Ferdinand III.

Ferdinand III was born Ferdinand Ernst in Graz on July 13, 1608. He came from the House of Habsburg and was the eldest surviving son of Emperor Ferdinand II and Maria Anna of Bavaria. He spent his early childhood under his parents’ loving care and maintained a close relationship with his siblings. After his mother’s death in 1616 and his father’s increasing political involvement, Ferdinand joined the household of his elder brother Johann Karl. There, under Christoph Simon von Thun, he received the education appropriate for a secular prince. Jesuits instructed him in religion and science, while the Knights of Malta and court officials also taught him military matters. Ferdinand was a committed Catholic and was said to have mastered several languages. He spoke Italian particularly well, and his knowledge of Latin and Spanish was also considered solid. After the deaths of his brothers Karl and Johann Karl, Ferdinand was designated his father’s successor and systematically prepared to rule. He was crowned King of Hungary on December 8, 1625, followed by his coronation as King of Bohemia on November 27, 1627. Ferdinand II was initially unable to secure his election as King of the Romans in 1630. Ferdinand himself unsuccessfully sought a military command under Wallenstein. Instead, he joined the field marshal’s opponents at the Viennese court and participated in preparations for Wallenstein’s second dismissal in 1634. In 1631, after lengthy negotiations, Ferdinand married his cousin Maria Anna of Spain, a daughter of King Philip III. Despite the ongoing war, the wedding was celebrated with exceptional magnificence over fourteen months. Maria Anna was two years older than Ferdinand and was regarded as loving and intelligent. Together with her brother, the Spanish Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, she exercised considerable influence over the emperor. She also helped connect the Habsburg courts in Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna. The marriage produced six children, including the future Emperor Leopold I and Ferdinand IV, who was initially intended to succeed his father. After Wallenstein’s death, Ferdinand assumed supreme command of the imperial army on May 2, 1634. He was supported by the generals Matthias Gallas and Ottavio Piccolomini, as well as by political and military advisers. His first major successes were the recapture of Regensburg in July 1634 and the capture of Donauwörth in August. In September, the imperial army, together with the troops of the Spanish Cardinal-Infante, won the Battle of Nördlingen. Two Swedish armies were destroyed, forcing the Swedes to withdraw from southern Germany. Although Ferdinand’s personal contribution to these military successes was limited, his political standing at the Viennese court rose considerably. In 1635, Ferdinand participated in the negotiations leading to the Peace of Prague. He initially hoped that an agreement with Electoral Saxony would restore unity within the Empire and enable France and Sweden to be pushed back militarily. The war nevertheless entered a new phase when France declared war on Spain and became directly involved in the conflict. An attack on Paris planned for 1636 failed. Operations from the north and south made no decisive progress; supply problems, poor coordination, and resistance from French forces prevented success. At the same time, the Swedes took advantage of the absence of imperial troops to launch new attacks. On December 22, 1636, Ferdinand was elected King of the Romans at Regensburg. After his father’s death on February 15, 1637, he succeeded him as emperor. He inherited an empire devastated by the Thirty Years’ War and a population exhausted by conflict. Although he wanted to end the war as soon as possible, the momentum of the fighting, political circumstances, and his hesitant approach prevented a swift peace. In the following years, the military situation deteriorated. Swedish troops advanced into Bohemia and the Habsburg hereditary lands, while the imperial armies suffered from supply shortages and unreliable assistance from their allies. From 1642 onward, the Habsburgs suffered further defeats, including a severe loss to the Swedes at Breitenfeld. France also increased its involvement in the Empire after defeating Spain at Rocroi. Peace negotiations began in Münster and Osnabrück in 1644, but the fighting continued. After Gallas’s army disintegrated, Ferdinand assembled a new army in Prague. At the urging of his advisers and the Bavarian elector Maximilian, he sent it against the Swedes. The Battle of Jankau on March 6, 1645, ended in a clear defeat. The Swedes then advanced to the outskirts of Vienna. Ferdinand initially fled to the city and tried to raise its morale by leading a procession carrying an image of the Virgin Mary. He did not leave Vienna until the Swedes had reached the opposite bank of the Danube. Military countermeasures and political concessions eventually ended the immediate danger. In the Peace of Linz in 1645, Ferdinand had to grant Hungary greater participation for the estates and religious freedom for Protestants. After Jankau, it became clear that a Habsburg universal monarchy in the Empire could no longer be imposed. Ferdinand had to abandon his earlier objectives and concentrate on securing the hereditary lands and consolidating his rule in Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. Under the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the imperial estates received extensive rights, including the right to form alliances with foreign powers. Sweden and France received territorial and financial compensation, while Switzerland and the Netherlands were effectively recognized as independent. Bavaria retained the Palatine electoral dignity and Upper Palatinate, while the Electoral Palatinate was partially restored. The religious order of the Empire was also reorganized. The attempt to govern the Empire in an absolutist manner had failed, but Ferdinand’s position in his Habsburg territories remained strong. After the war, Ferdinand worked to stabilize the Empire politically and institutionally. He reorganized the Aulic Council, whose new regulations remained in force until 1806, and in 1652 summoned a Diet to Regensburg. There, the constitutional provisions of the peace treaties were confirmed. He was unable, however, to establish an effective imperial army. In the hereditary lands, his power over the estates continued to grow, while the Counter-Reformation proceeded and Vienna’s fortifications were substantially expanded. A standing imperial army was also formed from the remnants of the wartime forces. After Maria Anna’s death in 1646, Ferdinand first married Maria Leopoldine of Austria-Tyrol, who died in 1649. In 1651, he entered his third marriage, to Eleonora Magdalena Gonzaga of Mantua-Nevers. She was devout, well educated, and interested in the arts, and together with Ferdinand she supported music and literature. Ferdinand himself was the first Habsburg ruler whose own compositions have survived. He wrote sacred and secular music as well as Italian poetry, and he also took an interest in the natural sciences. From 1650 onward, Ferdinand increasingly suffered from severe attacks of gout. He died in Vienna on April 2, 1657, and was buried in the Capuchin Crypt. His legacy was contradictory: within the Empire, the emperor lost considerable power to the imperial estates, while his position as ruler of the Austrian hereditary lands and as king of Hungary and Bohemia emerged strengthened from his reign. His motto was “Pietate et iustitia” — “With piety and justice.”