defense. The advancing Turks would take Obrovac and Udbina and Banja Luka and Jajce that spring. before the end of the year.
Despite this, Zápolya continued to count on the support in Croatia of the Bishop of Zagreb, Simon Erdődy, as well as his brother Pedro Erdődy and part of the Slavonian nobility in the west where the Magyar presence was much stronger. Barely five days after the election in Cetin Christoph Frankopan, part of a branch of the Frankopans, one of the main Croatian noble houses, assembled the Diet of Slavonia in Dubrava to proclaim John I. Ferdinand, with his forces occupied with the Cognac League war in Italy, carried out delaying diplomatic maneuvers by proposing mediation by an independent arbitrator.
Fernando as he left Vienna on January 21 for a royal entry into his new bohemian domains. He entered Moravia via Znojmo and passed through Budwitz and Brtnice, swearing on 30 January to uphold the crown laws at Jihlava on the Moravian-Bohemian border. He continued via Německý Brod and visited the mines of Kutná Hora before continuing on to Český Brod and finally making an entry into the capital on February 5. In Prague he received the keys to the city, confirmed the liberties of the Utraquists and the Caroline University, and was formally crowned by the Archbishop of Olomouc as King of the Crown of Bohemia in a ceremony on February 24. Ferdinand continued his journey for the Bohemian crown, receiving in May in Wroclaw the homage of the states of Silesia and Lusatia.
Meanwhile, in the Holy Empire the risk of the reform fracture began to be seen, since the theologian Zwingli had broken with Luther due to doctrinal differences in what was the origin of a new radical confession in Switzerland, close to the Fernando's borders. Fernando would order the Anabaptists Baltasar Hubmaier, whom he had already expelled from Austria, and Johannes Zeising to be executed in Moravia. He undertook similar measures outside the Bohemian crown, shortly before executing Michael Sattler, an Anabaptist preacher from Horb am Neckar in Hohenberg, and expelling Pilgram Marpeck from Tyrol that same January. During his spring visit to Wroclaw, he was also alarmed by the spread of Lutheranism in the area, leaving Charles of Münsterberg-Oels in Silesia and Zdislav Berka in Lusatia as his governors, and pressing the town of Bautzen for the local dean to respect religious orthodoxy.
The development of the struggle for Hungary
Ferdinand in turn maneuvered to avoid possible interventions by King Sigismund I Jagiellon the Elder of Poland, cousin of the late King Louis himself and married to Zápolya through his late wife, Barbara of Zápolya. With his own supporters in Hungary, he had been considered a candidate for the throne before Zápolya's election. Polish foreign policy was divided between a faction favorable to an alliance with the Habsburgs (including King Sigismund I or Lesser Poland magnates). border) and another enemy of theirs (such as Queen Bona, who had dynastic interests in Italy opposed to those of Ferdinand, the relatives of the Zápolya in Poland or the Greater Poland magnates who aspired to expand northwest at the expense of the Sacred Empire) It is worth noting the powerful Juan Amor Tarnowski, hetman of the Polish-Lithuanian crown, who was in favor of a pro-Habsburg policy and whose favor Ferdinand and Carlos tried to maintain during their reigns. Fernando also had the chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki, who since the time of Maximilian had defended an alliance with the Habsburgs. On the contrary, the former chancellor Juan Łaski led a sector that not only saw the Habsburgs as an obstacle to Polish politics but was also in favor of Zápolya as his nephew Jerome supported him in Hungary. On the other hand, Vice Chancellor Piotr Tomicki played a moderate role between the two sectors.
Ferdinand continued with his grandfather's marriage policy and to give continuity to the alliance concluded in 1515 he betrothed his daughter Isabel with Sigismund's son and heir, Sigismund II Augustus. His eldest daughter's marriage was unhappy, as Isabel, shy and sickly, did not fit in with either her fiancé or her powerful mother-in-law, Bona Sforza. The wedding was however imperative for Fernando to maintain the alliance with his powerful northern neighbor. Elizabeth would die of her poor health after a few years in Poland but she was appreciated by her mother-in-law and by the nobility suspicious of Bona's power, helping to keep Poland out of alliances against Ferdinand.
In May 1527 Tomás Nádasdy and György Cseszneky began a military campaign against Zápolya and held positions in north-western Hungary but were unable to take many fortresses on the banks of the Danube. Against them, the supporter of Zápolya, Gaspar Ráskai, secured places for John I such as Gúta, Komárom and Visegrád in the section of said riverbank near the border with Austria. In Croatia, a similar war began between the Croatian nobility, pro-Ferdinand and headed by Ferenc Batthyány and Iván Karlović, and the Slavonic Frankopan faction, which had the backing of the bishops of Zagreb and Pécs and the Count of Pozsega Juan Tahy. The same thing happened among Serbs living in south-eastern Hungary. Révay's fleet gained superiority on the southern stretch of the Danube with Jovan Nenad and Stefan Berislavić forming a Fernandino side in Sirmia which the Ottomans were occupying while Radič Božić and Pavle Bakić led a Serb prozápolya party in the Banat south of Transylvania. Ferdinand sent resources to his supporters through Révay and Juan Hoberdanecz while Zápolya sent Hungarian troops from Transylvania to put down the Serbian revolt. Ferdinand's enemies, such as Venice, became alarmed and began to seek Turkish intervention.
Fernando's offensive
In July and despite warnings of caution from his brother, who did not wish to provoke the Ottomans, Ferdinand launched an offensive. Recent Habsburg advances in Italy had allowed Ferdinand to refocus personally on his eastern interests. Charles's receipt of financial aid, sending 100,000 ducats, was providential for Ferdinand to gather his forces to pursue the Hungarian crown. Katzianer it crossed the Danube earlier in the month, taking Dévény without resistance and linking up with Pressburg. This was followed by the siege and capture of Nagyszombat. The Hungarian forces were to the south under the command of Nádasdy and Esteban Bathory and took while Magyaróvár and Csesznek. The war in the southeast was nevertheless favorable to Zápolya, with Nenad dying in combat and Zápolya's relative, Pedro Petrovics, acquiring power as a local magnate. Ferdinand, on the other hand, still remained in Hainburg on the border but in Austrian territory.
At the end of the month, Ferdinand personally joined the campaign with an army of at least 10,000 men, financed by Ferdinand himself with other < span style="white-space:nowrap">12,000 soldiers paid by the imperial states as approved in the past diet of Speyer. Despite the presence of Ferdinand, the de facto command was in the hands of German generals and princes such as the aforementioned Katzianer, Casimir of Brandenburg, Nicholas of Salm and Wilhelm von Roggendorf. After crossing the Danube with his German forces and meeting with his Hungarian supporters, on 31 July Ferdinand swore the Köpcsény oath, swearing before Bishop Szalaházy to uphold the laws and customs of the Hungarian kingdom. The following day a council was held in Magyaróvár, where it was debated whether the king should participate in the campaign or stay in the rear. Upon the news of the birth the day before of a son, Maximilian, which guaranteed the succession, Ferdinand decided to continue in Hungary.
Ferdinand's campaign continued up the Danube with the capture of Pannonhalma and the key fortress of Komárom. A contingent under Katzianer marched north from there to take Gúta and Érsekújvár and open the road to Kassa. After dispersing the counterattack of some Zápolya forces at Galgóc and taking Nitra, Ferdinand secured the Moravian border. Despite this, local Slavic houses such as the Podmaniczky and the Kostka maintained their support for Zápolya in the northwest of the kingdom, which also retained important properties such as Trencsén Castle.
Meanwhile, Nádasdy commanded the vanguard and advanced south towards the Hungarian capital, Buda, securing Győr and Tata although other fortresses such as Estrigonia and Visegrad resisted the Habsburg forces. However, John I abandoned Buda due to his numerical inferiority on August 15, 1527 without having been besieged and withdrew to the east through Gyöngyös and Hatvan to meet the reinforcements that he expected from his power base in Transylvania. With the withdrawal of John I of Zápolya, his party in Pécs and Slavonia began to collapse as they became isolated from the rest of the territories that were loyal to him. Törok of Enying controlled the south, already openly a supporter of Ferdinand, who named him Count of Temes. Among the Hungarian nobility and the Serbian forces there began to be defections in favor of Ferdinand, especially in the absence of a Turkish response and the expectations of obtaining concessions from the new king. Other nobles who joined Ferdinand include Gaspar Paksy, Count of Arad. Estrigonia and Visegrád surrendered, allowing Fernandina's forces to reopen the river route up the Danube.
To the southwest, Fernando secured the castle of Sümeg and Veszprém in parallel in the area of Lake Balatón thanks to Tomás Szalaházi and his relative András Chorón de Devecser. Since March, the local warlord László Móré, of Slavonian and Castilian origin from Kaposvár, also backed Ferdinand. This party was joined in Transdanubia by the Báthory, who controlled Babócsa and the strategic city of Varaždin, and, after his initial hesitations, Ferenc Batthyány since July. He also had the royal city of Sopron, which together with Pressburg had been the only in attending the diet that proclaimed him king. A Styrian contingent also seized Szombathely on the border after putting down a peasant revolt that had arisen out of the power vacuum. Facing them were the holdings of the Erdődys, a Croatian-Hungarian family with interests in southern Hungary. and in Slavonia (notably, in Zagreb), and by Juan Banffy of Alsólendva, heads of Zápolya's party in the region, as well as the aforementioned Christoph Frankopan and the Count of Pozsega, Juan Tahy.
The Battle of Tokaj, the siege of Varaždin and the coronation of Székesfehérvár
Ferdinand's lansquenets pursued Zápolya to Eger, where Ferenc Dobó had organized the area for Juan I. Fernandina's forces occupied Eger, although their general Casimiro de Brandenburgo died of illness and suffered Dobó's scorched-earth policy. There they linked up with Ferdinand's supporters in the counties of Gömör and Torda as Gaspar Hórvath.
Finally there was a confrontation in the open field against Juan Zapolya in September with the battle of Tokaj. Zápolya's defeat was crushing and after the battle he was abandoned in favor of Fernando by some of his allies such as the Archbishop of Estrigonia Pablo Várdai, the bishop of Nitra Esteban Podmaniczky and the bishop of Vác Juan Országh, the brothers Imre and Ferenc Bebek or the influential nobleman Pedro Perényi, royal treasurer and lord of properties in Abaúj and Temes. Juan Zápolya escaped to their domains in Transylvania.
While his forces occupied Tokaj, Tállya, Regéc and Boldogkő, Ferdinand entrusted Gaspar Serédi with the pacification of Upper Hungary and granted his Thurzó allies the title of Count of Szepes of the Zápolya although John I still controlled many fortresses in the north. The estates of Ráskai, Dobó and other Zápolya supporters in eastern Hungary such as Ecséd were divided up to win over other noble houses such as the aforementioned Perenyi, György Maghy of Szatmár, László Kenderesy of Szolnok and László Parlaghy of Szabolcs.
On the same day as the battle of Tokaj, Frankopan had been killed in combat while trying to seize Varaždin from Ferdinand's supporter, Stephen Báthory. The Slavonians finally named Ferdinand their king in a sabor or parliament in Križevci on 6 October. In the autumn the city of Kassa and more noblemen from Upper Hungary such as the Kékedy finally opted for Ferdinand while his forces in the area under Luis Pekry took more towns such as Késmárk and Liptó. With these successes the Ottomans began to see Ferdinand as a threat and to mount a response.
On November 3, 1527 Ferdinand was formally crowned according to Hungarian tradition in the basilica of Székesfehérvár. Numerous Hungarian nobles attended Ferdinand's coronation, being rewarded with confirmation of the concessions they had received from Zápolya or new titles. This was the case of the Thuróczy brothers, counts and large landowners of the Turóc county, of Juan Lengyel de Somogy, of Antal Losonczy, brother of the captain of Temesvár and well related to Ferdinand's sister, of Imre Országh, brother of the Bishop of Vác, or of Mihály Imreffy, lord of Szerdahely in Somogy.
Pavle Bakic also left Zápolya's side in exchange for Lak Castle while the Parlaghy brothers received Pálóczy, whose lord had died in Mohács. The Révay brothers, who had defended Ferdinand's candidacy on the southern border, were also rewarded with fiefdoms in Upper Hungary such as Turócszentmárton, Mosóc, Blatnica and Szklabinyaváralja. It would be a recurring policy of Ferdinand throughout his reign, which he compensated from his losses to the Turks his supporters in Sirmia, Slavonia and southern Hungary with new fiefdoms in the north.
While Ferdinand was wintering in Strygonia, his ambassadors, Georg von Reicherstorffer, Sigmund Gross and Martin Mauer were, in early 1528, gaining with some success the support of the Transylvanian Saxons against Zápolya. Ferdinand also conceded Bornemisza's properties in Fogaras to Majláth. Other Transylvanian nationalities showed less support for Fernando. Thus, the Serbs remained supporters of Zápolya under Radics Bosics, suffering a siege by Fernandina forces in Lippa. The Sicels also supported Juan I.
The Fernandina Administration
Institutions
Ferdinand tried from December 1527 to develop the state structure in his domains, with a court in Vienna for the archduchy of Austria and introducing institutions similar to those of Vienna in Innsbruck for Previous Austria, Prague for Bohemia and Buda for Hungary. Ferdinand published the Hofstaatsordnung codifying his administration. He created a Geheimrat or Privy Council for common foreign policy for his domains, separate from both the Hofrat o Pre-existing Governing Council, which remained as a judicial chamber, as of the Regiments with executive functions in its permanent representation in each territory.
It also extended its Chambers of Accounts (Reitkammer in German, Česká komora in Czech, Udvari Kamarát in Hungarian) to Vienna, Innsbruck, Prague and Buda to manage the finances of their states, complicated by the veto capabilities of each diet. All of them came under the control of a new Hofkammer in Vienna. Fernando counted for this in Bohemia with Florián Gryspek, a loyal official of the Habsburgs in Innsbruck who, despite the reluctance of the Czech nobles, became a fundamental part of his administration in said crown. With this, Ferdinand sought to control Bohemian finances, identifying which debts and expenses really corresponded to the sovereign, and to recover the dominium speciale or control of a patrimony of the monarch. In Hungary, he supported Nicolás Gerendi, part from his sister's court that Ferdinand appointed Bishop of Transylvania, as well as his faithful supporters Nádasdy, Pemfflinger and Reicherstroffer, and a former functionary of Louis II, Ferenc Kisserényi, who ensured the continuity of the administration.
This system allowed Fernando to maintain his control even despite his frequent displacements. To ensure the functioning of these institutions, Ferdinand paid special attention to document management, developing an archive system based on the innovations of Maximilian's court in Innsbruck. He also created a ducal chancery in Vienna or Hofkanzlei in charge of documents and communications, solving the deficiencies of previous times in which it depended on the imperial chancellery. Although Ferdinand tried to centralize the chancery for all his domains, he had to add another in Prague given the role of the post as guarantor that the procedures were in accordance with Bohemian legality. In Hungary, Ferdinand appointed Tomás Szalaházi chancellor, based on Pressburg in the vicinity of Vienna. All these institutions could send mail thanks to the network that Gabriel von Taxis, postal master since Maximilian's time, had developed from Innsbruck as Ferdinand's domains grew.
The Fernandino bureaucracy
Ferdinand also replaced Gabriel of Salamanca, his unpopular Spanish favorite, with local nobles. Thus, Bernardo Clesio, Bishop of Trent, gained notable power as chancellor and Fernando's main adviser. Members of the small Austrian nobility also joined his council, such as his new treasurer Hans Hofmann von Grünbühel or the landeshauptmann or governors Leonhard von Völs, Cyriak von Polheim, Veit Welzer or Hans Ungnad von Sonnegg. Fernando inherited from Maximilian an administration where, due to the need for financial support from the states, a shared government had been reached between the diets and the archduke. Despite the confrontation that marked the beginning of his reign, from 1526-1529 prince and states developed a collaboration to manage the complexity of foreign and defense policy. Thus, the military commanders Johann Katzianer, Wilhelm von Roggendorf (whose brother-in-law Nicolás de Salm had also entered the service of Ferdinand) and Cristoph de Waldburg or the Khevenhüller family. Lacking first-hand military experience, Ferdinand relied on these generals during his reign. Thanks to the Germanization of his administration, Fernando managed to get the diets to approve levies and contributions for the Hungarian campaign.
In Hungary Ferdinand used the titles of barons of the kingdom, which formed the royal court and the head of the country's administration, to reward his supporters. Many of them were vacant because the incumbents had died in Mohács or had sided with Zápolya. Thus he appointed Esteban Báthory as palatine or lieutenant of the monarch, who had been key in the creation of a faction favorable to his candidacy. The third position in rank, that of royal judge, was awarded to Elek Thurzó, the other great magnate who had supported him. Stephen's brother, Andrés Báthory, was appointed treasurer, a title that despite being stripped of his economic powers in favor of the new Hungarian chamber, was still a highly relevant position as supervisor of the royal cities. Even so, the government depended largely on a regency council led by the widowed queen, Maria de Habsburgo, with the support of the aforementioned chancellor Szalaházi and treasurer Gerendi. Ferdinand appointed Ivan Karlović, who had led his party in the region, the ban of Croatia, recognized fellow supporter Stefan Berislavić as Serbia's titular despot (even though the region was de facto in Ottoman hands), and confirmed Perenyi's title of voivode. of Transylvania given to him by Zápolya. Ferdinand also granted court titles to consolidate loyalties, naming Imre Országh de Guth master of the gates or in charge of the management of the royal palaces, Juan Lengy the master of the concierges, Antal Losonczy royal cupbearer and Jorge Báthory, brother of Esteban and Andrés, master of the horse. A last part of his retinue would be the royal hussars, who in the king's pay maintained contingents in his name and who served around the monarch as a distinction of honor.
In Bohemia, where there had been no such renewal of the court, Ferdinand retained an administration in Prague around the twelve great offices of the crown. The first of these was the supreme burgrave of Bohemia or burgrave of Prague, a title that was held in 1528 by Zdeněk Lev of Rosental, one of the main magnates of the kingdom. Said burgrave acted as a representative in the king's absence in a manner comparable to the palatine in Hungary and castellan in Prague. He was successively followed in rank by hofmeister or seneschal Vojtěch from Pernstein, marshal Jan of Lipé, waiter Jaroslav of Šelmberka, royal judge Zdislav Berka from Dubé a Lipé, chancellor Adam I of Hradce and the judge of the curia Václav Bezdružický of Kolovrat. All these positions corresponded to the lords of the kingdom. Behind them were the two Karlstein burggraves, one elected on behalf of the lords and the other on behalf of the knights, who governed the castle where the royal treasury and archives were kept, and the positions reserved for the lesser nobility, such as the supreme notary, the vice-waiter, responsible for the royal cities and the burgrave of Hradec Králové, a border area with Moravia and with special autonomy as it is the dowry of the Queen of Bohemia.
Fernando, however, continued to use and integrate Spanish nobles into his administration, such as Gabriel de Salamanca himself, who, named Count of Ortenburg, remained in the Privy Council and was named bailiff of Ensisheim. Also Spanish were his ambassadors in Brussels, Madrid, Rome and England, Martín de Guzmán, Martín de Salinas, Gabriel Sánchez and Luis de Tovar, who managed his policy in relation to Western Europe, his brother and the dynastic interests. In some cases, such as that of Martín de Guzmán or that of Martín de Salinas, the link between him and Fernando can be traced with his former court in Spain. Equally Hispanic were many officials personally close to Fernando or his family, such as his secretaries Cristóbal de Castillejo and Juan de Castillejo, his waiters Martín de Paredes and Juan de Hoyos, his grooms Bernardino de Meneses and Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, his falconero and main hunter. Alfonso de Mercado, members of the household of Queen Francisco and Pedro Laso de Castilla and Alonso de Meneses or his apothecary, Antonio Calvo. Although many of these positions were courtiers, they were in Ferdinand's personal circle of trust, who routinely used them on diplomatic missions and rewarded them with appointments to military orders, marriages to local Austrian nobility, and vacant peerages. Some positions, such as that of head stableman, were systematically used during his reign to integrate foreign nobles into his imperial domains. The Spanish thus remained a significant group of his administration in Vienna and Italian, Spanish and French were languages. usual.
The Flemings who had come with him from the Netherlands were also common, especially among the musicians and artists at his court. His Kapellmeister was thus the Flemish Arnold von Bruck, from the Habsburg Grande Chapelle of the Netherlands. Ferdinand's court etiquette, like Charles's, would follow Burgundian customs. Thus, notably in 1526 Ferdinand employed a Burgundian Sommelier de Corps, André de Douvrin. be the case of Cornelio Duplicio Schepper, Gerard Veltwijck or Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, as well as members of the imperial administration of Carlos V such as Johan von Weze or of the former administration of Maximilian such as the aforementioned Sigismund von Herberstein. Many of these Germans, Spaniards and Flemings alternated their service to Ferdinand and his brother Carlos, with interests distributed among all the Habsburg domains.
However, at the beginning of his reign in Hungary, the Italians were predominant in his oriental diplomacy, such as Jerónimo Adorno, Giovanni Maria Malvezzi, Niccolò Secco or Jerónimo de Zara, given their preponderance in trade routes with Oriente, the importance of the Ottoman Empire in Ferdinand's foreign policy and the difficulty of finding capable agents willing to assume the risks of the position. That would sometimes lead him to even employ ambassadors from his former enemies such as Jerome Laski, whose experience in Constantinople was of great value. Over time, members of his Hungarian administration such as Leonhard von Völs the Younger, Antonio Verancsics and Ferenc Zay would join these border military missions, providing knowledge of the real situation on the ground.
Fernando carried out a deliberate policy of integrating the nobility in his new domains, favoring marriages between the Austrian and Bohemian nobility as well as with Spanish and Italians, the dispersion of their interests throughout the different territories and the use of committees and general assemblies that brought together both diets. Ferdinand's itinerant court would be a common socialization point for all those nobles. He also took care that his own children, especially his successor Maximilian, learned different languages of his domains including Italian, German, Czech and Hungarian.
Pending challenges
However, and despite the fact that with Ferdinand's tax reforms he would eventually double the collection obtained, the meager Austrians could not cover the troops mobilized for the war in Hungary. Fernando tried to introduce exceptional contributions to finance the defense against the Ottomans (Türken Steuer, approved in 1524, 1526 and 1529) and to cover the deficit, he resorted to the help of his brother Carlos, to melt the jewels and treasures left by his late brother-in-law and to go into debt to the Fuggers. In Bohemia, the strong power of the diet limited his income. Hungarian finances were also complicated as Ferdinand's chamber needed the cooperation of the county authorities, who were often able to keep the proceeds to pay for their military obligations.
Seeking to improve his income, Ferdinand expanded his state monopoly on salt to Bohemia, which was one of the largest territories in Central Europe without its own salt mines. Implementing this tax scheme forced him to try to prevent salt imports from the mines in southern Poland, which were the source of natural Silesian salt. He also integrated mining activities in Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia within the schemes he had already organized in Austria. This was done with income in Croatia thanks to the copper mines of Samobor and the silver and lead mines of the Zrínyi in Gvozdansko, which however required securing the route to ports on the Adriatic such as Bakar, Senj or Rijeka. Ferdinand would also succeed in ending the minting of local currency in Croatia by the Zrínyi independently of the crown. Other mines, particularly the large Bohemian mines of Joachimsthal or the Hungarian mines of Besztercebánya had prior concessions that limited Ferdinand's action. However, since his occupation of the Besztercebánya mining area in 1528, Ferdinand began to receive payments from the Fuggers for the royal concession.
Another problem would be to integrate the Hungarian nobility which, due to the competence of the Zápolya court, the existence of anti-Germanic currents and having a greater language barrier, maintained a lower presence at the Viennese court. Although the hussars of his entourage were a common image of court ceremonies participating with nobility from other Habsburg domains, the stable presence in Vienna was reduced to a small chancery, especially in the early years of Ferdinand's reign.
It would be in the kingdom of Bohemia where he first tried to take steps to centralize the administration. From 1528 he tried to limit the great autonomy of the boroughs and municipalities in the kingdom. He had the support of small dynasties on the rise such as the aforementioned lords of Hradec, but also with the lords of Weitmühl, those of Pernštejn, the Popels of Lobkovicové and the Berkas of Dubá, who found career opportunities in the royal bureaucracy. With them, he limited the power of the municipalities and the main magnates. Among other things, it did away with assemblies of local circles as a legislative instrument, required the king to convene the diets and approve their agreements as a condition for the laws to be ratified, and appropriated the mint of Joachimsthal as a crown. whose owner, the Count of Schlick, had been killed in the Battle of Mohács. Extending these measures to the entire crown was however problematic, and for example Silesia continued to maintain strong local diets for each duchy throughout Ferdinand's reign while in Bohemia the royal administration was opposed by many nobles.
Despite this centralization, Ferdinand's election was a complication for the integration of the institutions of the Bohemian crown. By increasing the distance to the capital, Lusatia and Silesia were left in a more peripheral situation and further from the sovereign's priorities, usually busy with imperial politics, the conflict in Hungary or the policy of the kingdom of Bohemia, which would allow the development of centrifugal Lusatian and Silesian tendencies and the preservation of the local autonomy of those provinces. It was customary for the territories to look to Prague for political guidance and Saxony for religious guidance.
Ferdinand also tried to prevent the spread of Anabaptism in Bohemia and Silesia, where many preachers had taken refuge after the peasant wars. He thus expelled Caspar Schwenckfeld and Jacob Hutter. In Silesia Fernando would take advantage of the death in December 1528 of Casimiro II de Teschen to take the duchies of Glogovia and Troppau.
Zápolya's counterattack
Upper Hungary
Faced with the neutrality of the Polish king Sigismund I Jagiellon the Elder and the lukewarm help of the anti-Habsburg league of Francis of France, Venice, Pope Clement VII and Henry VIII of England, Zápolya went before the Turkish sultan Suleiman. On January 27, 1528, he signed a treaty with him and launched an attempt to retake Kassa. However, he was defeated by Ferdinand's troops in Szina in March 1528. Juan I had to take refuge to the north among his sympathizers in Poland, which led to Fernando's complaints to Sigismund.
The battle was followed by new Fernandino advances in the region. The forces commanded by Katzianer, Törok of Enying and Perenyi received reinforcements from loyal cities such as Kassa (which celebrated the Habsburg victory) and Bartfa and began a new campaign to drive Zápolya out of Upper Hungary. Újhely and Sárospatak, along with Kassa and in the hands of a Zápolya supporter named Simon Athinai, were besieged and taken despite a relief attempt from Dobó, as was Szepes Castle, another of Zápolya's main bases in Upper Hungary. Katzianer continued north taking Bystrica, Likava and Zniót. Trencsén, on the Moravian border, was next besieged but held out for a time. Perenyi while maintaining pressure against Transylvania took Dés and Déva and tried unsuccessfully to besiege Lippa.
The situation was not easy for Fernando, however, surrounded by enemies. That March a conspiracy by Otto von Pack, based on forged documents claiming that the conquest of Hungary was a first step before turning against the Lutherans, nearly caused a war with the Protestant princes in the Holy Roman Empire. At the same time, Zápolya was about to open a new front in the area thanks to a loyal Lusatian nobleman, Nickel von Minckwitz. Ferdinand would then return to Austria and would not physically return to Hungary for years. The same month of March, the Turks launched another raid from Bosnia against Croatia and Carniola. Having broken through the Croatian defense line in Bosnia the previous year, the Ottomans took Gospić that year and devastated Lika and Carniola. In April another Turkish raid ravaged Szeged before being defeated by Hoberdanecz and retreating to Sirmia. The Slavonian parliament decreed a mobilization against the Turks that month showing its support for the Fernandina cause.Fernando, however, was in debt and had to weld his troops from the previous campaign, which limited his response capacity.
The impasse of 1528-1529
Zápolya, sheltered in Poland, reorganized his forces and managed to retake positions near Kassa as Tőketerebes and besiege Sárospatak, which fell before receiving Fernandino's help. Notably, he had sent his ambassador Jerónimo Laski to Suleiman's court, whose support against Ferdinand succeeded. This was followed by a siege of Tállya by zápolya forces and preparations by another against Gyula while Katzianer was still busy besieging Trencsén. This city finally fell into Habsburg hands in June thanks to the collaboration of bourgeois like Juraj Kupec. Fernando kept municipal authorities such as Pavel Baračka, which indicates that many of them were favorable to him. The Bishop of Nitra, Esteban Podmaniczky, temporized with Ferdinand's administration as tutor to his nephews, the brothers Rafael and Juan Podmaniczky, although the mountainous area was a major focus of banditry and local nobles took advantage of the war to occupy territories as robber barons..
At the end of June, Zápolya returned to Hungary and finally won a victory at the Battle of Földvar thanks to Ottoman-vassal Moldavian and Wallachian troops. In exchange for ceding the border fortresses of Csicsó, Bálványos and Beszterce to the Turkish vassals, Zápolya secured Transylvania Some Transylvanian nobles such as Matías Majláth, whom Ferdinand had made count of Fogaras in southern Transylvania, went over to his side. The victory in Földvar and the subsequent repression in Transylvania effectively ended the support of the Saxons for Fernando, although some pockets such as Brassó, Földvar, Segesvár or Nagyszeben continued to resist Zápolya for years and kept Juan's Transylvanian forces occupied. I. All this ruined Fernando's plan to settle the debts generated by the campaign by handing over the Transylvanian salt mines to his creditors.
John I also secured neighboring areas thanks to the support of the Hungarian nobility. Peter Perenyi, whose family holdings in Temes and Abauj counties bordered Transylvania and who had had friction with the Saxons, returned to the zápolya party. Imre Czibak, Bishop of Nagybánya, in neighboring Bihar county, was another strong supporter. of Zápolya while his relative Petrovics continued to control Temesvár. With sympathies in Poland and among Magyar and Slavic nobles such as the Podmaniczky, the Kostka, the Drugeth or the Somlyó branch of the Báthory, Zápolya also held localities in Upper Hungary in Zemplen and Ung counties or the Považie region.
Typically for Ottoman campaigns to begin in the spring, Ferdinand spent the summer of 1528 exploring alliances to contain the expected Turkish counter-offensive. His brother Charles, embroiled in his war with France, refused to invest more resources in Hungary, and Ferdinand groped possible alliances with Poland, England, Scotland or the papacy. However, there was only another Turkish plundering raid against Croatia and Carniola, as the Bishop of Zagreb became the new focus of the zápolya party in Slavonia and he sought the support of foreign powers such as Venice. In September Ferdinand was able to raise a new contingent of 5,000 soldiers against Erdödy but they ended up focused on the Ottoman threat. In Upper Hungary his supporters suffered another setback against forces loyal to Zápolya in a fight near Kassa. Fernando was then strongly criticized for his absence in the country.
In October Ferdinand went to Pressburg to request financing from the Hungarian diet for a new campaign. Although he obtained it, his general Katzianer was ineffective and failed to articulate it during the inclement weather of autumn. That same month the ban of Croatia, Iván Karlović, defeated at Belaj with Croatian and Carniolan forces a third incursion by Turkish irregular forces, which would attack again in November but without the intervention of the Ottoman Imperial Army. Despite this, the Turkish threat made loyalties unreliable of the nobles on the border. Turkish assistance did return to Zápolya control of the Serb areas around Becse and Becskerek in southwestern Transylvania. Ferdinand returned to request support from his brother and the Austrian diets in November.The Turkish incursions not only motivated the progressive restoration and expansion of the fortresses in Carniola and Croatia, but their endowment with troops from all the Austrian duchies and Spanish mercenaries.
Imperial politics
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Ferdinand was establishing his court in Vienna in a position further from the first line and central to his different interests, compared to the greater use of Innsbruck and Wiener Neustadt at the beginning of his reign. For Bohemia, Ferdinand appointed captains and governors who held the king's representation when he was not present. In Hungary, Ferdinand took advantage of the death of the nádor or palatine Stephen VII Báthory to de facto avoid the position and appoint a governor (locumtenens palatinalis) of royal designation but without the lifetime character of the nádor title. to get involved in imperial politics in parallel to the Hungarian one after the crisis that had generated the von Pack conspiracy.
The diet of Speyer in March 1529, in which he participated as a representative of his brother the emperor, was a failure. Ferdinand, frustrated with the advance of Lutheranism after the concessions of the previous diets and suspicious of the Protestants after the von Pack conspiracy, maintained a hard line against the Protestants despite the recommendations of Carlos, focused on Italy, and Erasmo, who for His pupil's anger had common ground with the Protestants. Without this support, Ferdinand was unable to man the fortifications in Hungary in the face of news of a large Ottoman army on the way.
Protestants were not united, however, given the differences in doctrine between Luther and Zwingli. Zwingli's theses not only pitted the preacher against the Lutherans but alarmed the Catholic Swiss cantons who feared a resurgence of Zurich and sought Ferdinand's support. In April, Ferdinand reached a Christian Alliance with the cantons of Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Zug and Unterwalden. That same year, the first Kappel war ended with a Protestant victory against the Swiss Catholic cantons that Ferdinand supported, largely due to the lack of support of a Charles V occupied with the conflicts in Italy. Ferdinand was more successful in Zagreb, where Spanish-German forces defeated Zápolya's supporter bishop that spring.
Suleiman's campaign
In the summer of 1529 a large Ottoman army, reportedly numbering a quarter of a million soldiers and three hundred guns, invaded the Hungarian kingdom and swept away Ferdinand's forces in southern Hungary. In Slavonia and southern Hungary, Turkish promises to stop the raids of previous years and return border areas caused the region to return to supporting Zápolya although Croatia continued to back Ferdinand. Ferdinand while on his aunt's advice avoided the confrontation in the open field against an enemy so superior in forces. Ferdinand instead brought together the Austrian diets and the Moravian diet in Linz, achieving the approval of general levies. The Bohemian diet, unlike these, refused to move to Linz, for which Fernando went personally to Prague.
The capital of Buda was taken by Suleiman at the beginning of September and handed over to Juan I. The change of fortunes in the conflict brought a change of loyalties among the Hungarian nobles, losing the Fernandino side to Tomás Nádasdy, who was captured during the capture of Buda and soon switched to the party of King John I of Hungary. Suleiman continued to take neighboring Pest and advanced along the Danube through Visegrád, Estrigonia, Komárom, Tata, Gyor and Magyaróvár before reaching before Vienna. East of the river, Gyula was cut off from the rest of Ferdinand's territories and would eventually be taken over by Zápolya's supporter, Imre Czibak.
At the same time the forces at Pressburg Castle repulsed attempts to the north, leaving the Ottomans focused on Austria which they reached by taking Bruck. Ferdinand faced his greatest test with the ensuing siege of Vienna, although he personally remained in Prague in negotiations with the Bohemian diet. The arrival of imperial reinforcements at Krems prevented the Turks from crossing further on the Danube. The siege ultimately ended in an Austrian victory thanks to the effectiveness of the defenders' countermines and the impact of inclement weather on the besiegers. In October, after a final costly full-scale assault failed, the Ottomans withdrew from Vienna on news that an imperial army was being assembled to liberate the city. The Bohemian diet in Prague had finally approved joining the campaign and Charles, after signing the Peace of the Ladies in August, had moved to Speyer and had managed to mobilize the imperial princes to lift the siege.
The victory at the siege would be a great symbol for Ferdinand in the future, which he would use to pressure the diets for new war aid and to prevent other Christian powers from supporting Zápolya. The army Suleiman had assembled it was dispersed during the retreat. With Bohemian and Moravian help, Ferdinand began rebuilding the city, which had suffered a fire in 1525 and been devastated by the siege. Ferdinand began with the modernization of the Hofburg Imperial Palace, a former medieval castle.
Fernando's counteroffensive
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Fernandina's forces retook at the end of 1529 after Suleiman's withdrawal some border cities such as Sopron, Magyaróvár, Gyor, Komárom and Estrigonia. To the north, cities such as Nagyszombat, Trencsén, Kassa, Szepes and Tokaj were secured by loyalists to Ferdinand. In Slavonia and Upper Hungary, the war resumed between supporters of the Habsburgs and the Zápolya. a second front, although the alliance did not fully bear fruit. Zápolya's resources were however as depleted as Ferdinand's, which meant that the front stalled. Despite the fact that the war situation stabilized, both Fernando and Juan I of Hungary still claimed the crown and the entire kingdom. Fernando also lost his main general, Count Nicolás de Salm, as a result of injuries sustained during the previous siege.
In 1530, Ferdinand had a complicated January-February negotiation with multiple diets to finance a new campaign, where notably the Moravian, Lusatian and Silesian states joined the Austrians in a general diet. In the south, the situation was chaotic, with Turkish raids looting both Croatia loyal to Ferdinand and Slavonia where the Bishop of Zagreb was a supporter of John. Some Ferdinand supporters such as Luis Pekry negotiated with the zápolya due to their superior numbers and fear that the Turks backed them up, while the Zrínyi sought a particular truce with the Turks. Ferdinand summoned the Croatian diet at Topusko, not far from the Una defensive line, to organize the defense of the border, and sent Rauber to investigate dealings between the Zrínyi and the Ottomans. In March, the Inner Austrian states again approved a joint deployment to face the Turkish incursions, which had been mobilized by October. command of this force.
Although no formal division of Hungary took place, Ferdinand's de facto Hungarian rule was limited to what he organized as Lower Hungary (the north-west Slavic mining towns with the area around Pressburg, Nitra and Trencsén with the rich mines the Besztercebánya copper mine owned by Augsburg merchants such as the Fuggers, present-day Western Slovakia), the border counties between Austria and Lake Balaton (Estrigonia, Komárom, Moson, Gyor, Sopron, Vas) and Croatia around Zagreb, protected by a line of fortresses that passed through Varasdin, Sisak, Bihać and Senj. Zapolya while reigning in the center and east of the kingdom as a vassal of the Turks, who put Alvise Gritti as prime minister to maintain their influence in the country.
The military frontier
In addition, the Ottoman Empire bordered directly through its domains in Bosnia on Ferdinand's Croatia. The Turkish regular forces were supplemented by the akıncı, irregular soldiers who lived on loot and whose expeditions were common even in peacetime. In previous years they had already arrived from Bosnia to Croatia, Carniola and Carinthia and in 1530 there were new incursions in Croatia. The bishops of Senj and Zagreb went over to the Ferdinand party due to fear of Turkish incursions in Croatia, although up 1534 still held an ambivalent position.
Fernando thus continued with the reforms begun in previous years in Carniola and surroundings and created a military frontier, where he expropriated the fortresses of the nobility in the area for warlike reasons, built new fortifications upgrading medieval castles to suitable bastions for warfare with artillery (thanks to Italian engineers like Domenico dell'Allio) and settled settlers on favorable terms on the border in exchange for their commitment to military service as Wehrbauer (military peasants). Graz, Laibach, Agram (Zagreb) and Vienna were used as arms depots for this border. Foundries were also developed for the construction of firearms and light artillery. Ferenc Batthyány, Ferdinand's loyal supporter in Croatia, had received fortresses on the border between Austria and Hungary (present-day Burgenland), where settlers settled giving rise to Burgenland Croats. Numerous Croats had taken part in the defense of Vienna of 1529 and would return to participate in the defense against the following Turkish campaigns against the positions in the Danube.
Learning from Vienna, where those fortresses alone had failed to stop the Ottomans, Ferdinand persuaded the diets of his Austrian domains in May to pay part of the cost of sections of the border that served as forward defense of their states even though the troops and fortifications were outside their territory. In Ferdinand's strategic vision it was necessary to secure a buffer zone in Hungary to prevent new threats against Vienna, even if this sometimes sacrificed their Hungarian interests. Thanks to the support of the Austrian states Ferdinand was able to supplement the resources available to him in Croatia and Hungary. He did not, however, win the support of the imperial diet, reluctant to the growing power of the Habsburgs.
Among other moves to raise additional funds, Ferdinand received a loan from his wife's estate, sold the Moravian town of Jemnice to a Czech nobleman, and pawned estates in Swabia. Thus Haguenau, Kaysersberg and Ortenau returned to the Palatinate as payment for their debts with them, Fernando reserving a right of repurchase. Philip of the Palatinate-Neuburg had led the defense of Vienna together with Salm and the house of the Palatinate was once again politically aligned with the Habsburgs. Despite all this, Ferdinand's debts with his bankers grew and the Fuggers, who after a bankruptcy of the Hochstetters in 1529 had become the main financiers of the Habsburgs, ended up seizing in 1530 the Neapolitan income from his grandfather's will Aragonese. The Thurzó, partners of the Fuggers in their Hungarian mining companies and with marital ties to them, also received numerous estates in the counties of northern Hungary as pledges of loans along with the granting of thirtieth and tariffs in the area.
Croatia and Slavonia
Thanks to this the loyal Jurišić, appointed captain of Rijeka with command over the defenses in southern Austria, was able to face a reform of the defenses in Croatia. Seeking to settle the population in the area, which had already suffered in the last war with Venice and which was now exposed to the Turks, Fernando granted Rijeka a statute or population charter in 1530. To neutralize the threat of Ottoman naval raids from Obrovac, a castle was built on the coast in Bakar, an important port between Rijeka and Senj, in 1530, which was followed by the expropriation of the Frankopan fortresses in the coastal region of Vinodol and the development in Senj of a coastal garrison with Austrian soldiers. These ports, key for defense against the Ottomans and for the transport of metals, developed during Ferdinand's rule, losing their traditional trade with Ottoman-occupied Dalmatia but gaining new traffic to Austria and Italy. To the south, the exclave of Klis was still in Croatian hands thanks to the uscoco Petar Kružić.
From Senj the line zigzagged inland following the course of the Una river, on whose banks were the castles of Ferdinand's lieutenant in Croatia, Ivan Karlović, (Mutnik), of his brother-in-law Nicholas III Zrínyi (Zrin, Kostajnica), of various branches of the Frankopan (Brinje, Tržac, Cetin, Skrad or Slunj) and prominent royal fortresses such as Ripač, Bihać, Krupa and Otočac. Royal fortresses were endowed with funds for their defenses while some noble fortresses such as Brinje were confiscated by Ferdinand with the permission of the Croatian flavor to organize the defense. By 1530, the Inner Austrian diets had expanded the subsidizing fortresses in Croatia to seven.
After the mouth of the Una in the Saba, the line covered the cities of Sisek and Zagreb thanks to fortresses given by Ferdinand to Ban Karlović such as Medvedgrad, Lukavec and Rakovec, the possessions of Pedro Keglević, a veteran of the wars against the Turks who had acquired Kostel, Krapina, Blinja, Bijela Stijena, Pakrac, Novi Grad and Lobor and those of the Ernuszt, who had related to Keglević and who owned Čakovec, Đurđevac, Molve and other possessions in Međimurje. The area was key during the reign of Ferdinand to guarantee river transport and finance the border fortifications with the Turks.
To consolidate this border, Ferdinand settled Uscoks (Slavs from Ottoman Bosnia and Croatia who had formed bands on the coast still free from Turkish rule), Croatian and Serb refugees fleeing the Turkish advance in Sirmia and Slavonia, and Vlachs (Romance-speaking populations of the Balkans and the Danube, usually of a transhumant tradition). The first wave of such settlers began in the 1530s, with populations displaced by recent Turkish advances in Bosnia and southern Croatia. In Croatia itself, the settlement of these populations was vital since the defense against irregular incursions was articulated around the refuge in the fortresses, which the akıncı could not take due to their lack of army artillery. professional, and the insurrectio or temporary levy called by the ban among the nearby inhabitants to ambush raiders, especially when loot or fortresses held them back.
King of Romans
Accession to the throne and stabilization
Election as King of the Romans
Meanwhile, the division between Lutherans and Reformists in Germany and the return of the pope to the alliance with the Habsburgs in the treaty of Barcelona had allowed Carlos to be finally crowned in 1530. Although his brother Carlos had already used Fernando As a representative and defender of his policy in the empire during his long periods of absence, it was from this imperial coronation in February 1530 that the division agreed between brothers began to develop. In September Charles formally conferred the title of Archduke of Austria on him in a ceremony under the Privilegium Maius, a forgery of his ancestors that claimed to equalize Austria's status with that of the Electors.
The situation was not, however, favorable to Fernando. The Augsburg Confessions in the summer of 1530 marked a turning point for Lutheranism in his domain. In September his troops again defeated the Bishop of Zagreb in Croatia, forcing an armistice in the south. In December 1530, however, a siege of Buda led by Wilhelm von Roggendorf and Baltasar Bánffy failed, halting advances into Hungary.
Materializing the previous agreements with his brother Carlos, Ferdinand was finally elected King of the Romans in Cologne by the electors on January 5, 1531 although he suffered opposition to his appointment from the main Protestant leaders, Philip of Hesse and John Frederick of Saxony, who were joined in the Saalfeld alliance by his Catholic enemies, the dukes of Bavaria. The rest of the voters supported the appointment, which, like the election of Carlos, was accompanied by substantial payments financed by the Fuggers, Ferdinand's bankers. On January 11, he was crowned King of the Romans in Aachen according to imperial ceremonial. From that moment on, he began to manage imperial affairs with more prominence on behalf of his brother, who was less and less present in the Holy Empire. The execution of the inheritance pact consolidated the relationship of the brothers, Fernando becoming a faithful executor in the Empire of Charles's politics. However, it also consolidated Ferdinand as a force in his own right in imperial politics, ushering in a progressive emancipation of the Vienna Habsburgs from the main branch in Spain.
On January 21, Gritti agreed to a truce in Visegrád in Hungary where Ferdinand and Zápolya consolidated the status quo in the country. However, Ferdinand continued to be involved in conflicts outside Hungary as well. In February 1531 a Protestant league was formed in Smalkalda that brought together the opposition to the Habsburg brothers. In Hungary while the war was still stopped, with Juan I and Fernando repeatedly trying a diplomatic solution. Thus, in March, new negotiations were held in Babócsa and Bélvár to continue peace in Hungary, with both sides proposing different venues for new interviews. Meanwhile, the Protestant reform began to develop in Hungary at the hands of Matías Dévay.
The negotiations between Fernando and Juan I did not bear fruit before news arrived that Suleiman was planning a new campaign. Ferdinand moved the Hungarian Accounts Chamber and its governor from Buda to Pressburg in 1531, which became the de facto capital of Ferdinand's Royal Hungary. As part of the change, the Austrian Wolfgang Puchler would be appointed to the chamber. In the Bohemian crown Ferdinand failed in April to get approval for further funding for the war. On the Danube, Ferdinand created thanks to a loan from his brother a fleet of sloops based at Kómarom. The Ottomans while continuing their expansion took Kobaš in Slavonia in the face of Katzianer's inaction.
In this complicated situation, in June 1531 Ferdinand faced the succession of the Piast duke John II, Duke of Opole and Racibórz, who had left Margrave George of Brandenburg-Ansbach as heir. Bedeviled by debts, Ferdinand accepted the inheritance as security for a large loan from the margrave. In October 1531, however, the Swiss Catholic cantons were victorious in the Second Kappel War, bringing the death of the religious reformer Ulrich Zwingli and Catholic dominance in the Alpine valleys on Ferdinand's western frontier. With that and With the death in April 1532 of the historic leader of the Tyrolean Anabaptist peasants, Michael Gaismair, assassinated by two soldiers who wanted to collect the reward that Ferdinand had offered, part of the threats to their domains were removed.
Peace in Hungary
Ferdinand was nevertheless harassed simultaneously by the Lutherans in the imperial domains and by the Ottomans in Hungary. He came under pressure from Protestants demanding a peace with the Turks at the Regensburg diet of April 1532. Politically, the imperial princes refused to fund Habsburg interests outside the empire while religiously Luther believed that the Turks were the punishment. of God for the corruption of the church, making the fight against the Habsburg Turks a challenge to God. The Protestant princes joined neighboring powers at odds with the Habsburgs. In May, the French ambassador concluded an alliance with them at Scheyern, joining Frederick I of Denmark, who had deposed Ferdinand's brother-in-law, Christian II.
In exchange for maintaining financial aid for the war against the Turks, Ferdinand granted the peace of Nuremberg in July 1532, promising to respect the conversions until a council was held as requested in Speyer. Ferdinand had similar pressures in favor of more religious freedom on the part of the diets of his Austrian domains, given his political, economic and military weakness. His own brother Carlos encouraged him, given the lack of funds to maintain the war effort, to seek peace with the Turks. By the end of the war, Ferdinand owed almost a million guilders to the Fuggers.
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Meanwhile, Ferdinand's forces aborted a second campaign against Vienna with a strategic victory at the siege of Güns in August 1532. The fortress, under the command of Nicholas Jurišić, delayed the Ottoman advance against Vienna so long that the imperial armies assembled made the Turks suspend their advance against Vienna. The main Ottoman contingent retreated looting the territory. Suleiman besieged Graz and Marburg without success, which was followed in September by a crushing Imperial victory at the Battle of Leobersdorf over a broken-off Turkish force and later by the defeat of another Ottoman contingent at Wiener Neustadt. At Unterdrauburg, local forces managed to repulse an attempt by another Turkish force to break through the mountain passes into Carinthia. The remaining Ottoman forces withdrew to their domains in the Balkans. Overall, the costly southern line of defense in Croatia succeeded over the next few decades in deterring Turkish incursions against Carniola and Austria. Unable to pay the assembled forces, Ferdinand was nevertheless unable to counterattack.
While Ferdinand faced the Turkish campaign, the Habsburg fleet of the Danube suffered a parallel defeat that month in Komárom against the most numerous ships of Juan I but without territorial consequences in the Danube given the withdrawal of the Ottoman army and the incapacity of the Zápolya's army to take the fortress without Turkish support. Zápolya did succeed that year in expanding his control of Pécs and Slavonia and with it the critical trade route connecting Hungary to the sea.
Ferdinand redoubled his efforts to win an alliance with the Safavids by sending a new embassy in 1532. Meanwhile, the sea brought several triumphs to the Habsburgs: Ferdinand's Uscoks in Senj burned down the Turkish-held port of Obrovac in a raid, those of Klis burned the nearby Ottoman fortress of Solin in September and the condottiere Andrea Doria, who had recently gone into the service of Carlos V, opened a front in the Ottoman rearguard in autumn with the capture of Patras and Corona.
With the Mediterranean heart of his domains threatened and a growing Persian danger on his eastern border, Suleiman first agreed to a truce in January 1533. The truce gave Suleiman time to deal with the problem of the Greek fortresses that Andrea Doria had taken, whose fate was negotiated in exchange for ending the war in Hungary. Despite Ferdinand's claims and the need to divert resources to Greece and the eastern border, Suleiman refused to abandon Zapólya for having given him his word. While Fernando in turn continued to take measures to reinforce the southern border. Thus the governor of Istria was ordered to settle Morlacs, a Wallachian group, to reinforce the position. The first joint session of the Croatian and Slavonian parliaments also took place. Zápolya meanwhile continued to consolidate Pécs and with it his control of Slavonia, even threatening Zagreb.
Finally Suleiman and Ferdinand reached a peace with the Treaty of Constantinople in June 1533, which confirmed the de facto division of the Hungarian kingdom in exchange for the agreement of a tribute of 30,000 guilders. The treaty was a diplomatic humiliation of the Habsburgs, given the Ottoman refusal to recognize Charles' imperial title as equal to the Turkish padisha and the fact that Ferdinand had to hand over the keys of Strygonia in defeat, only for Suleiman to I could return them in appearance of generosity. Beyond humiliation, peace was a strategic triumph for the Turks who, thanks to enthroning Zápolya, managed to break the alliance between the Habsburgs and Hungary around which Ferdinand's policy had revolved, preventing it from becoming a threat. Some authors identify it as a classic example of Ottoman foreign policy, which divided rivals and established vassals before attempting direct annexation. Suleiman was then able to focus on campaigns against Persia and against Corona, whose Spanish garrison he would nevertheless allow evacuate the city Ferdinand would send another embassy to Persia in 1533, with which the Habsburgs tried to establish an alliance that would counteract the growing closeness between the Ottomans and the French in the future.
The Duchy of Wurttemberg and peace with the Protestants
With the Turkish threat driven off, imperial policy kept Ferdinand busy in 1534. The deposed Ulrich of Württemberg continued to claim the Duchy of Württemberg and during his exile had won the support of the Protestant leader Philip of Hesse. In January 1534 France, which had been interested in Philip for years as a mercenary leader in the Empire, supported both after an interview with Philip in Bar-le-Duc and in February the Swabian League, fragmented in recent years between Catholics and Protestants., dissolved leaving Ferdinand without allies on his western front. Felipe was also able to add to his cause the mercenary leader Guillermo de Fürstenberg, who despite having collaborated with the Habsburgs in the past served the highest bidder. The city of Strasbourg, in evangelical hands, also supported the campaign while other Protestant cities in the south of the Holy Empire showed neutrality before the possible consequences.
In May, 24,000 soldiers invaded the Duchy of Württemberg defended by just 11,000 men from Ferdinand's garrisons in Anterior Austria led by Philip of Palatinate-Neuburg. After Ferdinand's forces were defeated at Lauffen on the eleventh, Ulrich finally regained the dukedom while Emperor Charles refused to intervene on behalf of his brother Ferdinand in an attempt to maintain peace in the empire. The tension with France, the Count's war in Denmark where the Catholics were trying to regain power in Scandinavia with the support of Carlos and a new expedition by the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa in the Mediterranean had Habsburg resources at their limit. Héricourt, in the hands of Salamanca since the events of 1525, remained as a strategic place to prevent the threat from spreading against the Franche Comté de Carlos or the county of Ferrette de Fernando, although Salamanca wanted to sell the manor for maintenance costs and the Habsburgs had to subsidize him.
Finally, the peace of Kadan was reached on June 29, which settled the conflict of Wurtemberg by admitting Ulrich as duke under a nominal vassalage to Ferdinand and the acceptance of Ferdinand as king of the Romans by the Protestants. peace, the exclusion of religious issues from the jurisdiction of the Court of the Imperial Chamber was negotiated, given that ecclesiastical property in Protestant territories became a partisan dispute before the court due to its Catholic composition. This peace not only prevented Protestant princes from allying with foreign powers while Henry VIII was creating the Anglican Church, but also prevented Catholic states from using that mechanism to control bishoprics in the empire, as was the case in Bavaria with Augsburg, near the border of the Ferdinand estates.
From that year Fernando would recover a more conciliatory policy with the Lutherans, calling Erasmian preachers like Friedrich Nausea to his side. This policy continued to exclude the Anabaptists, who during a pastoral visit by the Bishop of Vienna Fabri to Lusatia in 1534 saw a new campaign of expulsions from Ferdinand's domains.
Peace with Bavaria
Ferdinand also succeeded that same year in winning the alliance of the Catholic Dukes of Bavaria William IV and Louis X, who reverted to the imperial party. The dukes were brothers of Sabina of Baviera, Ulrich's wife whose mistreatment had originally caused the deposition of the duke and they preferred that the throne pass to their nephew Christopher, raised in Bavaria. They were also fervent Catholics, compared to the Protestantism brought by Philip of Hesse and Ulrich. In general, despite disagreeing over who should occupy the throne of Württemberg, both Ferdinand and the Bavarian dukes preferred that previous policies such as the Swabian League, which maintained the influence of their dynasties in the region, continue in the aftermath of Ulrich's return. that only favored the influence of Philip of Hesse and the Protestants. Despite the preceding dynastic conflict, after an interview in Linz between the brothers and Ferdinand in September an understanding was reached.
The dukes of Bavaria thus accepted Ferdinand's appointment as King of the Romans, renounced their claims to the Bohemian throne and Kufstein, and would indemnify his brother Ernest for his renunciation of the inheritance. political alliance as main Catholic powers in southern Germany sealed with the betrothal of Ferdinand's second daughter, Anna, to the Bavarian heir Theodore, with the concession that the house of Bavaria would inherit Austria in the event of the extinction of the male line of the Habsburgs. Customs exemptions for Bavarian products were also maintained, criticizing Austria and Bavaria as competitors in the salt market.
The marriage would not take place due to Theodore's early death in 1534 and differences soon arose between Ferdinand and the dukes of Bavaria. Ferdinand was in favor of a temporizing policy with the Lutherans while the dukes of Bavaria were a Catholic hard line before the rise that Lutheranism was having in southern Germany after the introduction of the reform in Würtemberg. Despite this, the interview in Linz meant a rearrangement of the alliances in the south of the empire and the dukes would support the Habsurges ever since.
Imperial politics
A final source of détente for Ferdinand was the death in September 1534 of the ambitious Alvise Gritti. The Ottomans' representative in Hungary had amassed power in the country to the point that Hungarian nobles believed he was claiming the crown for himself. He had also been an important link in the attempts to close a Franco-Ottoman alliance and in encouraging the Protestant princes against the Habsburgs to try to create a second front that would allow for another Suleiman offensive. However, his attempt to seize power against the Hungarian nobility caused an uprising against him that ended with the death of Gritti and his children. His death meant that Zapólya, free from direct Turkish pressure, was receptive to new negotiations with Ferdinand.
In 1535 Charles focused on preparing a massive expedition against the Turks in Barbary, delegating Imperial policy to Ferdinand. The burden, which included preventing further conflict while the Habsburg forces were occupied, threatened to overwhelm Ferdinand's resources. Among other issues, he had to deal with the Gelderland Wars, where the Duke of Jülich claimed the Duchy of Gelderland that Charles had taken for himself, the continuing threat from France or the Electorate of Saxony, leader of the Lutherans. to manage the implementation of the peace of Kadan negotiated the previous year. Duke Ulrich continued to be a source of tension in the empire due to his confrontation with Bavaria and his support for France, despite going to meet Ferdinand that summer. Ferdinand also had to keep an eye on Landgrave Philippe of Hesse, who was nevertheless busy with the Anabaptist rebellion in Münster.
Ferdinand also had to maintain peace with Venice, with whom there was an arbitration agreement to delimit the border in Friuli and with the Swiss who collaborated with France and with whom there were disputes over the income of border monasteries. The Habsburgs finally reached, by a pact at Trent in June 1535, a peace with the Venetian republic, which ended with the return of Aquileia to its former patriarch. Belgrade and Castelnuovo d'Istria however continued to be disputed between Ferdinand and Venice.
In 1535 Ferdinand also faced the issue of Salzburg. The Archbishops of Salzburg were princes with imperial immediacy and therefore independent of the possessions of the Archduke of Austria. However, they were the owners of various castles in Styria, nestled in Ferdinand's domain. If those towns were considered part of Salzburg rather than estates in Styria, they would be exempt from the law and, significantly, from the taxes of Ferdinand's duchy. Based on that, their contributions had been irregular in previous years, usually depending on the ecclesiastical support of Fernando at any given time. However, the siege of Güns of 1532 had shown how critical the defensive system paid for by the Styrian states was for all, and demands for localities to be integrated into the Styrian tax system were growing.
Ferdinand had obtained in January 1535 an agreement with the Bishop of Bamberg, also owner of property in Carinthia and Styria, in which the bishopric confirmed his exclaves as part of the Austrian duchies. Finally, Fernando achieved in October 1535 the recess of Vienna, which settled the properties of Salzburg in Styria as fiefs of the duchy and therefore part of his domain. As part of the agreement, Austrian primacy was also settled by nominating the Bishop of Gurk in Carinthia, who would be elected twice by Austria versus once by Salzburg.
That October of 1535 was also marked by the death of the last Sforza, restarting the conflicts in Italy after the Tunis expedition. Despite Fernando's projects, his brother Carlos finally claimed the Duchy of Milan for himself, starting a new war in which France would in turn occupy Piedmont. The question of Milan once again strained relations between Ferdinand and Poland, since Queen Bona was another potential heir to the duchy. Meanwhile, in Croatia the diet threatened to appoint another king if Ferdinand did not guarantee defense against the Turks.
Domestic politics
Regarding his own states, Fernando took advantage of the peace to continue the development of a state that would unite his domains, which led him to numerous negotiations with the feudal states. One of his great achievements was to professionalize his administration, introducing into his domains the concept of professional jurist as opposed to the employment of clergy in the bureaucracy. This would be the case of people like Claudio Cantiuncula, in Alsace and the Innsbruck regency or the aforementioned Blessed Widmann who, even after the loss of the Duchy of Württemberg, remained an important part of the Chamber of Former Austria. Many of them came from the Freiburg school, where, in addition to Zasius and Eck, Erasmus had come to move. Another great advance of Ferdinand was to achieve standardization of the administrative procedure of the different diets, starting in 1535 in Carniola.
In 1535 a building was built for the regency of Ensisheim in Alsace, from which the westernmost part of Former Austria (the four countries or Alsace, Sundgau, Breisgau and Black Forest) was managed and in 1536 a parliament was held in Altdorf as the first joint assembly of the remaining scattered Swabian territories. Negotiations with the estates were complex, and Ferdinand only got a fraction of the taxes he demanded from the Swabian parliament. Both the Alsatian and the Swabian deputations (since 1537 referred to as landvogtei of Swabia instead of landvogtei of Altdorf) depended on the Innsbruck regency, which despite the loss of Württemberg continued to try to consolidate its domains in area. Among other measures, Ferdinand's governors in Swabia tried to seize the Murbach, Weissenau and Weingarten abbeys, the Morimont manor and the imperial villages of Leutkircher Heide as well as to seize the lands of the recently disappeared house of Werdenberg. However, this organization motivated some criticism from the Vorarlberg territories, whose representatives had met on their own in previous years, which generated a third diet in Bregenz also dependent on the Innsbruck regency.
In Austria he also insisted on maintaining ducal authority over the cities and limiting the influence of the nobility in them. Meanwhile, the states demanded that he guarantee religious freedom in exchange for approving the necessary taxes to alleviate their finances, although the existence of the Turkish threat made them subordinate religious demands to a common defense policy.
To the east, Ferdinand continued to consolidate the border against the Turks. In addition to resolving the already mentioned question of the Styrian enclaves, in 1535 he enacted a privilege for settlers who settled in the Žumberak Mountains, offering them 20 years of tax exemptions and liberties in exchange for their colonization and military service in the area. He also re-established Topusko Abbey, which occupied one of the defensible heights in the area and had financed a military contingent of its own in the past but had recently been abandoned by Ottoman raids, leading Ferdinand to place it in the hands of the Keglevićs. Beginning with Carniola, from 1536 the territory of Inner Austria would be divided into districts to organize the insurrectio or mobilization of the peasants of an area in case of enemy incursion.
In 1536 the transfer of the Hungarian diet from Székesfehérvár, traditional seat but occupied by Zápolya, to Pressburg, in the territory under his rule, was also approved. Ferdinand's negotiations with the nobility were no less difficult in the East than in the West. Ferdinand had to continually urge his Hungarian chamber to enforce the sovereign's prerogatives. His attempts to have the Bohemian diet and those of the Austrian states also held in the same town as the Hungarian were rejected by all opposition. assemblies. Linz, however, was sometimes used by both the Austrian and Bohemian diets due to its convenient location near the border between the two territories. Ferdinand also had to limit the powers of the Hofrat to their Austrian dominions, respecting the judicial systems of Hungary and Bohemia. He did manage instead to outlaw the exactions of the Hungarian local authorities on the serfs and their tolls not approved by the king, although the robber barons of some areas would require military interventions in the following years.
Cutting
Ferdinand also expanded and embellished his capitals in the period of 1533-1537. The works undertaken and the texts that are preserved show that Fernando appreciated the new currents of Renaissance architecture, which, as a result of the old treatises by Vitruvio and the most current ones by Sebastiano Serlio, was generating a new aesthetic change. Fernando would even have a personal copy of Serlio's treatise. Thus, in the Prague castle, his wife's favorite summer residence, he created Italian-style royal gardens with a summer palace for her, in addition to promoting a network of parks foresters such as Obora Hvězda or Ovenec intended for hunting, which both Fernando and his wife were fond of. In his palace in Innsbruck, which was still the residence of his children, Fernando undertook a reform and expansion after having suffered fires in the previous years.
Particularly in Vienna, Ferdinand created a stable court by undertaking the reconstruction of the Hofburg, the former Habsburg castle, as an imperial palace after the devastation of the sieges. Hydraulic works were carried out in the city, culminating in the works of the Hofburg with the inauguration of a fountain in Burggasse as well as the creation of gardens or Lustgarten, a royal tennis pavilion (which gives its name to the current Ballhausplatz) and the construction of a promenade to access the Prater, a large hunting ground near the city. Fernando sponsored a second reform of his university as a cultural center because after the siege there were barely thirty students left.
Ferdinand was also a well-known patron and collector and set up a cabinet of curiosities for his art and curio collections with Wolfgang Lazius as curator and Jakob Seisenegger as official court painter. Among other activities, Ferdinand sponsored the maps of Augustin Hirschvogel and Georg Tannstetter, employed the astrologer Andreas Perlach, and hired the humanist Francysk Skaryna as gardener for a new botanical garden in Prague. Another of his protégés was the historian and jurist Caspar Ursinus Velius, who would be the tutor of his children, author of the ceremonial speeches for his coronation as King of Hungary and King of the Romans, and chronicler of his reign.
Economic situation
Despite this, it was a period of profound economic precariousness for Fernando and his family, who even experienced personal hardships that were vox populi at the time. Particularly problematic were his Hungarian finances, as not only was most of the country in the hands of Zápolya, but Ferdinand's domains were centered on the territories that his sister, the Dowager Queen Maria, retained as dowry by deducting her taxes from the royal treasury. Although Maria had been named by Carlos V in 1530 governor of the Netherlands, she had not received income to finance her new court, so she continued to finance herself from Ferdinand's domains, which caused conflicts between the brothers. Additionally, the copper mines of Besztercebánya They had been granted to the Fuggers in the time of Luis II and Fernando had pawned a good part of the royal income as censuses to finance the last war, further weakening the revenue-raising capacity of the kingdom. No. Fernando imposed new thirtieths to generate additional income with which he gradually paid off the royal patrimony.
His Bohemian finances were no better, for to supplement the meager royal income during the preceding war he had mortgaged the properties of the crown patrimony. The Venetian ambassador would go so far as to say that the little income the king had left was from tolls at the gates of Prague, with just 10,000 guilders in income. He did support the crown mining operations, which brought him a 20,000-30,000 guilders. Ferdinand attempted to implement a sales tax based on the Spanish alcabala in 1534, seeking to redeem mortgaged royal estates such as Glatz County, but the Dietary opposition ended the alkabala project. Thus, although Ferdinand bought the county he was unable to pay for it, and it remained in the hands of the Hardeggs. In order to maintain the royal finances, Ferdinand forced the Lusatian monasteries, on the brink of disappearance due to the extension of the reform, to lend money to the crown.
Although in Austria its tax collection capacity was better, the 1530s were characterized by high inflation, poor harvests and the economic consequences of the last war. A sample of the importance that the Fuggers had achieved in maintaining the Ferdinand and Charles' administration is that they were ennobled in 1536, with Raymund Fugger being named Count of Kirchberg, Weißenhorn and Marstetten while Hans Fugger was made Lord of Glött. Although the villages were originally dependent on the Burgau margraviate, the Fuggers were appointed as imperial princes.
The recovery of Hungary
The game of influences in Slavonia, Western Hungary and Upper Hungary
From 1534, Ferdinand diplomatically achieved a series of successes in Hungary. Nobles like Nádasdy who had ended up on Zápolya's side after the last war were reconciling with him, which brought an increase in his influence in Slavonia and southwestern Hungary. Notably, Nádasdy, through his family estates and his marriage to the wealthy heiress Úrsula Kanizsai (heiress to Vasvár or Nagykanizsa among other places) secured Vas and Zala counties for him. Nádasdy dragged with him other nobles from those counties, such as Ákos Csányi, the Sennyey or the Pogány. The marriage of Sara Pogány with Matías Brodarics significantly meant that through Nádasdy and Esteban Brodarics (Matías's brother and influential adviser to Juan Zápolya), negotiations were carried out again in favor of a diplomatic understanding with the oscillating Hungarian nobility.
Nádasdy would return openly to Ferdinand's service in 1536 and contributed significantly to reestablishing his influence in Slavonia as well. Nádasdy was not the only Hungarian nobleman from this region who joined the Fernandino party, mentioning Juan Dessewffy, General Baltasar Bánffy and the brothers Maximiliano and Juan Ostrosith, all originally from Pozsega county. The Erdödy brothers, including the Bishop of Zagreb, also ended up on Ferdinand's side against the Turkish threat. The Count of Pozsega, John Tahy, also went over to the Habsburg party in 1534.
To the north, in central Hungary between Austria and the Balaton, he had preserved the city of Sopron and the county of Veszprém thanks to Bishop Tomás Szalaházi, a supporter of Ferdinand who did not hesitate to resort to force at Tihany in 1534 to restore control of his diocese. The Serbian Pavle Bakić (Lak, Szombathely, Hédervár) and the Hungarians Ferenc Batthyány (Németújvár) and György Cseszneky (Győr, Kisbabot), who had remained loyal to Ferdinand, held fiefs on both sides of the Balaton and on the Danube before of Buddha. Fernando had also retained the important fortress of Komárom on that bank. Pablo Várdai, Archbishop of Estrigonia also ended up definitively in the Habsburg party after a time of ambiguity.
Further north there were other pro-Habsburg Hungarian nobles such as Lőrinc Nyáry (with Berencs and Korlátkő and the title of Count of Hont), the Thuróczys in Turóc County, or the Péchys (in Sáros County). In addition, numerous cities such as Pressburg, Kassa or Trencsén had continued under her control and the widowed queen Maria continued to be mistress of the mining towns in northwestern Hungary ceded in her dowry. Alejandro and Juan Thurzó, to whom Ferdinand had granted the fiefs of Szepes de los Zapolya also supported Ferdinand.
Mikuláš Kostka went over to the Fernandino side after the death of his brother, expanding the Habsburg influence in Považie (Sztrecsény, Litova, Zsolna). Fernando knew how to diplomatically exploit the ambitions over territories theoretically owned by his sister to reward Nádasdy and win over the Lipcsey (with properties in the counties of Zemplen and Bereng such as Ujhely and Bilke) and the Pemfflinger (family of Germanic origin influential among the Saxons of Transylvania) thanks to concessions on eastern territories from his sister's dowry but de facto in the hands of Zápolya as Maramaros, Just or Diósgyőr. Jerome Laski, lord of Késmárk and former supporter of Zápolya who had been imprisoned for his ties to Gritti, He also went over to the Habsburg side.
The dispute over Upper Hungary
Juan Zápolya as he consolidated his control of Transylvania. Nagyszeben, the last stronghold of the Transylvanian Saxons who had supported Ferdinand, finally fell. It had the aforementioned support of Perenyi in western Transylvania as well as the Podmanitzky brothers (Aszód, Považský Hrad), rivals of the Kostka, and of the Drugeth (with possessions in the counties of Zemplen and Ung and especially the important city of Ungvár) in Upper Hungary. He also had the backing of other lesser noble families, such as the Kekedy in Abauj and the Tárczay of Szepes County as well as the city of Lőcse, which was embroiled in a local conflict against Késmárk.
Ferdinand also lost in 1536 the support of Valentin Török of Enying, who had occupied other nobles' estates in Western Hungary and was becoming a semi-independent lord. Notably, the estates of the late Stephen Bathory in Varazdin were at stake, those of Ivan Karlović in Slavonia, those of the Kanizsay in Zala and those of the Ernuszt in Međimurje. All these families had left no sons, although they had daughters and sisters married to Törok's rivals such as the Nádasdy, the Zrínyi and the Keglević, which allowed Ferdinand to reward the families that formed the first line of defense against the Turks.
In response to the advance on Nagyszeben, Ferdinand in 1536 commanded a relief army, which contented itself with looting some towns on the Transylvanian border such as Szatmár. Ferdinand was more successful in driving out the Tárczay, supporters of Zápolya in the Upper Hungary, distributing his possessions (Makovica, Vörösalma, Tarkő) among his supporters such as the Ostrosith, the Dessewffy or the Péchy. A counterattack by forces loyal to John I ended in a zápolya Pyrrhic victory as they lost their general Kocsárd Kún although they managed to take the castles of Tállya and Zboró from László Nagy. They also retook the castle of Tokaj, which had remained in the hands of Fernandino Governor Gaspar Serédi. Finally, in December 1536 Zápolya imposed his authority over Kassa, the main town in Upper Hungary, after which he expelled the German minority from the city. Governor Seredi and Fernandina forces in the region under Leonhard von Völs, son of the Tyrolean governor of the same name and a veteran of the siege of Vienna, reorganized with Eperjes as a new base in the area, managing to repulse Zápolya's forces attempting to take the city. Even with the zápolya gains, Ferdinand went from collecting taxes in seven Hungarian counties to doing so in a fortnight.
The conflict in Dalmatia
While the Habsburgs and Zapolya disputed Hungary, Turkish raids continued, both against Fernandina Croatia and Slavonia and against zápolya Slavonia and southern Hungary, taking Bosanski Brod and alarming the Bishop of Zagreb. Turkish attention had It was, however, focused on the sea after the victory of Charles V in the Tunis campaign of 1535. Seeking to counterbalance the Habsburgs, they had achieved a Franco-Ottoman alliance in 1536 to collaborate in Italy and the Mediterranean. Ferdinand however tried not to provoke the Ottomans and did not respond to the Turkish occupation of Slavonski Brod in July, despite the Turks amassing artillery and field forces.
Ferdinand was eventually drawn into the conflict due to tensions over piracy in the Adriatic and the irregular warfare that the Uscoks waged against the Ottoman governors. The situation was exacerbated by Ferdinand's perennial funding problems, which meant that many garrisons received their salaries with considerable delays and had to resort to acts of piracy or banditry to supplement their income. This piracy in the Adriatic was a source of friction. to three parties between Ferdinand, the Republic of Venice and the Ottomans. Ferdinand showed a certain collusion, since it not only allowed the garrisons to sustain themselves but also had generated a lucrative economy in Senj that paid notable taxes on the sale of the booty.
Thus, Klis, a nominally Croatian port but an exclave in Turkish territory since the capture of Bosnia by the Ottomans in 1463, had become a focus of piracy that the Ottomans reduced in a siege between August 1536 and January 1537. Despite Due to Fernando's attempts to save the square with papal support, the fortress was finally handed over to the Turks, evacuating the garrison and the population to Senj, where Fernando's uscocos swelled. These new settlers not only allowed the development of the port to continue, but also settled settlers in the Žumberak Mountains on the Croatian border. The Ottomans continued their campaign through Dalmatia with the Turkish-Venetian War (1537-1540).
In mid-September and thanks to papal mediation, a Holy Alliance was reached that added Venice, the Habsburgs and the papacy and to which they tried to attract Zápolya. Papal mediation was also key for France, which was still at war with the Habsburgs, it did not intervene against that coalition. The Italian states and the Habsburgs would support Venice by sea but mounting a land offensive was problematic. Fernando asked to be able to use tithes or imperial financing to do so given his scarce available resources while Zápola, directly exposed to the Turks, hesitated to take sides without a commitment of military support from Fernando. Cardinal Morone, personally close to Fernando, was a key negotiator to attract him to an intervention despite the doubts of his main advisers, Chancellor Clesio, Treasurer Hoffmann, General von Roggendorf and Bishop Fabri.
The offensive of 1537
Seeking that funding in 1537 Ferdinand attended the diets of the Bohemian crown, with deep religious problems. In the Bohemian diet of March 1537, Ferdinand approved the compactata, an agreement that admitted Utraquism, a moderate version of local Hussism, in Bohemia in an attempt to reintegrate this sector together with the Catholics. He sold the County of Glatz that summer to John III of Pernstein, Governor of Moravia. Lutheranism was also advancing and in 1537, the Piast Duke Frederick II of Legnica, a great promoter of that creed in Silesia and childless, signed a contract for his domains to pass on his death to Margrave Hohenzoller of Brandenburg, a prominent neighboring Lutheran leader. of the bohemian crown. The estates he sold to her included the duchies of Legnica, Wohlau, and Brzeg. Likewise, Fernando had to mediate between the municipal council of the Lusatian city of Löbau and the local parish priest, who was not receiving tithes due to the advance of Lutheranism.
The great Habsburg offensive included a double attack, with a campaign in the north and another in the south. In 1537 the general Fernandino von Völs advanced in Upper Hungary. In September he seized Nagysáros after a siege, recapturing Tállya and Regéc and reaching Tokaj.Tokaj and Munkács's Palanok castle once again had Fernandino governors although it seems in some shared status with Zápolya.
Ferdinand was less successful on the southern front. In October 1537, an attempt by Ferdinand to reverse Turkish advances on the Slavonian frontier and seize the Ottoman logistics base at Sirmia from Osijek was crushed at the Battle of Gorjani. The dissensions between his generals and the lack of provisions due to the collaboration of the local magnate Törok of Enying with the Ottomans and the scant support of the Bishop of Zagreb contributed to the defeat. Several of Ferdinand's generals such as Pavle Bakić or Ludovico Lodron died in battle while others, including Katzianer, fled. The surviving commanders were harshly criticized by public opinion and Fernando ordered the arrest of Katzianer and Pekry after the failure. The Fernandina presence in Požega collapsed, generating another wave of refugees on the Croatian border. Morone, papal delegate to Fernando and one of the alliance organizers considered the defeat worse than Mohács, given the loss of irreplaceable artillery and troops in the short term. Ferdinand, in letters to his sister Maria, lamented the failure, which he attributed to the cowardice of his generals. Instead, they have been critical of Fernando, accusing him of harboring unrealistic expectations in the campaign.
Slavonia after the failure of Osijek
Ferdinand's defeated general, Johann Katzianer, was arrested for the failure but escaped and tried to organize a conspiracy against Ferdinand with Turkish support before being captured and executed by Nicholas IV Zrínyi. Zrínyi had succeeded his father in the Croatian territories of Una and, despite his father's compromising with the Turks, he would become one of Ferdinand's trusted men and leader of the most fervently anti-Ottoman sector in Croatia.. Ferdinand would eventually approve his acquisition of the Karlović estates and further donations to allow Zrínyi to finance his fight against the Ottomans.
The military failure of Osijek brought important changes in Ferdinand's approach. Thus he reorganized the Austrian military machine with a military council in Pettau in May 1538. The death that year of his favourite, Bishop Bernhard von Cles, probably also had an influence because, although he was replaced by the jurist Georg Gienger von Rotteneck, Ferdinand never returned. to concentrate so much power in the same person and evolved into more collegiate bodies. In parallel, Fernando replaced Luis Pekry in the Banat of Croatia due to failure, naming the loyalists Tomás Nádasdy and Pedro Keglević as co-bans in his place.
This council was dedicated to coordinating resources, intelligence and ensuring communications between the different forces, especially between detachments sent by the German states and local Croatian and Hungarian forces. The territory was divided into districts with regional captains, with Carniola and Carinthia focusing more on supporting Croatia and Styria taking a similar role in Slavonia. Despite the losses, the states of Inner Austria increased their funding until they reached the dozen fortifications under their charge. In the following years, Nicholas II of Salm, son of the hero of 1529, would transform this high command into a modern body that replaced the ban of Croatia, the governor of feudal origins, as military command. The castles on the Croatian border thus ended up under the unified command of the German Eramo von Thurn, while the ban was responsible for gathering the forces provided by the nobility for the defense of a second sector between the Una and Kolpa rivers. The Croatian flavor would approve a state of permanent mobilization and war taxes (subsidium) to finance that contingent. With these measures, Croatia budgeted for to be the jurisdiction of the Austrian chambers of accounts instead of the Hungarian chamber.
To stabilize the Slavonian border, Ferdinand reinstated the hero of Güns, Nicolás Jurišić, as captain of the region. Among other measures, sub-captainties responsible for districts in the area were also created, the already existing logistics network was extended to Slavonia in Croatia with Zagreb, Virovitica and Đurđevac as troop assembly points and the grain supply was regulated to avoid further problems with the quartermaster. of war. Finally, Ferdinand approved in September privileges for settlers, including Catholics and Serb Vlachs, who were going to repopulate towns in the Bilogora mountains such as Čazma and Bjelovar where the border was established. These settlers were under the new captaincy of Slavonia rather than the regular jurisdiction of the ban, who would become more of a civil governor in the rear and command militarily only a reduced force. The Ottoman advance continued in 1538 with the capture of Dubica. but, although Zagreb came to be threatened, the recapture by Nádasdy and Keglević of Jasenovac in April 1538 stabilized the border.
Diplomacy prior to the death of Juan Zápolya
Visit to Saxony, Lusatia and Silesia
Military weakness also made Ferdinand seek a diplomatic solution, even though Ferdinand's personal pride made him refuse to make an agreement with someone he saw as being of worse birth. Zápolya in turn found himself in a situation of weakness against the similar Turkish, to the point that the bishops Franjo Frankopan and Esteban Broderics threatened to go over to the Fernandino side. Finally in February 1538 Juan and Fernando signed a secret treaty in Nagyvárad. The agreement, reached after long negotiations with Zápolya's prime minister, Jorge Martinuzzi, was based on the shared principle of the unity of the kingdom. Since Juan I had no children, both recognized his de facto domains and Ferdinand recognized him as king in exchange for being recognized as Zápolya's heir.
Faced with the Ottoman warlike superiority, Fernando also displayed intense political activity. In 1538 the Austrian states held a diet in Linz, where the religious question was one of the central points. In May he traveled to Bohemia to request new resources from the diets of said crown, with Styrian and Hungarian participation given the critical situation after Osijek. Ferdinand took advantage of the displacement to seal alliances with the neighboring imperial princes in Saxony and Brandenburg.
Particularly important to him was the support of the Hohenzollerns, since the marriage of Beatrix of Frangepán, Hungarian duchess, with George of Brandenburg-Ansbach had left them with important interests in Silesia and Hungary while the main branch of the dynasty, now divided between Joachim II and his brother John of Brandenburg-Küstrin had acquired estates in Silesia (Crossen) and Lower Lusatia (Cottbus) in previous generations. The plans of the margraves tried to develop these purchases and around 1538 they entertained the idea of receiving Lower Lusatia as a pledge, which Ferdinand resisted. Ferdinand would finally accept in 1537-1538 the incorporation of Crossen into Brandenburg-Küstrin and would have in the Margraves of Brandenburg a key ally for his next campaigns. Likewise, Joaquín, with a moderate position between Catholicism and Lutheranism, would collaborate with Fernando in his religious dialogue projects in the empire.
That May Ferdinand also visited Dresden for his negotiations with Saxony. In Lower Lusatia he issued the Privilegium Ferdinandeum on 26 May, securing the rights of the province in exchange for his diet's support against the Turks. In his only stay in Lusatia, he continued through Bautzen and Görlitz, in Upper Lusatia. In Görlitz, Ferdinand staged a royal entrance, receiving the homage of the local authorities and inaugurating a fresco in the church that showed him together his wife, his brother Carlos and his sister-in-law Isabel de Portugal. The fresco seems to have captured Fernando's personal interest, as he would ask about it again the following year.
The Margrave of Brandenburg promised to send troops after meeting Ferdinand there, adding to an offer that the dukes of Bavaria had made in parallel. Ferdinand eventually traveled via Bunzlau to Wroclaw, where he convened the Silesian diet without success. advances given that the division between Protestants and Catholics made both sides wary of sending their forces outside their borders for fear that their absence would be taken advantage of by their rivals. However, in Wroclaw Fernando received good news from Zápolya, willing to join them against the Turks in exchange for Fernandina's troops garrisoning Buda. By June Ferdinand returned via Olomouc and Linz to Austria.
Imperial and Hungarian politics
Not only in Hungary was this negotiated approach attempted. In June the religious question focused Fernando's attention. In response to the Protestant advances of the previous years, which had converted several electors and which, led by Philip of Hesse and Ulrich of Württemberg, were spreading through the south, a Catholic alliance was formed. On June 10, a league was signed in Nuremberg that added Ferdinand, the Dukes of Bavaria, Duke George of Saxony, two Dukes of Brunswick, and the Archbishops of Mainz and Salzburg. afraid of throwing the Protestants into the arms of France, of Emperor Charles V.
In August 1538 Suleiman carried out a campaign against Moldavia that alarmed the European courts, which feared that the mobilized Ottoman army would attack Hungary. Given the lack of response from Ferdinand, who feared an attack on his domains in Slavonia instead against Juan's Transylvania, Zápolya paid an extraordinary tribute to the sultan as a sign of submission. Turkish actions also devastated Venice while Spanish-Italian naval operations against the Ottomans such as Préveza (1538) or Castelnuovo (1539) were unsuccessful. Although Ferdinand also received Spanish troops for Croatia as reinforcements, his inability to pay for the logistics of a campaign or even the soldiers regularly prevented him from further action.
In parallel to Ferdinand's diplomacy and despite the Nagyvárad pact, the Queen of Poland Bona Sforza, at odds with the Habsburgs by having dynastic claims over Milan, agreed in February 1539 to marry her daughter Isabela with Juan I in search for an heir to the Hungarian dynasty. Both Fernando and Suleimán were invited to send an ambassador to the wedding, showing an ambiguous attitude.
The Turks continued to threaten Croatia and Dalmatia throughout the year, notably putting at risk the Gvozdansko mines, main sources of income for Zrínyi, who wrote to Ferdinand about the poor state of the border. Venice would eventually come to a peace with the Ottomans and a return to previous alliances with France and the Ottomans.
Meanwhile, the Habsburgs had reached the truce of Nice with France and revalidated peace with the Lutherans in the Treaty of Frankfurt in March 1539. Despite this treaty, there were attempts at conflict in October when Fernando intervened militarily in favor of Ulrich of Augsburg, which had stopped collecting tithes from Haunstetten due to the extension of the reform., Heilbronn and Strasbourg. In November there were new negotiations between Catholics and Protestants in search of a diplomatic solution.
In December, Gabriel de Salamanca, Ferdinand's former favorite and his governor in Alsace, died. Fernando then appointed Claudio Cantiuncula, his trusted advisor and a native of the region, as his new regent in Ensisheim and Johann III. von Trautson as leader of the Innsbruck regency.
Visit to the Netherlands and Alsace
The following year, Carlos traveled to Ghent to put down a localist revolt and negotiate a diplomatic solution with France. Notably, northern Italy remained in dispute (with France occupying Savoy and Piedmont and Carlos the Milanese) and the Duchy of Güeldres, disputed between Carlos and the Duke of Jülich-Cleves. Added to this was the Duchy of Lorraine on the border between the Holy Empire and France, whose Duke Antonio sought neutrality between the two powers and had also aspired to the throne of Gelderland.
Ferdinand joined his brother in the Flemish city in February and on 13 May, coming from Ghent, he marched through Brussels and Boondael to spend the night in the monastery of Groenendael. The two brothers participated in a hunt in the Habsburg palace in Groenendael. It would be a family conclave with the participation of his sisters Eleanor, Queen of France, and Maria, Governor of the Netherlands, as well as Prince Philip. Given the participation in the hunt of Ferdinand's wife, Anne of Bohemia and Hungary, and of the deposed King of Tunis now at Charles's court, Muley Hassan, it has sometimes been referred to as the day of the seven crowned heads.
Among the agreements reached, the agreement between brothers on the inheritance was reaffirmed in May and, remarkably, Ferdinand succeeded in turning the assignment of Alsace from being a lifetime usufruct to a full assignment that could bequeathed to his heirs. Ferdinand had less success with Milan, because although he continued to try to cede it, his brother retained the dukedom. As a solution to the claims of France, a wedding between Valois and Habsburg was proposed, which, if it were with Fernando's daughter, would take Milan as her dowry. Doubting the emperor's real intentions, France redoubled its efforts to ally itself with the Protestants and the Ottomans. In turn, the Habsburgs began an approach to Lorraine, promising Carlos and Fernando their niece Cristina of Denmark with the duke's heir. Ferdinand subsequently returned to Germany via Tierlemont.
Ferdinand would also be busy in the period with the episcopal restructuring of the southern Holy Roman Empire. The death in March of Lang of Wellenburg enabled him to propose his collaborator Ernest of Bavaria for the Salzburg miter, which in turn left the see of Passau vacant for Wolfang of Salm, one of his late general's sons. Both were opponents of the Reformation and on good terms with the Dukes of Bavaria, Ferdinand's strategic allies.
In June and July 1540 Ferdinand would lead the religious colloquium of Haguenau in Alsace, unsuccessfully trying to reach a diplomatic solution to the division between Catholics and Protestants in the Holy Empire. Despite all these plans, a few days before After Juan I died on July 17, 1540, his wife Isabela Jagellón of Hungary gave birth to Juan Sigismundo de Zápolya, whom Isabela and Prime Minister Martinuzzi had immediately crowned, breaking the pact with Ferdinand.
The War of 1540-1545
Fernando's offensive
Despite the coronation, Ferdinand in August claimed compliance with the Nagyvárad treaty. His forces advanced into Hungary, reclaiming the throne and reoccupying large parts of the kingdom. Ferdinand had the regained support of the Hungarian nobility, particularly Tomás Nádasdy, Franjo Frankopan, Pedro Perényi, Ferenc Bebek and Esteban Ráskay, disappointed by Martinuzzi's influence over the king and, especially, his control of royal income. The death that year of František Drugeth also led to the change of party of his brothers. The Hungarian nobility hoped that the Habsburgs, both Ferdinand himself and his brother Charles, a great enemy of the Ottomans, would in turn protect Hungary from the Turks.
Martinuzzi, who distrusted Ferdinand's ability to protect the Hungarian kingdom against the Ottomans, resorted instead to asking for help from the Ottoman Empire, and from Elizabeth's father, Sigismund I Jagiellon the Elder. Fernando opted to maintain his game of alliances by sending another embassy to the Safavids, who were still at war with the Turks, in 1540 and trying to maintain the Habsburg-Jagellon entente. He also sent his ambassador, Jerónimo Laski, to Suleiman to inform him of the treaty with Juan I. In October Fernando's forces took numerous cities such as Visegrád, Vác, Pest, Tata or Székesfehérvár but failed to enter Buda, in front of which their forces mutinied due to the lack of provisions. Added to the scarce resources were the disagreements between the Germans and the Hungarians, with different commanders who came to confront each other.
While Sigismund did not want to disturb the alliance he had made with Maximilian to contain Muscovy, Suleiman imprisoned Laski, following the Turkish custom of holding ambassadors responsible for the acts of their masters, and dispatched the Ottoman army in response. Kostajnica overcame a Turkish siege, before which Ferdinand approved new funds to prepare the southern border. During the winter of 1540 a Turkish contingent wintered in Vác, in what was the first Ottoman presence in Hungary outside the summer campaign period. This was a strategic shift for the Ottomans, who after nearly two decades of more indirect intervention in Hungary took up the idea of an open intervention against Ferdinand. With the renewed support of the Ottoman vassals, the infant John Sigismund was crowned by the diet of his Hungarian domains. France while aligning itself with the Ottomans thanks to the work of its ambassador in Constantinople, Antonio de Rincón, although it initially avoided directly intervening to avoid the scandal of supporting a Muslim power against the emperor. Unable to fight on more fronts, the Habsburgs maintained a conciliatory attitude during the failed Regensburg colloquium of early 1541 between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.
Emboldened by reports from his ambassadors that they overestimated the Persian threat to Suleiman, Ferdinand made another attempt to take Buda in May 1541 with the support of Margrave Joachim II of Brandenburg. The arrival of the Ottoman army in August meant that the campaign was a failure, dying his general Wilhelm von Roggendorf. The cities of Buda and Pest were finally taken by the Turks in September, who, with the creation of the Eyalet of Budin, began to occupy part of Hungary. Isabela, Juan Sigismundo, Martinuzzi and a good part of the Hungarian high nobility were captured by Suleiman in the capture of the capital. Suleiman proclaimed himself regent in the name of the Infante John Sigismund to protect Hungary from Ferdinand and eventually released the aristocrats he had captured as governors of the eastern Hungarian districts in his name, Törok of Enying was however held hostage by Suleiman.
The fall of the city also meant the loss of a large part of the artillery of Ferdinand's army, which he had to rebuild in the following years. To solve this, Fernando tried to hire Gregor Löffler, a foundry master who, however, was busy with commissions for Charles V, he entrusted Philippe Layminger with the creation of a new foundry in Senj and commissioned the Fugger metallurgical workshops.
The diets of 1541 and the financing of the war
Ferdinand finally summoned the Austrian and Bohemian diets in search of levies and taxes to wage open war against the Turks. Significantly, the Protestant Austrian nobleman Hans von Ungnad mediated between Ferdinand and the Diet in Linz, winning approval in October of a multi-year tax package to finance three years of war in exchange for religious guarantees in Austria. The Bohemian Diet would later approve in Prague. contribute equally to the war, apportioning the burdens according to population between Austria (one third) and the Bohemian crown (the remaining two thirds). Hungary, with an antiquated tax system that favored the nobility, contributed a separate extraordinary tax called dica, together with which Fernando managed to get a new sixtieth approved. In contrast, Anterior Austria was excluded from contributing thanks to its great fiscal autonomy, although Fernando would obtain small exceptional contributions from the region during the war. In both Austria and Bohemia it was paid on land, measured by feudal rent, while the Hungarian dica was for earned only by serfs and head. The sixtieth was also charged for the feudal estate, but with a considerable reduction to the nobility who provided military services. In Austria, in order to efficiently collect the tax, a feudal income census (Gültbücher) was created while in Bohemia the value was estimated assuming a legal interest.
These taxes were added to the sovereign's regular income. In Lower Austria additionally a household tax (Rauchfangsteuer) was established, while in Bohemia the royal cities had a semi-annual contribution and in Hungary the regular thirtieth tax on sales and contributions was collected. of the royal cities under his control. Throughout the three crowns, the sovereign also exploited the royal monopolies on salt and mining. Ferdinand was thus able to recruit 20,000 soldiers from Austria and another 5,000 from Bohemia. Among other additional measures, Ferdinand also pledged the Duchy of Glogovia to Frederick II of Legnica and ceded the Dobrilugk Abbey in Lower Lusatia to the Elector of Saxony in payment of debts, which added to the support of the Brandenburg margraves guaranteed him peace and support from the north.
To all this was added an imperial subsidy approved in 1541 and that would be revalidated year after year during the war in exchange for extensions of the religious truce of 1532, political and economic cessions and a new ecumenical attempt. Ferdinand had the support of Cardinal Morone, providential in convincing the German princes and the Pope of the need to counter Ottoman expansionism. Even Ferdinand's bitter enemies in the empire such as Philip of Hesse were alarmed by the Turkish threat. Negotiations with the diet of the Holy Empire, Fernando gained even more importance in the empire as a mediator between the princes and Carlos, equally in need of subsidies to face his wars in the Mediterranean and Italy. Ferdinand distinguished himself especially as patron of the Swabian gentry, who had no direct representation in the imperial diet.
The external efforts of the Habsburgs were, however, divided as Carlos V prevailed over the Mediterranean theater over the support for his brother in Hungary, with a failure in October in Algiers. The interests of the dynasty in the Countries did not help either. Low, as the Brussels court sought to reassert its autonomy from the empire and avoided imperial taxes. Although Fernando was the recipient of aid against the Turks, his brothers Carlos and María supported the Burgundian theses under the idea that these resources were necessary to defend the other imperial border against France. Ferdinand particularly asked his brother to contribute to the expedition of the German states in Hungary with Spanish and Italian arquebusiers, both because of the moral impact of the emperor's personal contribution and because of their experience in amphibious operations such as those that a campaign would require. on the Danube and for his knowledge of pyroballistic fortifications. However, Charles refused to commit resources from his domains outside the empire, especially while he saw the possibility of war with France, and would only keep a small contingent that he had already sent for the campaign. prior to 1541. Charles did not fulfill the promise of his vice-chancellor to personally join the campaign, which was the subject of criticism among the imperial princes.
The war against the Ottomans
Ferdinand's diplomatic rapprochement reached the treaty of Gilău with Martinuzzi on December 29, 1541, under which the agreement of Nagyvárad was recovered. The Zapólyas and the Hungarian nobility disappointed by the Turkish occupation of Buda would fight the Ottomans in exchange for respecting a principality of John Sigismund in Upper Hungary and Transylvania. Not all Hungarian nobles were supportive, with some trying to play multiple sides between the Habsburgs, the Zápolyas and the Turks. The Podmanitzky from Aszód, Matías Basó from Murányalja or the Bebek in Upper Hungary operated as quasi-independent lords and were sources of banditry and counterfeit money. Other magnates like Perenyi, Martinuzzi and Pedro Petrovics tried to thrive on the conflict. Thus, Pedro Perenyi held a conclave in May 1542 trying to organize a conspiracy. Ferdinand arrested him and confiscated the castles of Tata, Estrigonia and Visegrád while others such as Eger in Eastern Hungary passed to Zapólya or independent castilians. The Zápolyas were promised to recover their hereditary fiefs in Szepes.
In June 1542, Ferdinand again attempted to take Pest to try to prevent further Turkish advances. With Charles absent, Ferdinand refused command of the expedition and stayed in the rear organizing the logistics, which had derailed the campaigns of 1538 and 1540 and which remained problematic given the unequal contributions from the imperial states. He relied on the continued support of Joachim of Brandenburg to command the front although the campaign was again unsuccessful. The advance was slow, plagued by a shortage of supplies. resources despite the fact that Fernando financed the forces due to the delays in payments from the different states and due to the complexity of coordinating a multinational force. Only thanks to the intervention of Nicolás Zrínyi during the withdrawal was a strategic defeat avoided. The Ottoman governors of Bosnia took the opportunity to loot the castles of Garic and Racsa.
Ferdinand's failure to take Pest caused the Zápolya to renege on the Gilău agreement by December 1542. Beyond a concrete defeat, the campaign had shown that Ferdinand was incapable of a decisive victory in Hungary without the support of his brother, who however did not have Hungary among his priorities. The Ottomans in turn refused to make peace without the delivery of the fortresses around the capital. Ferdinand, however, maintained his diplomatic effort by signing a secret pact in January 1543 with the prince of Wallachia Radu Paisie, a vassal of the Ottomans, to try to open a second against the Turks.
The extension of the military frontier
Internally, the failure of the 1542 campaign also led to readjustments in Ferdinand's strategy. The strategic conception changed, with the Croatian forward defense spreading to other areas. Thus, Styria and Austria began to finance a deployment in Slavonia similar to the one that Carinthia and Carniola continued to maintain in Croatia. At the diet of Besztercebanya that year, the Hungarian states handed over to Ferdinand fortresses on the border that they could no longer hold, in a similar scheme to the one on the Croatian border. Scarce of funds, Ferdinand often pawned them to loyal nobles such as Zrínyi (on the Una line and in Slavonia), Hans von Ungnad (in Varazdin south of the Danube), Andrés Báthory (Babocsa, on the other bank of the Danube), Nadasdy (Nagykanizsa) or the Archbishop of Estrigonia Pablo Várdai (Érsekújvár to the north) in exchange for them repairing and equipping them. It would be significant if for the first time since 1528 Fernando attended said diet in person. From 1542 not only Ferdinand would personally attend the Hungarian assemblies but the Hungarian nobility would participate more in court life in Vienna.
Thanks to the new financing approved by the Styrian diet, royal troops were arriving in Slavonian fortresses such as Varazdin, Virovitica, Đurđevac, Virje and Koprivnica, until reaching 22 strongholds with Austrian financing. Ferdinand in turn committed his Royal income in Slavonia, supplemented by tithes and local ecclesiastical benefits and the resources of the Croatian ban, to reinforce the fortifications. The arrival of Italian military engineers was opted for, who introduced the latest advances in warfare technique. Thus, to the already present Domenico dell'Allio, who was working in the fortress of Varaždin (Stari grad), others such as Pietro Ferrabosco joined. In addition to Varazdin, notable investment was made in the Sisek fortress, which would consume resources for the next decade to protect Zagreb.
In another step toward the future military organization that the Habsburgs retained for centuries, Ferdinand divided the Hungarian border into the captaincies of Cisdanubia and Transdanubia. Little by little, the military council led by Salm was integrating the forces sent by the Austrian states and those of the Hungarian diet, as had already happened in Croatia. Zrínyi was appointed Ban of Croatia to replace Pedro Keglević, whose position against the Turks was seen as ambiguous at the court in Vienna. The decision was strategically considered by Ferdinand, as Zrínyi, whose states were on the front lines against the Turks, had for years been the main focus of Turkish anger over its own incursions into Ottoman territory. Nádasdy was appointed captain of Transdanubia with command of the Hungarian forces in the south of the kingdom while von Ungnad was the main authority of the Styrian contingent. To coordinate these sectors, military postal lines would be established between Pettau, Varazdin and Zagreb.
The internationalization of the conflict
The war became international due to the Franco-Ottoman alliance and the outbreak of the Italian war of 1542-1546 that caused the assassination of the French ambassador and promoter of the Turkish-French alliance, Antonio de Rincón. In addition to the direct conflicts between France and Spain, both Francis I of France, in support of the Turks, and Charles V, in support of Ferdinand, sent troops to the war for Hungary. Despite this, for Emperor Charles, hegemony in the Mediterranean and Italy were a priority over Hungary, which he sacrificed in the great strategic game when necessary. The war also spread to the western border of the Holy Empire, with a French attack against the Netherlands and the addition of William of Cleves to the French side. The French threat to Flanders cooled his sister Maria's support for Ferdinand's cause. Ferdinand in turn reached the treaty of Nuremberg with Lorraine in August, consolidating his neutrality in exchange for great autonomy within the empire.
Despite having taken the capital the year before, the situation in Hungary was not completely favorable to the Ottomans either. The Hungarian nobleman Imre Werbőczy maintained his fortresses in Tolna County, which hampered the Ottoman supply lines to Buda, and even after the fall of Buda, Zrínyi, Nádasdy, and Austrian forces continued to harass Turkish communications across the Danube. To the north, the main castle of the Podmanitzky burned, with which they ended up going over to the Habsburg side in search of protection, consolidating Fernandino's control of the northwest.
So the Turks spent the summer of 1543 seizing key fortresses to create a safe zone around Buda and prepare a route to Vienna. Suleiman undertook a new campaign taking Valpó, Atyina, Brezovica and Daruvar on the Slavonian border, as well as Siklós, Szeged and Pécs in southern Hungary. With this they protected the communications between Buda and Belgrade, forcing the Habsburg forces to operate from Szigetvár. In Fernandina Slavonia a panic like the one that had followed the defeat at Osijek spread, with a new wave of refugees heading mainly to Koprivnica in the rear. The Turkish campaign continued west of Buda with Kaposvár, Somogyvár and Battyán between the Danube and the Balaton. Strigonia in the north was enduring a siege that was seen as a priority by Ferdinand's advisers since the city defended the route to Vienna.
The resulting position war with the border system organized after 1542 however averted further dangers against Vienna: the Croatian line on the Una river stretched north with Čazma and Virovitica in Slavonia between Sisek and the Drava river, which followed on the other bank of the river with Babócsa and Nagykanizsa, which resisted a siege in May, up to Lake Balaton. To the north of the lake, Veszprém, Gyor and Komárom continued to the Danube and Érsekújvár to the north of the latter closed the route through the valleys of the rivers Nitra and Vag. Some authors have suggested that Suleiman deliberately avoided a new large-scale campaign against Vienna, since the experience of 1529 and 1532 suggested that such a threat would enable Ferdinand to raise a new army from among the imperial princes. Even so, the fall of Strygonia opened the Danube route to the Ottomans, who burned down the fortresses of Tata, Gesztes and Vitány, which was followed by the capture of Székesfehérvár. Komárom then became the main Habsburg forward position on the Danube.
In August Pedro Keglević defeated an Ottoman force at Otočac, alongside Senj, while Ferdinand was raising an army against Strigonia. However, lacking in funds and with the lack of support from the Bohemian and Moravian diets he failed to launch a new offensive in the Balaton area. In September, with the arrival of autumn and after his Tatar cavalry suffered a defeat against Zrínyi at Vásárhelyi, Suleiman ended his campaign.
In parallel, the Turkish navy began to support the French in their campaigns in Italy against the Habsburg allies during the siege of Nice in 1543. Seeking closer ties with his Italian allies, Ferdinand betrothed his daughter Catherine to Francis III Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Marquis of Montferrat. Together with the Milanese in the hands of Charles, these allies protected the southern border of their states and the Count of Enghien's campaign of 1543 also threatened Ferdinand's domains. Notably, that year the fortress of Marano fell through treason and was sold by a condottiero to the Republic of Venice, much to Ferdinand's anger. In 1544 the defeat at Cerisoles showed that the Habsburg position in northern Italy was still not hegemonic. and a counter-attack to retake Marano failed, although Fernando did manage to recapture Aquileia.
The Truce of 1545
In 1544 the Ottomans finished creating a defensive belt around Buda by taking Pakrac, Fejérkõ, Velika and Kistallóc in the south and Visegrád, Nógrád and Hatvan in the north, although they failed in Szécsény in the latter forehead. That same year the ambitious Valentin Török of Enying, who had been imprisoned by the sultan, renounced the domains he had established in Western Hungary in exchange for his release. Although part of them were effectively occupied by the Turks, who established fiefdoms for timariots in Hungary, other parts such as Gesztes returned to Ferdinand hands. Notably, Ferdinand secured the fortress of Szigetvár north of the Danube, key to the dispute over Slavonia with Pécs in hands. As long as Szigetvár was in Ferdinand's hands, Zrínyi's raids could harass the Ottoman rear, preventing the beys of southern Hungary and Slavonia from joining forces and threatening the supply of garrisons in and around Buda.
Fernando was facing an internal conflict that was on the rise again. He had recently expelled the preacher Václav Mitmánek from Bohemia and that same year, alarmed by the spread of Lutheranism, he recaptured the Duchy of Glogovia in Silesia from the Protestant Frederick II of Legnica. Ferdinand tried to propose a change of policy in Silesia, with more presence of loyal Bohemian and Austrian nobles despite the fact that the local charters required that the authorities of the province be chosen from among the local nobility. In Bohemia, on the other hand, he would take advantage of the burning of the archives to pressure the diet to consider his coronation in 1527 a hereditary homage rather than an election.
In the south and west, the challenges were also increasing. The city of Augsburg clashed with him by supporting Lutheran preachers in Mindelaltheim, part of Burgau. However, Ferdinand prevailed because his legal position as ruler of the territory caused the Schmalkaldic League to refuse to support the city. he had to intervene by confiscating from the controversial lord Hans Wolf von Habsberg the cities of Waldshut and Rheinfelden that he had in pledge before the threat of a local revolt. His brother Carlos also began to press for a peace that would allow him to focus on imperial politics and he sent his own ambassadors,
Ferdinand's finances remained depleted, with the Hungarian accounts of 1544 being the subject of an audit from Austria. In 1545 Ferdinand had to borrow a large loan from the Manlichs, in addition to pawning Thann to Christoph Herwart and rents from his monopoly on salt to Hans Hoffman. Fernando would trust Philiph Breiner, a bureaucrat of the Austrian chamber, to audit the financial situation.In Tyrol Fernando tried, through his son Maximilian's, to reform the province's ineffective fiscal system.
Their opponents faced similar problems. Martinuzzi held a diet of Eastern Hungary in August to consolidate zápolya rule over Transylvania and eastern Upper Hungary after having to suppress internal revolts. Suleiman was focused on deposing Radu Paisie in Wallachia and had another border escalation against Persia. In this context, Ferdinand tried as early as 1544 to negotiate a truce without success. It was the Peace of Crépy in September, which brought an end to the conflicts between the Habsburgs and France in Italy, that opened up the possibility of a peace. The French began mediating between their Ottoman allies and Ferdinand, hoping to diplomatically recapture Milan with a wedding to Ferdinand's daughter according to one of the options raised in Crepy.
In May 1545, the Turks defeated Zrínyi at Konjšćina (Moslavina in Slavonia), although the Croatian forces took refuge in the castle after burning the Ustilonje fort so that it would not fall into enemy hands. In Hungary the situation was not it was better, with Ottoman forces taking Döbrököz, Werbőczy's last position in Tolna. Despite this, Nagykanizsa returned to survive elsewhere, preventing threats to the Austrian duchies. Ferdinand finally signed a humiliating truce in 1545. The Hungarian kingdom was de facto divided, now into three parts: a western part under Habsburg control, with little progress since the peace of 1533, a central part under Ottoman rule., true victors of the war, and a Zápolya kingdom now reduced to eastern Hungary around Upper Hungary, the Transylvanian voivodeship and neighboring counties (Temesvár, Hunyad, Bihar, Maramaros), under Ottoman tutelage and facing Ferdinand in a struggle to reunify Hungary.
In northern Hungary, many lords had reached semi-independent status, so Ferdinand managed to get his brother Carlos to cede a third of 2,400 soldiers under Álvaro de Sande to bring the Kostkas and Podmanitzkys back to obedience. Sande was the grandson of Sancho de Paredes, former mayordomo of his childhood court in Spain, and part of a family that Fernando always protected.
Wars in the Holy Empire
Diplomatic attempts and the Swabian campaign
The peace of Crépy in Italy in 1544 and the truce with the Turks in 1545 allowed the Habsburgs to respond to the growing Protestant threat. Likewise, the successive deaths of Antony of Lorraine (1544) and Francis of Lorraine (1545) left the niece of Ferdinand and Carlos, Cristina of Denmark, as pro-Habsburg regent in the strategic duchy of Lorraine. The change of policy in the Holy Roman Empire was also accompanied in 1544 by a change of vice-chancellor, replacing Johann Ulrich Zasius with Georg Gienger von Rotteneck. In December 1545, the Council of Trent began, aimed at proposing a counter-reformation of the Catholic Church to respond to the increasing conflicts. After certain disputes about the headquarters, it was decided to hold the council in Trent, as it was the border between Italy, close to the papacy, and the German lands of the Protestants. It was also in an autonomous bishopric, but strongly linked to Ferdinand's Tyrolean domains.
The conflict also exacerbated internal religious problems in Bohemia, where the Moravian Brotherhood-supporting Czech nobility sympathized with the Protestants and discontent against Ferdinand's centralizing and pro-Catholic policy was growing. Despite this opposition, the Bohemian nobility she was divided over the prospect of participating in an imperial conflict. In May 1546 Ferdinand annulled the sale of the duchies of Legnica, Wohlau, and Brzeg to the Lutheran Margrave of Brandenburg. The unfulfilled contract of the Hohenzollers with the duke would, however, continue to be used by them in the following centuries.
Despite these negotiations, conflict broke out in Swabia in the summer of 1546 when Protestant forces threatened Augsburg. The Protestants overwhelmed the Catholic forces in the south of the Empire, besieging them at Ingolstadt. However, internal dissensions on the Protestant side prevented an agreement to attack Fernando's domains, which remained formally neutral. Thanks to the fact that the Tyrol pass was under Ferdinand's control, the forces of William IV of Bavaria, Charles's imperial forces from the Netherlands, and Octavio Farnesio's papal forces from Italy could congregate. In July, the Habsburgs formally outlawed top Protestant leaders for having deposed the Catholic Henry V of Brunswick-Lüneburg against imperial law, beginning open warfare.
The Habsburgs thereafter neutralized leading Protestant princes in southern Germany such as Frederick II of the Palatinate and imposed fines and limits on Lutheran municipal control in the imperial cities of Augsburg and Ulm. Among the results of the 1546 campaign was the submission of the Protestant Ulrich of Wurtemberg with whom, despite Ferdinand's wishes to recover the dukedom, Carlos signed the Treaty of Heilbronn in which, in exchange for heavy fines, his abandonment of the league and a diplomatic humiliation confirmed him on the throne. The decision began a period of progressive estrangement between the brothers.Philip of Hesse remained in opposition to the Habsburgs, although he had consumed his resources and ceased to be an active threat.
The Creation of an Imperial Coalition and the Saxon Campaign
Following Catholic successes in Swabia, Protestant resistance centered around Elector John Frederick I of Saxony in the northeast. Particularly, Ferdinand's diplomatic activity in October 1546 was critical for weaving a network of alliances in Germany, winning over, among others, Duke Mauricio de Saxony, Juan Federico's cousin. In addition to his negotiations with Frederick, Ferdinand married his daughters Ana to Albert V of Bavaria, a prominent Catholic leader in the Empire with whom Ferdinand sought to consolidate ties, and Maria to William of Jülich-Cleveris-Berg, a wealthy moderate Catholic duke. that with this alliance he was reintegrated into the peace of the Venlo treaty.
At the beginning of 1547, Juana, Ferdinand's last daughter, was born, and his beloved wife Ana Jagellón of Hungary and Bohemia died on January 27 due to complications from childbirth. Fernando, very close to his wife, would not remarry and provided in the new testament that he wrote that year that they were buried together at his death. Both Fernando and his eldest sons Maximilian and Fernando participated personally in the campaign of 1547, with Maximilian beginning to intervene personally in Habsburg politics. For this reason, and given his reputation for being close to the Protestants, Fernando and Carlos agreed to his wedding with his cousin María of Austria and Portugal and a period of stay as regent in Spain. As part of the guarantees and counter-guarantees of these dynastic links, Ferdinand confirmed Maximilian as his successor in Bohemia in exchange for him renouncing to exercise the royal title while his father was alive. The relationship between father and son would become more complicated over the years. following years, with Maximiliano demanding more money for his court or showing misgivings about the participation of his brother Fernando in the government. Fernando shared numerous points in common with his second son and despite being his second son, he was considered his favorite son.
However, Ferdinand suffered a rebellion from the Czech nobility, who refused to support the war against the Protestants now that the war was approaching their very borders. This nobility, headed by the Burgrave of Prague as their leader, He refused to join the forces assembled with Mauricio, an example that was followed by the Lusatian League of Upper Lusatia, which ended up discharging the assembled troops despite letters from Fernando, and which ended up spreading to Lower Lusatia and Moravia. While Ferdinand and the forces of the territories that were loyal to him met Mauritius in Most, Frederick of Saxony invaded bohemian towns on the border such as Přísečnice or Jáchymov.
In order to carry out the campaign, Ferdinand negotiated with the Turks to extend the existing truce, with his ambassador obtaining promising results earlier in the year in exchange for promises of tribute. This would leave both sides free to fight their enemies in the Holy Empire and Persia, respectively. The negotiations show both a shift from Ferdinand's eastern policy to a more realistic one, and a greater personal involvement on his part now than in previous decades his position as head of the house of Habsburgs in Central Europe had strengthened. Likewise, their diplomatic service is seen to have matured further. The resulting Treaty of Adrianople alarmed the Zápolya side but Suleiman's subsequent departure on a campaign in Persia meant that Ferdinand finally felt secure. on its eastern border. The death in March 1547 of the Habsburgs' other great rival, Francis I of France, kept peace on the Habsburgs' western border. rgo allowing them to continue their focus on the Holy Empire.
After receiving a defiant response from the Bohemian diet that March demanding limitations on royal power, Charles and Ferdinand rallied their forces in Bohemia, suppressing the rebellious Bohemian nobility and cornering the Elector of Saxony. The war ended that year with a Catholic victory in that campaign at the Battle of Mühlberg in April 1547, which forced the capitulation of Wittenberg. Shortly after, the other great Protestant leader, Philip of Hesse, was captured, although the Lutheran cities on the German north coast managed to resist the imperial armies with a final victory at the Battle of Drakenburg.
The capitulation of Wittenberg
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The terms of the peace at Wittenberg deposed the Ernestine branch of the Saxon electorate in favor of their cousin Maurice, of the Albertine branch. On the border between Bohemia and Saxony, Ferdinand and Mauricio shared the barony of Schwarzenberg, although the detailed distribution required negotiations in the following years.
Another great beneficiary was Henry IV of Plauen, a nobleman with properties in Bohemia and Saxony, and who as chancellor of Bohemia had been Ferdinand's ambassador in the negotiations with Mauritius. Henry expanded his possessions in Vogtland, on the border between Bohemia and Saxony, regaining the lands in Saxony that had belonged to his father and receiving the title of prince. Ferdinand also recovered the lands of Dobrilugk Abbey in Lusatia, which Saxony had seized in 1541 as compensation for non-payment of Bohemian debts. Aš, in the vicinity of Egerland, would also be integrated into Bohemia in the following years.
Ferdinand, as King of Bohemia, also reorganized the situation in Silesia. He took for the crown the duchy of Sagan, which was also in the hands of the defeated Saxon branch, and took over the regency of the duchies of Opole and Racibórz, from the Margrave of Ansbach, barely 5 years old, Georg Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach, replacing the Protestant Albert of Prussia. The last great piast, Federico II of Legnica, had died in 1547 and Ferdinand confirmed the succession by his Lutheran sons, Federico III and Jorge, who divided up his domains.
In June the treaty of Adrianople with the Turks was finally signed. The peace consolidated the de facto situation in Hungary and closed in Ferdinand's favor the main disputed points, such as the former domains of Perenyi and Törok de Enying, in exchange for a tribute of 30,000 guilders per year. That left in the hands of Fernando a section in the Danube in the Tata area and in the Drava around Szigetvár, both of great strategic value.
The Bloody Diet
In Bohemia and Upper Lusatia, a repression (Pönfall under German law for subjects revolting against authority) of the Protestant sector followed. After reducing resistance in Prague in July, Ferdinand entered the city in August and celebrated the so-called bloody diet, which featured acts of public humiliation of the Prague authorities, four executions in the city, and twenty-six imprisonments of nobles or municipal officials, including the Bishop Jan Augusta. In addition, there was a centralization of the Bohemian administration, in charge of which he left his second son Ferdinand as viceroy. After the military victory, Ferdinand was able to introduce royal officials to intervene in the governments of the royal cities and the queen. Minting also passed from the Nejvyšší mincmistr, one of the crown offices, to the accounting chamber appointed by the king. Ferdinand also introduced a court of appeals (rada nad apelacemi) under the king over the city courts and feudal lords, creating a royal justice. The new court also avoided the usual recourse to jurisdiction from Magdeburg or Leipzig, outside the Bohemian crown and now in Protestant territory. Eventually, the freedom of the press in the country was restricted.
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Ferdinand introduced a princely rank into the Bohemian noble hierarchy, to accommodate Henry's new territories in Plauen and as a possible fit for the Silesian duchies, despite the historical rejection that Czech nobles had shown for fear that it would weakened the power of the gentry in the diet. Henry's new position brought him into conflict with the Counts of Rosenberg, who until then held a preferential position after the king in the noble hierarchy. Ferdinand would accept a forgery of the Rosenbergs to justify his ceremonial pre-eminence among the Bohemian nobility.
Property confiscated from cities and imprisoned nobles passed into the royal patrimony, given to those who had remained loyal, or quickly sold to pay off debts. The Czech chamber of accounts thus took charge of the cities of Luby, Čelákovice, Chlumec, Horní Slavkov, Litomysl or Vimperk, increasing the revenues of the crown, which also took over properties such as the castles of Loket and Freudenstein or the silver mines. from Jáchymov and increased the network of royal palaces and hunting grounds with Pardubice, Brandýs, Kostelec and Lysá on the Elbe. Bohemian cities that had maintained their support for the crown such as Pilsen, Budějovice or Ústí nad Labem kept their estates. Fernando also introduced a tax on beer, a booming economic activity in the country and easy to tax, which has since provided significant funding for the crown independent of the diet. All this made the campaign an economic success, with exceptional income from a million guilders vs. 500,000 guilders cost, and would catapult Ferdinand's recurring income in the Bohemian crown to 400,000-500,000 guilders per year.
Prague, the Lusatian League and the royal cities thus saw their traditional powers curtailed and many of their properties confiscated. Thus, for example, Görlitz lost its right to mint money, the municipalities that made up Prague had royally appointed captains and justice in the cities passed to royal judges. The municipal authorities of Lusatia saw their mandates limited and began to require royal approval like the one Ferdinand had imposed on Vienna in previous decades. In addition, rebellious cities had to pay fines to finance the campaign, which together with the confiscations plunged them into debt and annulled them as political power. In Upper Lusatia, this ended the dispute between nobility and cities for political power in favor of the former, which had become remained loyal to Ferdinand. The cities that Ferdinand acquired for the crown were considered "chamber cities" (královštíi rychtáři) instead of royal cities and therefore without its own presence in the diet. Even in royal cities the new financial control of the monarch allowed him to finance himself through forced loans from the treasury of the cities.
In other territories of the Bohemian crown, where support for the rebels had been more limited, the repression was more lax. In Moravia, Jihlava, the only royal city that had openly sided with the rebels, had to pay fines and some properties of the recently deceased governor and leader of the noble party John III of Pernstein, such as Kyjov and Nový Bydžov, were confiscated. However, the lack of clearer support from the states of Moravia and Glatz County for the rebellion and Pernstein's early reconciliation led to softer treatment in those territories. In Lower Lusatia the municipalities of Guben and Luckau were accused of having supported the rebels but were acquitted. In Silesia the province had also remained neutral and only the local diet of Świdnica-Jawor had supported the revolt. Fernando in Silesia limited himself to ending the power of the municipalities in the regional diet as well.
The repression after the victory in Bohemia has been considered by some authors as one of the main stains on Ferdinand's reign, with some authors pointing out that the harshness and even cruelty in his response would be another sign of the pride and temperament that It had already manifested itself as a young man and that, although it was controlled with maturity, it still showed in situations where it felt offended its status. Other authors have pointed out that it was nevertheless mild compared to the consequences of the previous Hussite wars and have pointed out that it was they sought ways to peacefully integrate the moderate Utraquist sector. In the following years, many municipalities would gradually recover their self-government and some of their properties. Some authors also note that Fernando punished disobedience to the king, but did not take religious measures against the Lutheran majorities of the Lusatian cities, showing an inclination to accept religious differences as long as their authority was respected dad.
The Augsburg Interim
The Augsburg interim, proclaimed in May 1548 after the victory against Saxony and revoking concessions to Lutherans from previous diets, was an attempt to restore imperial order after the Catholic victory. A group of Protestants headed by Philip Melanchthon was willing to at least partially accept the interim although most Lutheran preachers rejected it. Despite the fact that the victory left the Habsburgs unrivaled in the empire, the rift between the brothers continued to grow due to disagreements over how to treat the defeated Protestants and Charles's attempt to rethink the imperial succession that had been agreed in 1531 to the elect Ferdinand King of the Romans. His sister Maria of Hungary began to act as a mediator between the two.
The interim had consequences in Swabia and Austria. The free imperial city of Constance, formerly the seat of a bishopric that had abandoned the city when it became Lutheran territory, refused the interim and was outlawed. Although repelling initial attacks by Spanish troops in August, Innsbruck's regency forces joined the campaign and ended up taking the city in September, which was incorporated into Ferdinand's Anterior Austria. The bishoprics of Trent and Brixen were also included in the Tyrolean imperial tuition, effectively exempting them from paying taxes. Likewise, the county of Schaunberg, adjoining Upper Austria and whose sovereign had converted to Lutheranism, he lost his imperial immediacy and was finally a vassal of the Duke of Austria.
Similarly, within Ferdinand's Austrian dominions the religious question disappeared from the political demands of the diets. In Carniola Primož Trubar, who had been a prominent Protestant preacher, was outlawed as part of a counter-reformation campaign by the Bishop of Laibach The Lutheran canon Paul Wiener was also expelled from Carniola, who would take refuge among the Saxons of Transylvania bringing the reform to the region. By the end of 1548 the Leipzig interim softened some points of the Augsburg interim although Lutheran discontent remained high.
Progress in Hungary
The campaign of 1549
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The victory against the Protestants left Ferdinand with forces available to resume the war in Hungary from 1548. Overall in 1548–1549 there was a decisive reorganization of Ferdinand's military forces. The project to adapt the walls of Vienna with modern bastions for artillery warfare began. At the request of the Styrian diet, a similar project was started in Graz, fortifying the Schloßberg hill. Other border towns whose fortresses were reinforced include Bad Radkersburg, Marburg, Pettau, and Rann. Work continued on the Slavonian border at Varaždin, Koprivnica, Križevci and Ivanić-Grad and Hochosterwitz Castle in Carinthia. All this took place under the direction of dell'Allio, who relied on his brother and the comasken or gangs of workers from the Lake Como region, which was an important vector of propagation in Fernando's domains of new aesthetic (notably Renaissance architecture) and technological currents (highlighting the incorporation of powder magazines or Pulvertürme and towers designed for defense by artillery instead of archers).
In Bohemia and Hungary Ferdinand agreed with his sister Maria, Louis's widow, the reincorporation into the royal patrimony of the properties that the widowed queen had retained as her dowry. This included the queen's cities in Bohemia, the city West Hungarian Magyaróvár, which had a similar status, the Hungarian towns in the rich mining area of the northwest that had been given to her as dowry to which Maria had added by purchasing possessions in Slavonia. As Ferdinand was a widower, these cities returned to royal control, not only increasing their income but reactivating interest in securing Upper Hungary and its rich mines. Thanks to a contract in 1548 for the Manlich trading house to act as commercial agent, the imperial treasury put back into operation the rich copper mines of Besztercebánya that the Fuggers had abandoned in 1546. In parallel, the extension of the Habsburg administration had brought its revenue-raising capacity to 35 counties, taking its Hungarian finances to new heights.
Meanwhile, the now vacated troops, including German forces under Prince Nicholas II of Salm, Spanish under Field Master Bernardo de Aldana, and Italian under Giambattista Castaldo, waged a campaign against the rebellious neighboring nobles Melchor Balassa and Matías Basó, expanding Ferdinand's domain in Upper and Lower Hungary and extending his control to Léva, Sitno, Csábrágvarbók and Murányalja. The military command was held by Salm, Ferdinand's favorite and who had personal interests in the area given the involvement of his family in mining in Hungary. Basó was finally captured and executed in 1549. Other nobles of varying loyalties in the area such as Ferenc Bebek (lord of the castles around Krásna Hôrka) and Esteban Dobó (in charge of Eger Castle) they finally joined the campaign as vassals of Fernando before his new regional hegemony. He was also able to establish his supporter Nicolás Olahus as bishop of Eger, a vacant seat for years and which entailed the county control of Heves and that of important revenues to garnish the castle of the same name.
The campaign was strategically planned as it projected Ferdinand's power to Upper Hungary and Transylvania, jeopardizing the Ottoman influence in his vassals (Transylvania, Wallachia, Moldavia) and with it their logistical capacity for new campaigns on the Danube. Ferdinand was aware of the division of the Transylvanian court, with his minister Martinuzzi confronting the queen and trying to find a mediator who would allow him to negotiate with Ferdinand. Also that Suleiman, focused on his war with the Safavids and the negotiation of a perpetual peace with Poland, had little capacity to respond. Sigismund II was equally unable to assist his sister due to his own internal problems. The military campaign was accompanied by an intense diplomatic game that kept Ferdinand negotiating with Transylvanian factions and winning the support of magnates such as the diplomat Antonio Verancsics or Andrés Bathory, Lord of Ecsed, while controlling the Ottoman reaction which diplomatically protested the occupation of Murányalja but took no action against the fait accompli. His main failure was instead his attempt to enlist his brother Charles, who was once again focused on Mediterranean policy, prompted the French to redouble their attempts to refocus the Ottomans on their Western policy.
The Turkish campaign in Persia, however, was not going well, which emboldened Ferdinand. Reports from his diplomats, who had traveled to Aleppo to see the Sultan at his campaign headquarters, assured Ferdinand that the ability Turkish response to his advances was small. The territorial advances also boosted the income of Ferdinand's Hungarian estate, allowing him to redeem royal estates in the country that had been pledged to finance previous wars. vacant ecclesiastical benefices in sees such as Eger and taxes through corvea or serf labor, Fernando began a new campaign of fortifications on the northern border. The collaboration of foreign professional troops was also vital, as they allowed the creation of new pyroballistic fortifications in the route between Lower, Upper Hungary and Transylvania as Szolnok.
The Treaty of Weissenburg
At the end of 1549, Turkish policy turned again to the West. Meanwhile, in Hungary, Bishop Jorge Martinuzzi, regent of Queen Elizabeth Jagiellon, had reached an untenable situation after falling out of favor with the queen and the sultan Ottoman and intensified his negotiations with Ferdinand. Without many other options, he had seized power in 1550 and, after rejecting Turkish maneuvers, offered the crown of a reunited Hungary to Ferdinand with the treaty of Weissenburg in July 1551. Ferdinand, who spent late 1550 in Augsburg in negotiations with imperial princes, responded forcefully given his knowledge of Ottoman unpreparedness to respond. In return, Ferdinand confirmed Martinuzzi as Voivode of Transylvania while Pope Julius III made him a cardinal. Elizabeth obtained the promise of rents of 100,000 guilders with the duchies of Opole, Racibórz and Münsterberg in Silesia, with Kassa in Upper Hungary as pledge until the reception of his new domains. Likewise, his son Juan Segismundo would be engaged to Fernando's youngest daughter, Juana. For this, Fernando would exchange those ducats to Jorge Federico de Brandenburg-Ansbach, of which he was regent, for the duchy of Sagan and redeem the mortgage on Münsterberg.
A small group of Habsburg forces were reaching Kassa, Tokaj and Transylvania and setting up an eastern defensive line with Temesvár as a key stronghold. Control of Transylvania, and particularly the rich salt mines of Máramaros, was an important addition. to Ferdinand's domains, which expanded his Hungarian tax administration by sending the German-Hungarian Haller to manage the new revenues. Added to this was the renewed control over the Transylvanian Saxon cities, whose taxes were an important support of Ferdinand's Transylvanian administration Instead, his ambassadors informed him that the Turks were beginning a diplomatic campaign to reverse Fernandino's advances, especially by negotiating an alliance with Poland.
Receiving no more than a fraction of her new Silesian estates due to Ferdinand's financial problems, Elizabeth took refuge with her son at her brother's Polish court. Although Poland's King Sigismund II Augustus Jagiellon could have attended his sister Isabela against Ferdinand, the threat of reissuing the old Habsburg support for Moscow, which under Ivan the Terrible was in full swing on his eastern border, led him reluctantly to agree to a new marriage with Catalina, Ferdinand's widowed daughter, and reissuing the alliance between the Habsburgs and the Jagiellons. Again, Ferdinand went into debt with the Fuggers to pay for the marriage dowry.
However, the pressure of the Ottomans against Hungary continued although without opening large-scale hostilities due to the Habsburg hegemony of the moment. After Mühlberg the Protestants had ceased to be a threat in the empire and France was not an active threat against the Habsburgs either after the costly Italian war of 1542-1546 and the death of Francis I. Both dangers were, however, as latent as the Turkish one. The Moravian diet had thwarted Ferdinand's attempts to reintegrate the Utraquists into Catholic orthodoxy, and in 1550 they came into open conflict with him. The Lutherans revived their alliance at Torgau in May 1551 with the addition of a disillusioned Maurice of Saxony. the policy of Carlos V and especially for the prison to which the Protestant leaders had been subjected violating the terms of their surrender. Ferdinand deposed his Silesian vassal Frederick III of Legnica for joining the league, although the Protestants lacked the military capacity to challenge the Habsburgs in the empire.
The murder of Martinuzzi
From that same summer of 1551 and as a result of the Franco-Ottoman alliance, France and the Turks escalated their actions against the Habsburgs in a new war in the Mediterranean with the sieges of Gozo (July 1551) and Tripoli (August of 1551). The objective was to reverse the naval predominance of Carlos V after the capture of Mahdía (1550) as preliminaries of a new Italian war where France and the Ottomans would face the Habsburgs.
Martinuzzi, in a Transylvania on the border and to which hardly a vanguard had arrived, maintained an ambiguous policy with the Turks. Added to his intriguing nature was a personal conflict with Castaldo, who, after Salm's death in December 1550, had assumed supreme command of Fernandina's forces in Hungary. Csanád, garrisoned by a Serb contingent, fell into Turkish hands in October without These troops offered resistance and shortly after it was a Transylvanian nobleman who surrendered Lippa without a fight. The voivode also delayed the arrival of another Fernandino army that under the condottiere Sforza Pallavicini came to reinforce Castaldo. Ferdinand's forces would soon recover Lippa, Martinuzzi achieving a surrender of the Turkish forces in exchange for being able to evacuate the square in good conditions. Similar happened with Csanád, where however the Habsburg troops did not respect the terms of the surrender. Suspecting that Martinuzzi was cooperating with the Turks, Castaldo ordered his assassination in December 1551 with the connivance of Ferdinand himself.
Since Martinuzzi had been made a cardinal, the assassination caused both Castaldo and Fernando to be excommunicated by Pope Julius III, who had ended up allying with France due to Italian policy. Only after Julius III's death and the election of his successor Paul, and Ferdinand's sending a lengthy indictment to the pope, detailing 87 charges against Martinuzzi with 116 witnesses, was the excommunication lifted in 1555.
The reactivation of the conflict in the Holy Empire
The Imperial Succession
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Charles' absence had meant that Ferdinand presided over almost all the imperial diets. However, the religious policy and Carlos's plan to inherit the imperial crown to his son Felipe, despite Ferdinand being the heir apparent (both by the Brussels pact of 1522 and by his title of King of the Romans), He was distancing both brothers during that period of Franco-Ottoman rearmament. Although it is possible that Carlos wanted Ferdinand to ascend to the imperial throne with Philip as his successor as King of the Romans (beginning an alternation in the imperial crown between both Habsburg branches), the version considered most likely in the German courts was that Felipe would be named emperor directly, relegating Fernando.
The plan was generally disliked by the German courts, which saw yet another possible foreign and absent emperor, and particularly by the imperial electors, whose prerogatives were disregarded. For Charles, naming his son Philip ensured that the emperor he had the resources to defend the empire provided by the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, while Ferdinand objected to what was a violation of imperial legality. The plan led Carlos to reconsider again the cession of the Alsatian and Rhineland territories, keys to create a border area with France and to allow communications between Italy, Burgundy and the Netherlands.
The conflict was exacerbated by the position of Fernando's eldest son, Maximiliano. Ferdinand planned to divide his territories among his three sons, widening the inequalities between the inheritances that all the Habsburg cousins expected to receive. Charles's character had rarely allowed for disagreements in the family, and Maximilian felt that his father always sacrificed his interests. along with those of his children before the will of his brother. Since 1550 Maximilian had asked to return to the Holy Empire, fearing that he would be seen in the race for the imperial throne as a foreigner as had been the case with his father, to which Carlos he had opposed it, the two brothers clashing over the issue. During a brief period when he was allowed to return in 1550–1551, the young prince sounded out the electors and foreign powers such as Venice and France to oppose his uncle's plans.
Likewise, Fernando, more pragmatic than his brother, showed his rejection of the subordination that Carlos made of imperial policy, both in terms of maintaining internal peace and in his defense against foreign threats such as the Turks, in the face of his policy Burgundian and religious. Carlos, in turn, in the same financial problems as Fernando, reproached him for the contributions for the defense of the empire that went mostly to him and for the little gratitude he had given him during the recent war in Smalcalda. In 1551-1552 both brothers hardly spoke to each other except through their sister Maria in the Netherlands.
By the end of 1551, a rebellious Maximilian was returning to the Holy Empire. From then on, the young prince would be the focus of opposition to his uncle's projects at Ferdinand's court.
The crisis of 1552
Despite the rising tension between the brothers, Ferdinand continued to play the role of intermediary between the princes and Charles V. He led the settlement of the religious conflict that resurfaced as the Protestant princes tried to reverse post-Mühlberg Catholic hegemony. While the Habsburgs were divided over inheritance, the Lutherans tried to remedy their military weakness with an alliance with France in January 1552, offering France the Three Bishoprics on the Rhenish border in exchange for their support. Fernando had a meeting with Mauricio de Saxony in April 1552 to try to find a diplomatic solution.
Distancing from his brother Carlos, Ferdinand began to take an increasingly independent position in his imperial politics. Despite Maurice of Saxony's betrayal of Charles in the episode of the flight from Innsbruck in May 1552, Ferdinand continued the negotiations for the peace of Passau in June and July 1552. Maurice's electorate was a neighbor of the Bohemian kingdom of Ferdinand and both managed to keep their relationship outside the conflict between Mauricio and the emperor, although Carlos continued to reject peace with his enemy. The Passau negotiations showed Ferdinand himself and the neutral states closest to the Protestant rebels facing an unpopular imperial government for being considered foreign. Ferdinand in particular was in favor of making religious concessions, something that Carlos always rejected, thereby gaining the support of many imperial princes.
Despite Carlos's hard line, the release of the Protestant prisoners was agreed on September 2 in exchange for the withdrawal of their support for France. Another settled issue was the inheritance of Ulrich of Wurtemberg, who died in 1550 and over whose dukedom Fernando continued to have claims. His son Cristóbal de Wurtemberg had to pay fines for having failed to comply with the Augsburg interim.
The Turkish Offensive of 1552
Ottoman advance
Meanwhile, the Turks had been alarmed by Ferdinand's advance into Transylvania and in the spring of 1552 began a new offensive. His campaign was a success, surprising an Aldana in attempting a risky move against Szeged in February. The Turks began a siege against the main Fernandina fortress, Temesvár, in April.
To the southwest and trying to ease the pressure against Transylvania, Zrínyi achieved initial successes in Slavonia by seizing and demolishing Ottoman forts in Požega such as Gradiška, although the Bosnian governor had forces in reserve. Without raising the siege of Temesvár, the Ottomans recaptured ground in Slavonia and counterattacked by besieging Zrínyi at Virovitica. Across the river, the Turks took Görösgalt and threatened Szigetvár. Further north, Veszprém fell into Turkish hands in June when part of the garrison deserted, and the bishop has since moved to Sümeg Castle.
In eastern Hungary the Ottomans also continued to advance. Szolnok to the northeast also fell in June, complicating supply lines to Transylvania. Other nearby fortresses such as Eger or Lippa were under siege. Local militias (banderia) were recruited and Ferdinand urged his son Maximilian, whom he had installed as governor in Hungary, to update the fortifications in places such as Pressburg and Zagreb. his different states, Ferdinand sent 7000 reinforcement soldiers under the command of Erasmus Teuffel to Hungary.
The Turks continued their campaign through Upper Hungary and several fortresses in the first defensive line, beginning with Drégely in July, fell in a chain as garrisons, sparse and often without receiving their soldiers, deserted. Fernando in the area were uncoordinated, with Erasmus Teuffel not helping Dregely from his base in Léva. Ipolyság, Germat, Hollókő, Szécsény and Bújak thus fell into Turkish hands in northern Hungary.
The fall of Temesvár, the defeat at Palást and the loss of Čazma
Finally in July Temesvár capitulated after a defeat at Szentandrás. Its fall sank the eastern front and successively Becse, Becskerek, Arad and Lippa in south-east Hungary passed into Turkish hands. The front passed to besieged Eger and Gyula, which remained in Ferdinand's hands. The brutality of the Turks with the Temesvár garrison, in retaliation for the events in Lippa of the previous year, the risk of losing communications with Hungary without Szolnok, and the riots in Transylvania over Martinuzzi's murder left Castaldo in a precarious situation.
The failure of the defensive line in Transylvania led to a crossover of accusations between Ferdinand's generals, including a trial for the new surrender of Lippa. In particular, the fall of Szolnok, key to communications with Transylvania and in which considerable resources had been invested, was a disappointment at the court in Vienna. Castaldo not only had problems collaborating with Martinuzzi but also with his subordinate, Aldana, with whom he had quarrels from the campaigns in Germany. Said Aldana, in favor of whom Charles V and his son Felipe intervened, was sentenced. In general It seems that Fernando's forces, with backward soldiers and led by an Aldana unaccustomed to the complexities of leading a multinational force, performed poorly on the defensive line that had been devised.
Shortly thereafter, the remaining Habsburg army in Hungary was defeated at the Battle of Palást (present-day Plášťovce) in August. The defeat was almost total, Teuffel and Pallavicino being captured and panic spreading in Upper Hungary and the mining towns. The Turkish general in command however returned to Buda to receive orders from Suleiman without advancing further north. That same month of August the Virovitica garrison also capitulated, and although Nádasdy's intervention saved Đurđevac, it was followed by the fall of Čazma, putting Zagreb and Sisek in danger. Pedro Erdödi and Jorge Frankopán carried out raids against Turkish territory in answer.
The failure in Slavonia created a stir similar to the fall of Szolnok. Hans von Ungnad, who led the Styrian nobility, publicly criticized Zrínyi, who received large subsidies to defend the border but had not been able to successfully open a second front. Zrínyi submitted his resignation, which however was not accepted by Ferdinand receiving instead new reinforcements for his castles on the Una. Zrínyi wrote in October to Ferdinand asking for reinforcements to retake Čazma and, despite criticism from Ungnad, Styria would approve new exceptional contributions to re-establish the front in Slavonia. Other Austrian provinces as Lower Austria they also increased their contributions, doubling their income since 1552 (with the exception of Former Austria).
Eger's site
However, the Eger garrison, commanded by Esteban Dobó, managed to win against all odds in the 1552 siege in the north of the country. The fortress was key to protecting the lightly fortified Kassa and avoiding the isolation of Transylvania and, despite its numerical inferiority, the square held out until Maurice of Saxony intervened after the peace of Passau in support of Ferdinand with a fresh army, saving it. This victory at Eger marked a reversal of the war fortunes, halting the Ottoman campaign and giving Ferdinand good reason to believe that Hungary could still side with him.
In October a minor Zrínyi victory at Biškupac averted the danger of a Turkish offensive against Croatia, and in November Radu Ilie Haidăul briefly seized the throne in the Wallachian principality with the support of Castaldo's forces in Transylvania, sowing chaos among the Ottoman vassals in the area. However, with disagreements between Mauricio and Castaldo there were no new advances in favor of Fernando either. With news of a new Safavid offensive and a mutiny among the forces of his army in Oriente around his heir Şehzade Mustafa, Suleiman agreed in autumn another peace in exchange for an annual tribute. This conflict over the succession also brought the temporary downfall of the powerful Ottoman Grand Vizier, Rüstem Pasha, who had been a hardliner in Hungary.
The campaign ended with the Zápolya kingdom divided between the Ottomans, who added to Ottoman Hungary the new Eyalate of Temesvár and Ferdinand, who turned Eger into a stronghold and went on to control the remnants of Upper Hungary and Transylvania under Turkish threat. Even with all the loss of territory since Mohács, some Hungarian authors argue that Hungary was Ferdinand's main income state at the time. Other authors put the collection at 750,000 guilders, with estimates of the same magnitude for Austrian ducats. and only slightly lower for the Bohemian lands. Czech historiography has instead pointed out that Bohemia was the crown that contributed the most to expenses outside its own territory. In any case, with war expenses that had come to exceed the million and a half guilders per year, the resources of the three territories were needed to confront the Turks.
Despite the formal truce, skirmishes and irregular conflicts continued on a small scale. Typically, Ottoman governors extorted "voluntary" to towns on both sides of the border, much to the displeasure of the Hungarians. This additionally led to internal disputes in Ferdinand's court, as aristocrats far from the border or in a better situation used to accuse those who paid such extortions of colluding with the Turks. Likewise, irregular pro-Habsburg forces (haidukes) also continued to attack Turkish provincial garrisons engaged in guerrilla warfare, sometimes prompting counter-attacks by Turkish beys and pashas against Ferdinand's fortresses despite the armistice. Zrínyi and his forces, in particular, continued to harass the Ottomans wherever possible. To maintain the border fortresses, the Fernandino governors also tried to continue taxing the former districts of the fortresses, even though they remained on the Turkish side of the border.
Peace in the Empire
Reconciliation between siblings
Relationships between Fernando and Carlos continued to be problematic. Faced with Charles' desire to win over Albert of Brandenburg, a veteran military leader who was of great use to the Emperor against France in the siege of Metz in 1552-1553 and was one of his last supporters in Germany, the campaign of looting of this in Franconia led Ferdinand to support the league raised against him in 1553-1554. The campaign ended with the margrave Albert defeated at the cost of the death of Maurice of Saxony in 1553. Albert Alcibíades' estates were assigned to his kinsman, Jorge Federico de Brandenburgo-Ansbach, of which Fernando was tutor. However, even when Albert of Brandenburg was defeated, Charles refused to outlaw him.
Another source of conflict between brothers was the proposal of a Habsburg candidate to marry Mary I of England in an attempt to win another kingdom for the dynasty. Fernando proposed his youngest son Fernando while Carlos V defended the candidacy of his son Felipe, finally prevailing. His other son Maximiliano continued to show his displeasure with what he saw as another imposition of Carlos on Fernando. Additionally, the rebuff was seen in the German courts as another step in favor of Philip's candidacy for the imperial throne.
The differences between Ferdinand and Charles continued until Charles finally agreed in 1553 to exclude his son Philip from the German succession. Even so, Carlos managed to impose certain conditions in favor of Philip, such as the promise that he would be appointed imperial vicar in Italy once Ferdinand was emperor. Ferdinand resorted to measures such as the construction of a monumental entrance with imperial symbols in his palace of Vienna or of his grandfather Maximilian's cenotaph to emphasize his imperial heritage.
The Peace of Augsburg
Recovering the relations between the brothers, Ferdinand tried to get Rome to allow communion under both species in 1554, one of the doctrinal points in dispute between Lutherans and Catholics and historical claim of the moderate Utraquists of their Bohemian domains. Subsequently, he worked to defuse the religious conflict during the peace negotiations in Augsburg in 1555. Since Charles V did not attend the negotiations, delegating Ferdinand for personally refusing to accept cessions on religious matters, the resulting peace of Augsburg from 1555 was thus largely his work.
In this peace, the firm bases of understanding were established for the following sixty years, in what would be the final victory of the policy of Fernando I against that of Carlos V:
- cuius regio, eius religio (according to that of the king, so shall religion be) establishing religious unity within a state. Those who did not want to follow the official religion were free to leave, which was an innovation in the centuryXVI.
- reserve ecclesiasticum (ecclesiastical reserve) on ecclesiastical states. In them the conversion of the sovereign prelate would not force its inhabitants to become, but the prelate must leave office. The writing of this point was however less careful and its implementation in the following decades brought some debates.
- Declaratio Ferdinandei (Fenandina Declaration), except for the knights and cities that had become before the mid-1520 of the requirements of religious unity, allowing certain areas of mixed religion. He was an added staff of Fernando in the last minute, attending to the begs of imperial families and knights, who introduced in exercise of his authority in the Assembly as a delegate of the emperor.
Although these principles were the basis for the future understanding of Lutherans and Catholics, the other ramifications of the Protestant Reformation, such as Anabaptism in southern Germany, the doctrines of Calvin and Zwinglo, popular in Switzerland, were beyond their reach. or Frisian Mennonism.
After the abdication of his brother Charles V at the end of 1555, he was finally designated by his brother as his successor as emperor. Fernando was more conciliatory than his brother and promoted the validity of the peace that he had negotiated in Augsburg. Thus, for example, he replaced his vassal Frederick III in Legnica. In 1556 he organized the Landsberg Alliance as a coalition between Catholic and Protestant states, on the basis of the multi-denominational league that had risen against the Margrave of Brandenburg in 1552. The league included the dukes of Württemberg and Bavaria, the bishoprics of Wurzburg, Salzburg and Bamberg and the cities of Augsburg and Nuremberg, which extended Ferdinand's influence in Bavaria and Franconia. Ferdinand also had marital ties to important Catholic and Protestant leaders. Despite everything, his emphasis on the bishops to retain their secular authority continued to divide the two denominations.
Internally, Ferdinand saw how within his domains many noblemen openly declared themselves Protestants after the peace of Augsburg, religious freedom once again being a political petition in diets. A famous case was that of Hans von Ungnad, who he left Fernando's service after being converted by Primož Trubar's school. After more than two decades of service, his treasurer Hans Hofmann von Grünbühel, also of suspected Lutheran leanings, retired. Nádasdy, another of Fernando's historical collaborators, maintained an open correspondence with Melanchthon and Mátyás Dévai, although there is no consensus on whether he changed his faith.
Sponsorship of the Jesuits for the re-Catholicization of their domains had more results. From 1556 they occupied the Clementinum, a church that Fernando donated to them in Prague and in 1561 Fernando was able to recreate a Catholic diocese in Prague. The preacher Pedro Canisio, who had popularized a catechism for laymen in German, was also gaining influence over Ferdinand since 1554, although it ended up leading him into a conflict with his son Maximilian, who was a follower of Johann Sebastian Pfauser, a Lutheran preacher that Canisius denounced. Following this policy, Fernando personally showed great tolerance towards Lutheranism, favoring and listening since the peace of Augsburg to theologians with ecumenical ideas of reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants such as Friedrich Staphylus, Georg Witzel and Jorge Casandro. In 1557, the Worms colloquium was a new attempt to bring positions between Lutherans and Catholics closer, led by that sector under the patronage of Ferdinand.
Ferdinand's imperial court
The abdication of Carlos and the consolidation of Fernando were also accompanied by the empowerment of his court as the cultural epicenter of the empire. Particularly famous was the case of his numismatic collection, which included ancient coins collected by Leopold Heyperger, administrator of the Vienna Hofburg. In 1554 Ferdinand commissioned his graphic copy, which led to a controversy between Ferdinand's antiquarian Wolfgang Lazius and the Italian intellectual Jacopo Strada who accused him of various errors in attributing the coins. Although Lazius attributed the dispute to nationalism between Italians and Germans, Strada would end up in Ferdinand's service in 1556, being providential in finishing work on his summer palace in Prague and on his collection of classical antiquities. It was an activity that showed the power and influence of his patron, Strada's great rival being the antique dealer of the Duke of Bavaria, Nicolò Stoppio, in parallel with the competition between the Habsburgs and the Wittelsbachs.
Ferdinand's collection included a unicorn horn (probably a narwhal) gifted by the King of Poland and the agate bowl, a late Roman relic that had ended up in the hands of the Habsburgs amid legends of the Holy Grail. Given the supposed magical powers of both, Fernando's children considered them highly valuable in the distribution of the will as "inalienable relics" not to be divided among the heirs and form part of the seed of the Austrian imperial treasury. Ferdinand also accumulated numerous gifts from the East, including probably part of Suleiman the Magnificent's Venetian crown, as a present from an embassy from the sultan, or the Dioscorides from Vienna, which his embassy would acquire in Constantinople.
Fernando would not only promote this collection, but would also employ artists and intellectuals such as the painter Hanns Lautensack, the engraver Melchior Lorck or the musician and mechanic Simon Michael. In general, the south of the Holy Empire was an active cultural area as Renaissance art spread with the Danube school and the Nuremberg little masters under the employment of the different local princes like Ferdinand but also his allies and rivals.. Ferdinand's network of relationships, which attracted to his court characters from the rest of the Holy Empire and particularly from the great cultural focus of the Netherlands, was providential for this development. Similarly, Ferdinand's government represented the link between the Holy Empire and the Ottoman Empire and the East, which would allow the diffusion of innovations such as tulips (which his ambassador Ghiselin de Busbecq would take from the East to his native Netherlands) or the Tokaj grape. (that his general von Schwendi would bring after his Hungarian campaigns to his domains in Alsace).
Ferdinand's rule was also the link between Bohemia and Hungary and Italian Renaissance architecture. Ferdinand's summer palace in Prague, together with the restoration of the Prague castle and the works since 1555 on the royal palace also known as Lustschloss would bring to Bohemia the aforementioned Strada but also Giovanni Battista Aostalli de Sala and his son Ulrico Aostalli, Paolo della Stella and Giovanni de Statia as well as the Germans Bonifaz Wohlmut and Hans von Tirol. Many of these architects were originally from Ticino, in Italian-speaking Switzerland, from the Lake Como region or from other areas neighboring Ferdinand's possessions in Former Austria. His work was part of the project to create a royal court in Prague according to the latest European trends, as the capital of Ferdinand's Bohemian domains with his namesake son as governor during the king's personal absences. Similarly, in the crown of Hungary the already mentioned Italian engineers such as Dell'Allio or Ferrabosco were being critical for the extension of the new aesthetic currents from Italy.
Reactivation of the war in Hungary
Reorganization of the military border
In Hungary, the situation was precarious. Irregular forces from both sides continued to attack each other occasionally. The incursions of the Szigetvár garrison, which from the Danube put the Ottoman supply line between Buda and Belgrade at risk, were especially common. On the Ottoman side, its governors had treacherously taken the Fülek fortress in the north in 1554. By 1555 in the Ottoman Empire, Rüstem Pasha had recovered the position of grand vizier and achieved the peace of Amasya with the Persians in May, which made it expected that the war would resume. In September an Ottoman general attacked the border, seizing the important positions of Korotna, Kaposvár and Babócsa.
Knowing that the truce with the Ottomans was not going to be renewed with Turkey's eastern border at peace at last, Ferdinand took steps to strengthen his border. From January 10 to 25, 1556, he remained in Pressburg, attending the Hungarian diet, in which past losses to the Turks were a matter of debate. Politically, Ferdinand suffered pressure from the Hungarian diet, which reproached him for not having spent much time that was happening in the country and the absence of the nador, a position that had to act in the absence of the king. To remedy this, Fernando appointed Tomás Nádasdy as nador.
By early March, his advisers had a new plan to restructure the border which they presented to the imperial diet in Regensburg. Pettau, a historic rallying and supply point for border forces, was acquired from the Bishopric of Salzburg and its fortress would be a major arms depot to complement the existing network. The architect dell'Allio also carried out fortification works in Fürstenfeld, Marburg and other Inner Austrian squares. The states of Inner Austria agreed in an assembly in Cili to create a force of 3,000 men on the border, pay the costs of the garrisons, and fortify Zagreb.
The border itself was reorganized, placing under this new command individual captaincies covering different sectors and subdivided into secondary districts. As had been done previously in Inner Austria, smaller positions (čardaks) were deployed in Croatian territory with patrols and lookouts to detect incursions, while the main nuclei acted as garrison headquarters. of the district. The twenty-year tax exemptions promulgated in 1535 were renewed in exchange for the populations established on the border maintaining their military service. The sectors of the border were:
- Croatia: with the southern military line established in 1527 and subsidized by the neighboring Carniola and Carintia, to whom it protected.
- Slavonia: with the northern part of the former Croatian border, subsidized by the neighbouring Estiria.
- Gyor: heir to the captainship of Transdanubia with the counties of West Hungary and subsidized by the duke of Austria.
- Lower Hungary: protecting the rich mining cities of the northwest, with bohemian financing.
- High Hungary: protecting the northeast of the Hungarian kingdom, with Eger as a frontline bastion and Kassa as headquarters. In order to organize the area, a camera based in Szepes was created, initially dependent on the camera of Presbourg. The district would eventually receive funding from Silesia's income.
This funding of the border by the military hinterland of each district allowed endowments to be maintained at a time when Hungarian territorial losses had left many fortresses disconnected from the areas whose tributes had sustained them in the past. With that, along with the 1556 extension of the liquor tax to Austria as a tax on wine (Tranksteuer) and the raising of war taxes in Tyrol to bring it closer to the rest of Austria, The Habsburg tax system was reaching maturity.
The campaign of 1556
The military reorganization and the increase in funds allowed Ferdinand to successfully face the new Turkish offensive. In June 1556 a Turkish siege began against the fortress of Szigetvár which, however, did not fall. Meanwhile, an imperial counterattack led by Pallavicino and Nádasdy threatened Babócsa. The counterattack caused the Ottomans to lift the siege of Szigetvár. Archduke Ferdinand, Ferdinand I's second son, personally appeared in the area in September with an army of 12,000 soldiers, allowing Pallavicino and Zrínyi to take Korotna. Outmatched on that front, the Ottomans abandoned minor forts such as Sellye, Kaposvár or Dravaszentrmárton, before finally surrendering Babócsa.
Turopolje, the region south of Zagreb, held out through four Ottoman attacks in August, including a raid on Topusko. From their base in Čazma, the Turks also attacked Gradec north of Zagreb. However, taking advantage of the Habsburg forces were occupied on the Danube and Slavonia, the Bosnian governor seized the castles of Novi Grad and Kostajnica on the line of the Una in Croatia. With Ferdinand also supporting his nephew Philip in his Italian war against France, the Habsburgs The Austrians were severely limited in fighting the Ottomans on several simultaneous fronts. The loss of these castles was a severe blow to the Croatian border, which had to reinforce Blinja to make up for the loss.
Turkish pressure and Transylvanian discontent with Castaldo allowed the return of Isabela Jagiellon and her son Juan Sigismundo in October, who retook power in Transylvania in a 1556 diet with the support of local nobility and Wallachian Turkish vassals and Moldavia. Ferdinand then canceled the agreed property changes in Silesia, leaving the duchies of Sagan and Münsterberg in the hands of the crown and those of Opole and Racibórz in possession of the Margrave of Ansbach. Likewise, he withdrew his remaining troops from Transylvania.
In addition to Ottoman support, Isabela had the backing of the Transylvanian branch of the Báthorys, especially George Báthory who took Nagyvárad, and Ferenc Kendi, lord of Cluj in Transylvania and Barkó in Upper Hungary. He also had the support of other Hungarian magnates from border areas such as Pedro Petrovics, leader of the Serbs in the southwest of Transylvania, of some members of the Perényi family to the west and north such as the lord of Nagyszőlős Ferenc Perényi, of the lord of Zétény Ferenc Némethy, who secured Tokaj and Szerencs to the northwest, and former rebel and warlord Melchor Balassa to the north.
However, Fernandina's forces in Upper Hungary managed to hold the main city in the region, Kassa. In 1556 Ferdinand's generals won actions at Nagyida (the theme of a Hungarian folk poem) and Tarkő, old castles near Kassa that were taken and demolished. The same happened among the old prozápolya centers in the north of Upper Hungary, where, for example, the properties of the Varkócz (Kereszt, Nére), favorable to the Zápolya, were ceded to the Horváth, of Slavonian origin and supporters of the Habsburgs. The victory on this front was strategic, since after the loss of Central Hungary and Transylvania it was necessary to preserve Upper Hungary to maintain the institutional entity of the Hungarian kingdom. After 1556 Ferdinand would adapt his approach, de facto conceding Transylvania and prioritizing defending Upper Hungary The abandonment of Transylvania is thus seen as Ferdinand's failure but only partially since by retaining Upper Hungary he was ultimately bolstered against Zapólya in Hungarian eyes as the only royal candidate who could truly claim the crown of a unified Hungary. Suleiman won an important victory by binding Transylvania to his vassalage while Zápolya was left in a much weaker position than before the Weissenburg treaty.
After the campaign of 1556 Ferdinand lost his main generals. Pallavicino was hired by the Republic of Venice and Castaldo, sick, went to government work in Milan. The most critical innovation would however be the creation in November 1556 of the Steter Kriegsrat as a high command of the main generals with authority over the militarized frontier territories. Zrínyi, overwhelmed by the economic requirements of the Banato, asked to be relieved. Although he continued to fight the Ottomans from his states, in 1557 he was replaced as Ban of Croatia by Peter Erdődy.
The road to the truce of 1558
In 1557 Ferdinand undertook new fortification works, integrating an arsenal for the Danube fleet in the fortresses of Vienna and repairing and expanding the fortifications of Komárom, another base of said fleet. In Upper Hungary the construction of strongholds began at Kassa, with outdated fortresses and until then dependent for its safety on the survival of Eger. In Croatia and Slavonia, Senj, the main fortress on the coast, (where the Nehaj fortress was built) and Sisek, which allowed advanced defense before Zagreb, were fortified. Topusko, another piece of Zagreb's defense but neglected by Keglević's sons, was given to the Bishop of Zagreb for defense. The new governor of the military district, Iván Lenković, would promote a deliberate policy of abandoning minor positions and concentration of the population in the most defensible enclaves, as well as in securing the positions that would guarantee communications between them.
The Ottoman threat remained active despite these measures and in 1557 a raid by the Bey of Bosnia sacked Skrad, Hoisić and Ogulin, before being defeated by Lenković's forces at Sveta Jelena. Another border clash ended with the Lenković's lieutenant Herbard von Auersperg dispersing an outnumbered Turkish force while Krsto Ungnad defeated another Ottoman contingent at Koprivnica. Zrínyi, despite having been relieved of the banat, organized a campaign to recapture Čazma, whose fall in the previous war had compromised the border. Despite the support of Lenković and Nádasdy, the lack of artillery prevented him from taking the square and the arrival of the Turkish governor of Pécs put an end to the Christian campaign. In southern Hungary, the Turks took control of Szöcseny castle that summer.
Isabela's forces as they advanced led by Melchor Balassa in 1557 taking Just and Büdy in north-eastern Hungary along the border with Transylvania, although Gyula and Eger, as well as Kassa, remained in Ferdinand's hands in Upper Hungary. Fernandino general Imre Thelekessy led his forces in the area from Kassa with the support of other local noblemen loyal to Ferdinand such as Simón Forgách, Matías Szennyesy, Jorge Bebek, Antal Székely and Juan Petheő and organized a response. Instead of counterattacking against Tokaj, he marched against the hereditary fiefs of Zapólya's supporters and took Zétény in July, Barkó in August, Kövesd in September and Nagyszőlős in October, as well as defeating a Turkish contingent sent to support Zápolya at Szikszó. that same month. However, he could not get hold of Munkács, before which the Fernandino leader in Zemplen, Mihály Perényi, died in December. To the south, another Fernandino attempt led by Petheő to advance in parallel against Tokaj failed.
In 1558 Balassa again seized the initiative and razed Nagyszőlős although he ended up reaching a stalemate with Thelekessy and they negotiated a negotiated withdrawal as an end to the campaign. The loyalties of other border areas such as Debrecen or Miskolc wavered while. As part of the Zapólya advance there was also a rise of Protestant faiths in Hungary and Transylvania, particularly Unitarianism.
By 1558 both sides again had other concerns beyond war. In the Ottoman Empire, after the death of the valide sultan Roxelana, another succession dispute had broken out between Suleiman's surviving sons involving the grand vizier. Her foreign policy also had to consider the growing Muscovite pressure on the Crimea. Isabela for her part had internal problems in Transylvania as evidenced by the fact that in 1558 the Kendi of Cluj and Ferenc Bebek attempted an unsuccessful coup, which caused Isabela to order her execution.. In Austria, Ferdinand was once again involved in imperial politics from 1557 and suffered on the border from the effects of a plague in addition to those of war.
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Ferdinand's ambassador, did important work in trying to achieve a peace with Suleiman. However, both Isabella and France, which was still at war with the Habsurges, tried to continue the conflict and the Turk sought the cession of Szigetvár, which he continued to resist successfully, in exchange for peace. Despite this, a truce was reached by 1558 that stopped Turkish operations against Hungary in exchange for Ferdinand doing the same in Transylvania.
I rule as emperor
Coronation
Despite his brother's abdication in 1555, imperial policy meant that he was not definitively ratified as elected emperor until March 12, 1558. The imperial title was elective and the electors did not recognize Carlos' power to choose his successor, Fernando having to win them over with the commitment to maintain the electivity of the title. He was crowned two days later in Frankfurt, making an imperial entry into Vienna on April 14, months before his brother died, although the diet of the Holy Empire did not formally recognize Ferdinand until May 3 of that year. In November Ferdinand made another imperial entry into Prague, where his namesake's son organized celebrations in his honor.
Pope Paul IV postponed its recognition until the end of the Italian war of 1551-1559 that pitted the Habsburgs against France, diminishing its legitimacy among the Catholic princes of the empire. Fernando, as Carlos V had previously done, avoided going to Rome to be crowned by the Pope. Paul IV, also opposed to the policy of conciliation with the Protestants that emanated from Augsburg, was reluctant to Ferdinand, who used the title of elected emperor that his grandfather Maximilian had used. It would be as a result of that dispute that the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire left to be crowned by the pope.
Imperial Administration
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The government of Ferdinand, once emperor, continued to be equally marked by an intense and fruitful administrative reform, both of the imperial bureaucracy and that of its states. Among other aspects of his imperial policy, it is worth mentioning the reform of the monetary system. In 1559 he implemented the Reichsmünzordnung , with a bimetallic table of equivalence of different currencies to deal with the monetary chaos that the empire was experiencing. This led him to have to face the problem of controlling the silver that left Tyrol and that generated flows of contraband towards the neighboring Republic of Venice, as well as a conflict with the imperial cities of Alsace and Swabia, which issued their own currency abroad. by imperial standards. This monetary policy allowed it instead to offset the financing that Saxony obtained through seigniorage as an issuer of high-quality thalers from its silver mines.
Ferdinand also reorganized the imperial justice system. The court council, dependent on the emperor, was reformed with the use of professional jurists, since the formal offices had become protocol titles of the electors. Ferdinand had already transformed his Austrian chancery, led by Jakob von Jonas into an imperial chancery to organize its administration. But from 1558 Ferdinand relied especially on a new vice-chancellor, Georg Sigmund Seld, who would manage imperial affairs. This court had jurisdiction over the domains of the emperor while the other great imperial court, the court of the Imperial Chamber, paid by the imperial states, acted as a court of appeal for the latter's justice or in cases of lawsuits between immediate states. Since Fernando's coronation, the second court also had one of its moments of maximum effectiveness as its operation was optimized and issues such as the confessional nature of its judges were resolved.
While in his states, Fernando managed to coordinate the different diets of his territories with representatives before him in his capital, avoiding the need for an itinerant court to convene the different assemblies of each crown in coordination as general states. The future The Austro-Hungarian Empire would maintain the system of administration and government that Ferdinand proposed until the XIX century.
The tax system that he formed, despite its imperfections, was the basis used by his heirs and would double the collection of his territories. By 1560 he was earning more than two million guilders, of which one a quarter were consumed by his court and administration and another quarter by the maintenance of the fortifications in Hungary. A notable achievement was the increase in production of the Salzkammergut salt pans, which at the end of Ferdinand's reign reached values that would not be exceeded until the 19th century. The imperial election also gave him more stable access to imperial taxes to alleviate the deficits of his states. The replacement of Charles on the imperial throne cleared the objections of the princes to the contributions for the common defense against the Turks, increasing fivefold from 1556 to reach an average of 600,000 guilders per year, thanks to which the Austrian states came to finance fifty-one five fortresses on the military frontier by the end of Ferdinand's reign.
Austria Previous
Another sign of the improvement in their finances was the change in the situation in Austria Previous. Despite the fact that in 1554 the Innsbruck chamber was technically bankrupt, being unable to even cover the interest on its debt, from 1556 Ferdinand managed to double direct taxes in Tyrol to equal those of the other provinces.
Fernando was thus able to rescue Ortenau, Haguenau and Kaysersberg from the Palatinate in 1558, exercising the repurchase reserved twenty-eight years earlier. In the case of Ortenau, Ferdinand was even able to buy half in the hands of the Bishop of Strasbourg. In 1559 he also rescued the Burgau margraviate, after decades in the hands of the Bishops of Augsburg. With this Ferdinand prepared Austria Anterior to form the nucleus of the part of the inheritance that he was going to leave to his namesake son, although he would not be able to discharge the main mortgage in the region, that of Ferrette County, during his lifetime. This, from the time of Maximilian and now in the hands of the Fugger, would not be raised until the reign of his son Fernando II.
Nor did Ferdinand manage to prevail over the Bishop of Speyer in a dispute to annex the lands of the recently abandoned Wissembourg Abbey, with imperial immediacy, in Alsace. Instead the war with France strengthened his relationship with the imperial cities, the landvogt convening an assembly in Ensisheim to organize the defense of the Habsburg territories attended by the imperial cities.
Silesia and Lusatia
From 1558 Ferdinand also began to intervene more actively in Silesia. In November of that year he created a new Hofkammer in Wrocław for Silesia answering directly to the Vienna court and at the head of which he placed Friedrich von Rödern. The measure ended the long period of ineffectiveness in Silesia of the Bohemian Chamber, which had been another problem for royal authority in the region.
As part of the measures to improve income in Silesia, Ferdinand reached an agreement in 1558 in Müllrose with Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg to build a canal between the Oder and Spree rivers, allowing river navigation between the sea and Silesia. Although the Silesian part was built (the section called the Kaisergraben or Emperor's Dig), Brandenburg postponed its part and it would not be until a century later that the project would be finished under the name of the Frederick William Canal. Economic reforms in Silesia would also lead to the founding in 1563 of Neusalz an der Oder, a river port on the Oder intended to compete with the salt traffic from the mines in Poland by favoring maritime trade and imports from the Baltic instead.
Although the fiscal measures were unpopular in Silesia, the increase in revenues allowed Ferdinand to recover the duchies of Opole and Racibórz of Ansbach to prevent territorial concentration since George Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach already inherited the margraviates of Ansbach and Kulmach, the duchies of Jägerndorf and Beuthen and the Bohumín barony, bordering on creating their own state in the area. He was less successful with his Brandenburg relatives, as Ferdinand renewed and even extended their mortgages on Beeskow and Storkow in Lower Lusatia. Politically, he again deposed the troublesome Protestant Duke Frederick III of Legnica in favor of Legnica's son, Henry XI.
The measures to consolidate their control of the area were not only economic, but also religious. Thus in 1559 a dean (Dekan) and general commissioner (Generalkommisar) was created with headquarters in Bautzen for Upper and Lower Lusatia seeking to separate the region from the authority of the bishop of Meissen, who had converted to Lutheranism. Ferdinand, however, never succeeded in having the province elevated to a bishopric.
The conflict with the Turks
Meanwhile, to face the Turkish threat, the diets of Slavonia and Croatia met jointly since 1558 given the Turkish occupation of much of both territories. That first diet, held in Stjeničnjak, agreed to reinforce castles such as Pokupsko and Sračica at the expense of the Croatian and Slavonian nobility and church. Fortification and reform efforts in Croatia and Slavonia were effective and ban Erdődy succeeded in repelling a 1558 Turkish offensive against Hrastovica, although other raids sacked Reifnitz in Carniola and Topusko in Slavonia The only lasting Ottoman success was the capture of Tata, in northern Hungary, due to a raid by a Turkish governor in violation of a truce in the summer of 1558.
Although this capture kept the Ottoman threat against Ferdinand preventing him from supporting his nephew in his war against France, relations between Ferdinand's enemies were not at their best. The Persian threat and the war between Suleiman's sons were weakening the Ottoman Empire and although Suleiman wished to honor his alliance with France, his vizier Rüstem Pasha favored an appeasement policy to let the Habsburgs and France wear each other down. Rüstem Pasha however He officially promised his support to the French so that the conflict with the Habsburgs would continue. they had done with his brother Carlos. Ottoman diplomacy was thus softening the demands to accept a peace while Fernando was gaining control of the situation with France and the Holy Empire
The war in Hungary ended up reaching an impasse with neither side making progress. By 1559, Fernando's proposals called for the return of Tata and Fülek, since both towns had been taken in violation of truces. With both in Turkish hands, the fortresses of Komárom and Érsekújvár gained importance, to the north of Tata, protecting the upper section of the Danube and Pressburg, and Divény (whose castle was reinforced in 1559), north of Fülek protecting another access from the east to the mining towns.
Despite this panorama, the fear that the Turks would definitively occupy Transylvania made many in Ferdinand's court want peace. In particular, they feared the death of Isabela, whose health was known to be poor, since death could end with the opportunity for a peaceful solution and give wings to greater Turkish rule. In turn, Isabela, suspicious of her own generals, was open to a possible diplomatic solution. Isabela's death in October was, however, accompanied by a renewed interest in a diplomatic solution, such as the wedding of Juan Sigismundo with a daughter of Ferdinand and his recognition as duke of a Transylvania still part of the Hungarian kingdom. However, an important part of the Transylvanian nobility was against the agreement. The Habsburg forces while they tried to advance militarily in that north against the last fortresses of Upper Hungary in the hands of zápolya, Tokaj, Munkács and Just, which would be the center of the disagreements s border between Zápolyas and Habsburg in the following decade.
The Ottomans wanted instead to obtain the fortress of Szigetvár, their main objective in the war, in exchange for peace. The situation on the ground was not favorable for them on that front. In Croatia, Ivan Lenković's Uskok forces defeated a Turkish raid on Klana in 1559 and a similar fate befell another Ottoman raid on Möttling, the last time the Ottomans managed to penetrate beyond the Croatian military border. Slavonia to Szigetvár passing on the outskirts of Sisek via Blinja, whose fortress Lenković considered demolishing due to the difficulty of defending it, Križevci, Prodavić and Đurđevac while the Ottomans controlled Novi Grad, Kostajnica and Čazma. North of Szigetvár Ferdinand in 1559 made minor advances into Transdanubia in Veszprém and Fejér counties thanks to Balázs Baranyai and Mihály Cseszneky, although he barely recaptured a few villages.
The Council of Trent
In April 1559 the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis was achieved, between the Habsburgs and France. The peace ended the active conflicts in the empire, restoring the previous status in many western areas and in Italy, although it left the Three Bishoprics (Metz, Toul and Verdun) under French occupation. Despite having a weak negotiating position due to his poor military situation, Fernando managed to avoid during the negotiations the appointment of his nephew Philip II of Spain as imperial vicar of Italy, which aborted possible conflicts such as those that had plagued his relationship with his brother. Charles. Additionally, it meant the withdrawal of papal objections to Ferdinand as emperor and allowed Ferdinand to obtain from the pope that the monastery of Pazin in Istria ceased to depend ecclesiastically on Venice.
The main consequence of the peace was the agreement of all to resume the suspended Council of Trent. The project, already proposed in the imperial diets that Ferdinand had presided over three decades earlier and finally begun at last in 1545, had been suspended by the anti-Protestant fervor of Paul IV. The election of Pius IV for the papacy and peace in 1559 allowed the project to be unblocked. Ferdinand was dedicated to the council, even despite a period of illness in 1560-1561. Ferdinand however faced opposition to the project from the Anabaptist communities of Tyrol, who under Barthlmä Dosser von Lüsen attempted to organize to attack the council attendees.. At least 53 Anabaptists were executed for their part in the conspiracy.
The Transylvanian Offensive of 1562
In January 1560 it was the Habsburg forces that successfully raided into Ottoman territory as far as Gradiška, but were unable to hold any additional positions. In parallel, negotiations were opened with John Sigismund. In March the Turks attempted an attack on Žirovica but were defeated by Erdődy, which was repeated on the Carnian border in September. Negotiations with John Sigismund failed as rumors spread that he aspired to recover all of Hungary. The great strategic fear at Ferdinand's court was that if John Sigismund managed to be proclaimed heir to Poland in the absence of sons from his uncle Sigismund II, Ferdinand's domains could be surrounded. In November 1560 and in the spring of 1561, Zrínyi's forces launched new raids from Szigetvár, ravaging the Turkish positions at Zombor and Mohács. While Auersperg's Carnian forces made similar successful raids into Turkish territory.
Breaking the impasse in Hungary, in December 1561 Melchor Balassa, Juan Sigismundo's general, went over to the Fernandino side together with Nicolás Báthory thanks to the mediation of the latter's brother, Andrés. Although the Zapólyas immediately resumed their Possessions in the interior of Transylvania, Szatmárnémeti, Nagybánya and Hadad resisted on the border with Upper Hungary with the relief of Habsburg forces. The defection significantly deprived John Sigismund of his most prominent general.In parallel John I Despot-Vodă, an adventurer who had served as a mercenary in the Habsburg forces, seized power in the Principality of Moldavia. Ferdinand thus gained a strategic ally against Juan Sigismund, who was cornered. All this had been accompanied by the death of the Ottoman grand vizier Rüstem Pasha in 1561. His successor, Semiz Ali Pasha, was much more favorable to a peace in Hungary especially with the Ottoman imperial forces occupied in Persia. Ferdinand's correspondence shows that, while he did not wish to provoke the Ottomans or the Zápolya, he aspired to recapture Transylvania as part of Hungary thanks to these events. Other nobles did not see this. possible, which has made some historians see it as another sign of Ferdinand's dynastic pride, always reluctant to give up what he saw as his birthright.
Ferdinand's forces, under his new general Lazarus von Schwendi, were advancing into Upper Hungary taking advantage of the Transylvanian chaos. Munkács, Just and Kovászó were Ferdinand's targets to secure the area given their great economic interest in the salt mines, aiming to take them along with the border fortresses before John Sigismund could respond. A seasoned general, Schwendi reorganized the Habsburg forces with a greater emphasis on firearms, making them more competitive against the Turks. The reformed Habsburg army successfully took Kovászó in February 1562.
Peace with the Turks
After John Sigismund's forces were defeated in a battle at Hadad in March 1562, the Transylvanian Sicels, who had seen their traditional liberties curtailed in previous years, rose up against Zápolya, also encouraged by Andrés Báthory. The Transylvanian Saxons, again, also supported Ferdinand's return. The Ban of Croatia, Erdődy, defeated the Bosnian governor at Slatina in a raid on 29 March 1562. Only the intervention of the Turkish governors of Buda and Temesvár and the firm support of Esteban and Cristófer Báthory in Transylvania prevented Juan Sigismundo from going into exile in Poland.
Balassa was forced to lift his siege of Szécsen by Turkish intervention although Nadásdy succeeded in taking Hegyesd and Zrínyi another victory at Monoszló, where he destroyed Turkish fortification works. Both actions took place at Veszprém in western Hungary, leading to the Turks to lift their siege of Szatmárnémeti. Although John Sigismund eventually succeeded in suppressing the internal revolts in Transylvania, the border counties in Upper Hungary, with the exception of the Munkács fortress, had passed into Ferdinand's hands and by August John Sigismund was open to a diplomatic solution such as not titled himself. king.
Ferdinand, who had gone to Frankfurt for the coronation of his son Maximilian as King of the Romans, finally made another treaty with the Turks in November of that year. The peace restored the tribute for Hungary, recognized Juan Sigismundo de Zápolya's dominion of Transylvania and established Ferdinand's commitment to negotiate with him the division of occupied Upper Hungary after the agreement with Martinuzzi in 1551. Ferdinand was recognized in return in domain of the royal Hungary that he already ruled before as well as over the domains of Hungarian and Transylvanian nobles that had passed to his side and over the part of Upper Hungary that he agreed with Juan Sigismund. In exchange for Tata, the Ottomans they canceled 90,000 guilders of unpaid tributes. The final delimitation would be a problem, as Juan Segismundo continued to try to maintain the conflict with the Habsburgs after the death of Ferdinand I.
Visit to Alsace
Meanwhile, in March 1561 the Dukes of Wurtemberg had staged the surprise of Hericourt, recovering the places they had lost in 1525 on the border between the counties of Montbeliard, the counties of Ferrette and the Franche-Comté of Burgundy. The towns would continue to be claimed by the Alsatian governorship of Fernando and the heirs of Salamanca and would be another point of friction between the emperor and the Duke of Wurttemberg, although attempts to recover them militarily in the following years would be unsuccessful.
After the diet of Frankfurt, Ferdinand visited his Alsatian domains before the Council of Trent was resumed. In December a diet of the states of Former Austria was held at Freiburg, where he achieved a remarkable enlargement of the contribution of these provinces. Since 1560, Fernando had pressed for the imposition of new tolls and taxes, accentuating external conflicts with the neighboring imperial states over market rights, portazgos and pontajes and internal ones with the merchants and bourgeois of the province. Even despite the great autonomy of Earlier Austria, by the end of his reign Ferdinand was earning more than 380,000 guilders from his chamber in Innsbruck, doubling the take when he ascended the throne. Ferdinand named his lieutenant in the territory Nicholas de Bolwiller, a local nobleman who had faithfully served the Habsburgs since the Innsbruck regency during the Schmalcald war.
Ferdinand's visit to Alsace appears especially recorded in local documents. In addition to Freiburg, he visited Saverne and from there Obernai, as recorded in the town's municipal archives.Local folklore attributes an anecdote to him that gives the local wine its nickname. He also visited Strasbourg and Ensisheim, from which he traveled to Thann in December, where it is recorded that he admired the organ of his collegiate church.In January 1563 he visited the Rhine Falls on a surprise day for the local municipal authorities according to the chronicles.
The reforms in Alsace were successful in gradually raising mortgages in the region. Thus, in 1563, Belfort and Delle recovered a pledge to Jean-Jacques II de Morimont that had generated protests from the inhabitants, and Thann from the Fuggers. That same year Ferdinand wrote to his namesake son that Tyrol, despite the difficulties and its lack of custom to contribute like the rest of Austria, had been paying significant contributions for several consecutive years.
Religious peace
A veteran in the field of diplomacy, the Relazioni, or records of the Venetian ambassadors, note the emperor's pragmatism, his reputation as an honest ruler, and his ability with multiple languages. Ferdinand ended up speaking Spanish, French, Italian, and German They also point out his personal interest in peace, Ferdinand himself considering the Augsburg agreements of 1555 his greatest triumph, believing that they could restore harmony in the church. Beyond religious peace, the Venetian ambassadors noted that death of the emperor would be a detriment to the republic and to all the neighbors of Austria, since his children did not show Ferdinand's natural love of peace.
At the sessions of the Council of Trent in 1563, the Emperor Ferdinand defended freedom of conscience and personally strove to have broad concessions granted to Protestants. Several issues of the council were resolved after a personal compromise between Ferdinand and Giovanni Morone, papal legate. Seeing that the Council of Trent however failed to settle the differences between Catholics and Protestants, Ferdinand drew up plans for further reforms, under a policy of Reformationslibell. In France, religious conflicts had erupted while the Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici had a diplomatic rapprochement with Ferdinand in the council, since both benefited from agreements with the Protestants, while the leader of the French Catholic side, Cardinal de Lorena, brought together the intransigent sector.
In 1564 Ferdinand particularly succeeded in getting the pope to approve the communion of both species, a historic demand of the more moderate Bohemian Utraquists that was also shared by Lutheran communities. The Venetian ambassador Micheli wrote that the policy of religious reconciliation of Ferdinand had led to interfaith cohabitation in the empire while von Schwendi's writings state that the emperor was seen by his subjects as fair and impartial on interfaith issues.
Some historians have even claimed that Ferdinand was the closest thing to a Protestant emperor that the Holy Roman Empire had ever had in its entire history. Although he remained formally a Catholic, he supposedly came to reject extreme rites at death's door. Other authors have instead considered him as Catholic as his brother Carlos but with a personal vision that separated religion from the political sphere. Thus While for Carlos the fight against the Protestants was both a political and a religious objective, for Fernando, fighting Protestantism only sought to avoid threats to the political order, as had been the case with Anabaptism during the peasant wars of 1524-1525. Religiously, Fernando valued maintaining unity over the dogmatic application of the rules, and showed Erasmian tendencies, believing that Protestantism was the consequence of the errors of the Catholic Church, which needed a moral renovation for which the emperor had to work in its secular facet.
Last years
Ferdinand's other priority in his last years was to settle the election for the imperial succession of his son Maximilian II, achieving confirmation of his succession in his elective titles while still alive by the imperial electors and the diets of Bohemia and Hungary and arranging for him to enter Vienna as heir in March 1563. After a complicated relationship, father and son grew closer as Maximilian took a greater role in government. With multiple children, Ferdinand had decided to divide his inheritance leaving Austria Anterior and Tirol to his second son Fernando and the duchies of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola to his other son, Carlos. This tripartite succession marked the dynamics of the German Habsburgs for generations to come.
At the same time, he married his youngest daughters who showed no religious vocation to rich Italian princes and successively tried to marry his son Charles to Elizabeth I of England and to Mary I of Scotland to provide him with a kingdom without dividing up his domains, although Carlos V prevailed and achieved the candidacy of his son Felipe. He also tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a matrimonial solution to his conflict with Juan Segismundo. Three of his daughters, however, decided to dedicate themselves to religious life, founding a convent in Hall in Tirol. A separate case was that of his second son Ferdinand, who had married morganatically in 1557 with the daughter of a bourgeois from Augsburg, Philippine Welser, something that Emperor Ferdinand did not accept until 1559 and under exclusion from that branch of succession as long as there were descendants. of other marriages. Fernando also showed great interest in the marriage of his grandchildren.
Fernando also intensified his patronage of the arts at this stage. Among other artists, he brought to his court the painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo, author of a series of portraits of Ferdinand's daughters. He continued with the monumental project of the cenotaph for his grandfather Maximilian I, for which he hired Bernhard, Arnold and Florian Abel, who nevertheless died without finishing the reliefs, for which Fernando brought in the Flemish sculptor Alexander Colyn. Colyn not only finished said work but would later be the author of the mausoleum of Fernando and his wife.
Despite this intense activity, Ferdinand's health continued to deteriorate from mid-1563, which was followed closely by various European courts. Analysis of the reports of the ambassadors and private documents of the courtiers of his inner circle show a king in increasingly poor health and who was no longer able to meet the requirements of the government. Although organizing his estates against the Turkish and Transylvanian threat, France's religious wars, and solving imperial problems such as Wilhelm von Grumbach's revolt continued to require his attention, increasingly delegating to his chancellor and his heir Maximilian. presence of his children. The aggressive treatments of the court doctors, Bartholomaus Carrichter von Rexingen and Johannes Crato von Krafftheim, probably aggravated his condition. Ferdinand finally died on 25 July 1564 in Vienna. According to his wishes, he was buried next to his wife in the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.
Marriage and children
From the union with Anna Jagiellon of Hungary and Bohemia, the emperor had fifteen children:
- Isabel de Habsburg (9 July, 1526-15 June, 1545). Archduchess of Austria, married to Segismundo II Jagellón, King of Poland (first Nupcias).
- Maximilian II of Habsburg (Vienna, 31 July 1527-Ratisbona, 12 October 1576), married to his cousin Mary of Austria and Portugal, daughter of Charles I.
- Ana de Habsburg (7 July, 1528-16/17 October, 1590) married to Alberto V de Baviera.
- Fernando de Habsburg (14 June, 1529-24 January, 1595). Count of Tyrol, married to Philippine Welser and Ana Catalina Gonzaga de Mantua.
- María de Habsburg (15 May, 1531-11 December, 1581) married to Guillermo V de Cleves el Rico.
- Magdalena de Habsburg (14 August, 1532-10 September, 1590). Monja.
- Catherine of Habsburg (15 September, 1533-28 February 1572). Archduchess of Austria, married to Segismundo II Jagellón, king of Poland (nuptial).
- Leonor de Habsburg (2 November, 1534-5 August, 1594) married to Guillermo Gonzaga de Mantua.
- Margarita de Habsburg (16 February, 1536-12 March, 1567), Monja.
- John of Habsburg (10 April, 1538-20 March, 1539).
- Barbara of Habsburg (30 April, 1539-19 September, 1572) married to Alfonso II de Ferrara.
- Carlos de Habsburg (Vienna, June 3, 1540-Graz, July 10, 1590). Archduke of Austria, Duke of Styria, Carinthian and Carniola and Count of Goritz and Tyrol. Married to Maria Ana de Baviera. Both were fathers of Emperor Ferdinand II.
- Habsburg Ursula (24 July, 1541-30 April, 1543).
- Elena de Habsburg (7 January, 1543-5 March, 1574). Monja.
- Juana de Habsburg (24 January, 1547-10 April, 1578). Archduchess of Austria, married to Francisco I de Médicis, Grand Duke of Tuscany. One of her daughters was Mary, wife of King Henry IV of France.
Ancestors
| Ancestors of Fernando I of Habsburg | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Succession
| Predecessor: Luis I | King of Bohemia 1526-1564 | Successor: Maximilian II |
| Predecessor: Carlos I | Archduke of Austria 1521-1564 | Successor: Maximilian II |
| Predecessor: Carlos I | Duke of Styria, Carniola and Carinthia (Austria Interior) 1521-1564 | Successor: Carlos II |
| Predecessor: Carlos I | Duke of Austria Previous and Count of Tyrol 1522-1564 | Successor: Fernando II |
| Predecessor: Louis II | King of Hungary and Croatia in opposition to John I (1526-1540) and John II (1640-1670)
| Successor: Maximilian II |
| Predecessor: Carlos V | King of Romans .svg){kind=small} 1531-1558 | Successor: Maximilian II |
| Predecessor: Carlos V | Emperor of the Holy German Empire 1558-1564  | Successor: Maximilian II |
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