Maximilian II (31 July 1527
– 12 October 1576) was king of Bohemia from
1562, king of Hungary
from 1563,
emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
from 1564 and king of the Romans until his death. He was a
member of the
House of
Habsburg.
Biography
The young Maximilan as archduke
Born in
Vienna
, he was a son of his predecessor Ferdinand I, Holy Roman
Emperor and Anna of
Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547). Anne was a daughter of
King
Ladislaus II of
Bohemia and Hungary and his wife
Anne
de Foix.
Educated principally in Spain, he gained some experience of warfare
during the campaign of his paternal uncle
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
against France in 1544, and also during the
War of the league of
Schmalkalden, and soon began to take part in imperial business.
Having in September 1548 married his cousin Maria, daughter of
Charles V, he acted as the emperor's representative in Spain from
1548 to 1550, returning to Germany in December 1550 in order to
take part in the discussion over the imperial succession.
Charles V wished his son
Philip
(afterwards king of Spain) to succeed him as emperor, but his
brother
Ferdinand,
who had already been designated as the next occupant of the
imperial throne, and Maximilian objected to this proposal. At
length a compromise was reached. Philip was to succeed Ferdinand,
but during the former's reign Maximilian, as
king of the Romans, was to govern
Germany. This arrangement was not carried out, and is only
important because the insistence of the emperor seriously disturbed
the harmonious relations which had hitherto existed between the two
branches of the Habsburg family; an illness which befell Maximilian
in 1552 was attributed to poison given to him in the interests of
his cousin and brother-in-law, Philip of Spain.
About this
time he took up his residence in Vienna, being
engaged mainly in the government of the Austrian dominions and in
defending them against the Turks. The religious views of the
king of Bohemia, as Maximilian had
been called since his recognition as the future ruler of that
country in 1549, had always been somewhat uncertain, and he had
probably learned something of Lutheranism in his youth; but his
amicable relations with several Protestant princes, which began
about the time of the discussion over the succession, were probably
due more to political than to religious considerations. However, in
Vienna he became very intimate with
Sebastian Pfauser, a court preacher with
strong leanings towards Lutheranism, and his religious attitude
caused some uneasiness to his father. Fears were freely expressed
that he would definitely leave the Catholic Church, and when
Ferdinand became emperor in 1558 he was prepared to assure
Pope Paul IV that his son should not succeed
him if he took this step. Eventually Maximilian remained nominally
an adherent of the older faith, although his views were tinged with
Lutheranism until the end of his life. After several refusals he
consented in 1560 to the banishment of Pfauser, and began again to
attend the services of the Catholic Church.
In
November 1562 Maximilian was chosen king of the Romans, or German
king, at Frankfurt
, where he was crowned a few days later, after
assuring the Catholic electors of his fidelity to their faith, and
promising the Protestant electors that he would publicly accept the
confession of Augsburg when he became emperor. He also took
the usual oath to protect the Church, and his election was
afterwards confirmed by the papacy. In September 1563 he was
crowned
king of Hungary by the
Archbishop of Esztergom,
Nicolaus
Olahus, and on his father's death, in July 1564, he succeeded
to the empire and to the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia.
The new emperor had already shown that he believed in the necessity
for a thorough reform of the Church. He was unable, however, to
obtain the consent of Pope Pius IV to the marriage of the clergy,
and in 1568 the concession of communion in both kinds to the laity
was withdrawn. On his part Maximilian granted religious liberty to
the Lutheran nobles and knights in Austria, and refused to allow
the publication of the decrees of the
council of Trent. Amidst general
expectations on the part of the Protestants he met his first
Diet of Augsburg in March
1566. He refused to accede to the demands of the Lutheran princes;
on the other hand, although the increase of sectarianism was
discussed, no decisive steps were taken to suppress it, and the
only result of the meeting was a grant of assistance for the
Turkish War, which had just been renewed. Collecting a large army
Maximilian marched to defend his territories; but no decisive
engagement had taken place when a truce was made in 1568, and the
emperor continued to pay tribute to the sultan as the price of
peace in the western and northern areas of the Hungarian kingdom
still under Habsburg control.
Meanwhile the relations between Maximilian and Philip of Spain had
improved; and the emperor's increasingly cautious and moderate
attitude in religious matters was doubtless because the death of
Philip's son,
Don
Carlos, had opened the way for the succession of Maximilian, or
of one of his sons, to the Spanish throne.
Evidence of this
friendly feeling was given in 1570, when the emperor's daughter,
Anna, became the fourth
wife of Philip; but Maximilian was unable to moderate the harsh
proceedings of the Spanish king against the revolting inhabitants
of the Netherlands
. In 1570 the emperor met the
diet of Speyer and asked for aid to
place his eastern borders in a state of defence, and also for power
to repress the disorder caused by troops in the service of foreign
powers passing through Germany. He proposed that his consent should
be necessary before any soldiers for foreign service were recruited
in the empire; but the estates were unwilling to strengthen the
imperial authority, the Protestant princes regarded the suggestion
as an attempt to prevent them from assisting their co-religionists
in France and the Netherlands, and nothing was done in this
direction, although some assistance was voted for the defense of
Austria. The religious demands of the Protestants were still
unsatisfied, while the policy of toleration had failed to give
peace to Austria.
Maximilian's power was very limited; it was
inability rather than unwillingness that prevented him from
yielding to the entreaties of Pope Pius V to
join in an attack on the Turks both before and after the victory of
Lepanto
in 1571; and he remained inert while the authority
of the empire in north-eastern Europe was threatened.
In 1575, Maximilian was elected by the part of Polish and
Lithuanian magnates to be the
King of Poland in opposition to
Stephan IV Bathory, but he did not
manage to become widely accepted there and was forced to leave
Poland.
Maximilian
died on 12 October 1576 in Regensburg
while preparing to invade Poland. On his
deathbed he refused to receive the last sacraments of the Church.
He is
buried in St. Vitus
Cathedral
in Prague
.
By his wife Maria he had a family of nine sons and six daughters.
He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
Rudolf, who had been chosen
king of the Romans in October 1575. Another of his sons,
Matthias, also became emperor;
three others,
Ernest,
Albert and
Maximilian, took some
part in the government of the Habsburg territories or of the
Netherlands, and a daughter, Elizabeth, married
Charles IX of France.
Religious policies
Maximilian's policies of religious neutrality and peace in the
Empire afforded its
Roman Catholics
and
Protestants a breathing-space after
the first struggles of the
Reformation.
He disappointed the German Protestant
princes
by his refusal to invest Protestant administrators of bishoprics
with their imperial fiefs. Yet on a personal basis he granted
freedom of worship to the Protestant nobility and worked for reform
in the Roman Catholic Church, including the right of priests to
marry.
This failed because of Spanish
opposition.
Maximilian II was a member of the
Order of the Golden Fleece.
Marriage and children
Maximilian II with his family
On 13 September 1548, Maximilian married his first cousin
Maria of Spain, daughter of
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
and
Isabella of Portugal. They
had sixteen children:
Titles
Maxilimian II, by the grace of God elected
Holy Roman Emperor, forever August, King
in Germany, of Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, etc.
Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Styria, Carinthia,
Carniola, Luxemburg, Württemberg, the Upper and Lower Silesia,
Prince of Swabia, Margrave of the Holy Roman Empire, Burgau,
Moravia, the Upper and Lower Lusatia, Princely Count of Habsburg,
Tyrol, Ferrette, Kyburg, Gorizia, Landgrave of Alsace, Lord of the
Wendish March, Pordenone and Salins, etc. etc.
Ancestors
See also
References
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