Karl II.

Karl II Francis of Inner Austria was born on 3 June 1540 in Vienna as the third son of the future Emperor Ferdinand I and his wife, Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. He belonged to the House of Habsburg and ruled the Inner Austrian lands from 1564 until his death. These comprised the duchies of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, as well as the County of Gorizia. In his youth, Karl traveled throughout the Empire, Italy, and Spain, gaining early insight into the political and cultural conditions of his time. Ferdinand I newly divided the Habsburg hereditary lands among his sons. This arrangement primarily concerned the exercise of government, while all the sons continued to retain claims to the hereditary lands as a whole. Karl’s elder brother Maximilian received Bohemia, Hungary, and Lower Austria, while Ferdinand was given Tyrol and the Further Austrian lands. Karl, the twelfth of fifteen children, was entrusted with the Inner Austrian territories. At the age of 24, shortly before his father’s death, he had the estates pay homage to him there and assumed the government in 1564. Unlike Maximilian II, Karl was a committed Catholic. He therefore vigorously promoted the Counter-Reformation and, among other measures, brought the Jesuits into his lands. At the beginning of his rule, however, he had to make substantial concessions to the Protestant-minded estates of Inner Austria. The Graz Religious Pacifications of 1572 and the Brucker Libell of 1578 effectively resulted in the toleration of Protestantism. Karl later sought to withdraw these agreements gradually. At a conference in Munich in 1579, Karl agreed with the papal nuncio and representatives of Bavaria, Salzburg, and Tyrol on a comprehensive strategy for re-Catholicization. The Catholic authorities were to control the printing presses, alter their agreements with the estates to the latter’s disadvantage, and use the right of patronage in favor of the Catholic Church. Protestant preachers were to be arrested or expelled, the construction of Protestant churches prevented, and Protestant officeholders replaced by Catholics. Karl implemented these decisions consistently throughout his territories. The Inner Austrian line of the Habsburgs also bore a substantial share of the burden of the wars against the Ottoman Empire. In this context, the fortress of Karlstadt, present-day Karlovac, was founded in Croatia in 1579. Karl also supported the arts and sciences. Among the artists he patronized was the distinguished composer Orlando di Lasso. In 1573, Karl founded the Academic Gymnasium in Graz, and twelve years later he established the university there. Karl also left an important mark on the legal system. In 1574, he issued a new procedural code for the courts of Styria, known as the “Styrian Reform of Land Law.” Among other things, it simplified the enforcement of claims in cases of breach of contract by providing for measures that could be enforced directly. A similar court ordinance, adapted to the particular circumstances of the country, had already been issued for Carniola in 1571. Karl married comparatively late. Ferdinand I initially attempted to arrange a marriage between him and the English queen Elizabeth I. The lengthy negotiations from 1559 to 1560 and again from 1564 to 1568 failed because of religious questions and Elizabeth’s fundamental doubts about marrying at all. Discussions about a marriage to Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1563 and 1564 also produced no result. Finally, on 26 August 1571, Karl married his Bavarian niece Maria Anna, daughter of Duke Albert V of Bavaria, in a magnificent ceremony. The marriage produced fifteen children. Their firstborn son, Ferdinand, died in 1572. The surviving children included Anna, who married the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, and Maria Christina, who was initially married to Sigismund Báthory, Grand Prince of Transylvania. Especially important was their son Ferdinand, born in 1578, who later became the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Other children included Maximilian Ernst, Leopold V, Maria Magdalena, who married Cosimo II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Constance, who was also connected by marriage to Sigismund III Vasa. Karl’s youngest son, Karl Joseph, was born in 1590 and later became Grand Master as well as Bishop of Breslau and Brixen. When Karl died in Graz on 10 July 1590, his designated successor, Ferdinand II, was still a minor. Karl’s cousin Ernst, who was then governor in Lower Austria, therefore assumed guardianship and at the same time the regency in Inner Austria. The division of Habsburg rule created by Ferdinand I ultimately lasted only temporarily. Ferdinand II outlived his cousins from the other lines and eventually reunited the inheritance. Karl II thus became the progenitor of the Inner Austrian line from which the later ruling House of Austria emerged. Karl was buried on 31 October 1590 in the crypt of his mausoleum in Seckau Basilica. The mausoleum, begun in 1587 by Alessandro de Verda and completed by Sebastian Carlone by 1612, is considered one of the most significant Early Baroque buildings in the southeastern Alpine region. A magnificent red-marble double sarcophagus was also created for Karl and his wife. Ultimately, only Maria Anna was buried in it; after the dissolution of the convent of the Poor Clares in Graz, the sarcophagus was transferred to the Mausoleum of Emperor Ferdinand II in Graz.