ended by the treaty of Cherasco in 1631, but the influence of France was employed at the imperial diets and elsewhere in thwarting the plans of Ferdinand and in weakening the power of the Habsburgs. The last important act of the emperor was to secure the election of his son Ferdinand as king of the Romans. An attempt in 1630 to attain this end had failed, but in December 1636 the princes, meeting at Regensburg, bestowed the coveted dignity upon the younger Ferdinand. A few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February 1637, the emperor died at Vienna, leaving, in addition to the king of the Romans, a son Leopold William (1614–1662), bishop of Passau and Strassburg. Ferdinand’s reign was so occupied with the Thirty Years’ War and the struggle with the Protestants that he had little time or inclination for other business. It is interesting to note, however, that this orthodox and Catholic emperor was constantly at variance with Pope Urban VIII. The quarrel was due principally, but not entirely, to events in Italy, where the pope sided with France in the dispute over the succession to Mantua and Monferrato. The succession question was settled, but the enmity remained; Urban showing his hostility by preventing the election of the younger Ferdinand as king of the Romans in 1630, and by turning a deaf ear to the emperor’s repeated requests for assistance to prosecute the war against the heretics. Ferdinand’s character has neither individuality nor interest, but he ruled the Empire during a critical and important period. Kind and generous to his dependents, his private life was simple and blameless, but he was to a great extent under the influence of his confessors.
Bibliography.—The chief authorities for Ferdinand’s life and reign are F. C. Khevenhiller, Annales Ferdinandei (Regensburg, 1640–1646); F. van Hurter, Geschichte Kaiser Ferdinands II. (Schaffhausen, 1850–1855); Korrespondenz Kaiser Ferdinands II. mit P. Becanus und P. W. Lamormaini, edited by B. Dudik (Vienna, 1848 fol.); and F. Stieve, in the Allegmeine deutsche Biographie, Band vi. (Leipzig, 1877). See also the elaborate bibliography in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. iv. (Cambridge, 1906).
FERDINAND III. (1608–1657), Roman emperor, was the
elder son of the emperor Ferdinand II., and was born at Gratz
on the 13th of July 1608. Educated by the Jesuits, he was
crowned king of Hungary in December 1625, and king of Bohemia
two years later, and soon began to take part in imperial business.
Wallenstein, however, refused to allow him to hold a command
in the imperial army; and henceforward reckoned among his
enemies, the young king was appointed the successor of the
famous general when he was deposed in 1634; and as commander-in-chief
of the imperial troops he was nominally responsible for
the capture of Regensburg and Donauwörth, and the defeat of
the Swedes at Nördlingen. Having been elected king of the
Romans, or German king, at Regensburg in December 1636,
Ferdinand became emperor on his father’s death in the following
February, and showed himself anxious to put an end to the
Thirty Years’ War. He persuaded one or two princes to assent
to the terms of the treaty of Prague; but a general peace was
delayed by his reluctance to grant religious liberty to the
Protestants, and by his anxiety to act in unison with Spain.
In 1640 he had refused to entertain the idea of a general amnesty
suggested by the diet at Regensburg; but negotiations for
peace were soon begun, and in 1648 the emperor assented to the
treaty of Westphalia. This event belongs rather to the general
history of Europe, but it is interesting to note that owing
to Ferdinand’s insistence the Protestants in his hereditary
dominions did not obtain religious liberty at this settlement.
After 1648 the emperor was engaged in carrying out the terms
of the treaty and ridding Germany of the foreign soldiery. In
1656 he sent an army into Italy to assist Spain in her struggle
with France, and he had just concluded an alliance with Poland
to check the aggressions of Charles X, of Sweden when he died
on the 2nd of April 1657. Ferdinand was a scholarly and cultured
man, an excellent linguist and a composer of music.
Industrious and popular in public life, his private life was
blameless; and although a strong Roman Catholic he was less
fanatical than his father. His first wife was Maria Anna (d. 1646),
daughter of Philip III. of Spain, by whom he had three
sons: Ferdinand, who was chosen king of the Romans in 1653,
and who died in the following year; Leopold, who succeeded
his father on the imperial throne; and Charles Joseph (d. 1664),
bishop of Passau and Breslau, and grand-master of the Teutonic
order. The emperor’s second wife was his cousin Maria (d. 1649),
daughter of the archduke Leopold; and his third wife was
Eleanora of Mantua (d. 1686). His musical works, together with
those of the emperors Leopold I. and Joseph I., have been
published by G. Adler (Vienna, 1892–1893).
See M. Koch, Geschichte des deutschen Reiches unter der Regierung Ferdinands III. (Vienna, 1865–1866).
FERDINAND I. (1793–1875), emperor of Austria, eldest son
of Francis I. and of Maria Theresa of Naples, was born at Vienna
on the 19th of April 1793. In his boyhood he suffered from
epileptic fits, and could therefore not receive a regular education.
As his health improved with his growth and with travel, he was
not set aside from the succession. In 1830 his father caused him
to be crowned king of Hungary, a pure formality, which gave
him no power, and was designed to avoid possible trouble in the
future. In 1831 he was married to Anna, daughter of Victor
Emmanuel I. of Sardinia. The marriage was barren. When
Francis I. died on the 2nd of March 1835, Ferdinand was recognized
as his successor. But his incapacity was so notorious that
the conduct of affairs was entrusted to a council of state, consisting
of Prince Metternich (q.v.) with other ministers, and two
archdukes, Louis and Francis Charles. They composed the
Staatsconferenz, the ill-constructed and informal regency which
led the Austrian dominions to the revolutionary outbreaks of
1846–1849. (See Austria-Hungary.) The emperor, who was
subject to fits of actual insanity, and in his lucid intervals was
weak and confused in mind, was a political nullity. His personal
amiability earned him the affectionate pity of his subjects, and
he became the hero of popular stories which did not tend to maintain
the dignity of the crown. It was commonly said that having
taken refuge on a rainy day in a farmhouse he was so tempted
by the smell of the dumplings which the farmer and his family
were eating for dinner, that he insisted on having one. His
doctor, who knew them to be indigestible, objected, and thereupon
Ferdinand, in an imperial rage, made the answer:—“Kaiser
bin i’, und Knüdel müss i’ haben” (I am emperor, and
will have the dumpling)—which has become a Viennese proverb.
His popular name of Der Gütige (the good sort of man) expressed
as much derision as affection. Ferdinand had good taste for
art and music. Some modification of the tight-handed rule of
his father was made by the Staatsconferenz during his reign. In
the presence of the revolutionary troubles, which began with
agrarian riots in Galicia in 1846, and then spread over the whole
empire, he was personally helpless. He was compelled to escape
from the disorders of Vienna to Innsbruck on the 17th of May
1848. He came back on the invitation of the diet on the 12th
of August, but soon had to escape once more from the mob of
students and workmen who were in possession of the city. On
the 2nd of December he abdicated at Olmütz in favour of his
nephew, Francis Joseph. He lived under supervision by doctors
and guardians at Prague till his death on the 29th of June
1855.
See Krones von Marchland, Grundriss der österreichischen Geschichte (Vienna, 1882), which gives an ample bibliography; Count F. Hartig, Genesis der Revolution in Österreich (Leipzig, 1850),—an enlarged English translation will be found in the 4th volume of W. Coxe’s House of Austria (London, 1862).
FERDINAND I. (1423–1494), also called Don Ferrante, king
of Naples, the natural son of Alphonso V. of Aragon and I. of
Sicily and Naples, was born in 1423. In accordance with his
father’s will, he succeeded him on the throne of Naples in 1458,
but Pope Calixtus III. declared the line of Aragon extinct and
the kingdom a fief of the church. But although he died before
he could make good his claim (August 1458), and the new Pope
Pius II. recognized Ferdinand, John of Anjou, profiting by the
discontent of the Neapolitan barons, decided to try to regain
the throne conquered by his ancestors, and invaded Naples.
Ferdinand was severely defeated by the Angevins and the rebels
at Sarno in July 1460, but with the help of Alessandro Sforza
