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 1573 - 1651 (78 years)
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Generation: 2
Generation: 3
Generation: 4
| 10. | Ferdinand I Holy Roman EMPEROR was born on 10 Mar 1503 in Madrid (son of Philip I The Handsome King Of CASTILE and Juana Queen Of CASTILE); died on 25 Jul 1564. Notes:
Ferdinand I (10 March 1503 ? 25 July 1564), Holy Roman Emperor (1556?1564), was born in Madrid, the son of Juana the Mad, Queen of Castile (1479?1555), and Philip I the Handsome, King of Castile (1478?1506), who was heir to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg.
Ferdinand was the younger brother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who entrusted him with the government of the Habsburg hereditary lands (roughly modern-day Austria and Slovenia). In 1531 Ferdinand was elected King of the Romans, making him Charles's designated heir as emperor. He deputised as ruler during his brother's many absences from imperial lands.
After Charles's abdication as emperor in 1556, Ferdinand assumed the title of Holy Roman Emperor, Charles having agreed to exclude his own son Philip from the German succession, which instead passed to Ferdinand's eldest son Maximilian (1527?1576
Hungary and the Ottomans
After Suleiman the Magnificent defeated Ferdinand's brother-in-law Louis II, King of Bohemia and of Hungary, at the battle of Moh·cs on 29 August 1526, Ferdinand was elected King of Bohemia in his place. The throne of Hungary became the subject of a dynastic dispute between Ferdinand and John Z·polya, voivode of Transylvania. Each was supported by different factions of the nobility in the Hungarian kingdom; Ferdinand also had the support of Charles V, and Z·polya, after defeat by Ferdinand at the Battle of Tokaj in 1527, the support of Suleiman. Ferdinand was able to win control only of western Hungary because Z·polya clung to the east and the Ottomans to the conquered south. In 1554 Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was sent to Istanbul by Ferdinand to discuss a border treaty over disputed land with the Sultan, Suleiman.
The most dangerous moment of Ferdinand's career came in 1529 when he took refuge in Bohemia from a massive but ultimately unsuccessful assault on his capital by Suleiman and the Ottoman armies at the Siege of Vienna. A further Ottoman attack on Vienna was repelled in 1533. In that year Ferdinand signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire, splitting the Kingdom of Hungary into a Habsburg sector in the west and John Z·polya's domain in the east, the latter effectively now a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1538, by the Treaty of Nagyv·rad, Ferdinand became Z·polya's successor, but he was unable to enforce this agreement during his lifetime because in 1540 John II Sigismund Z·polya, infant son of John Z·polya and Isabella Jagiello, was elected the new king of Hungary. He was initially supported by King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland and Lithuania, his mother's brother, but in 1549 a treaty was signed between the Habsburgs and the Polish ruler as a result of which Poland became neutral in the conflict, Sigismund Augustus marrying Elisabeth von Habsburg, Ferdinand's daughter.
[edit] Government
The western rump of Hungary over which Ferdinand retained dominion became known as Royal Hungary. As the ruler of Austria, Bohemia and Royal Hungary, Ferdinand adopted a policy of centralization and, in common with other monarchs of the time, the construction of an absolute monarchy. In 1527 he published a constitution for his hereditary domains (Hofstaatsordnung) and established Austrian-style institutions in Pressburg for Hungary, in Prague for Bohemia, and in Wroclaw (Breslau) for Silesia. Opposition from the nobles in those realms forced him in 1559 to concede the independence of these institutions from supervision by the Austrian government in Vienna.
In 1547 the Bohemian Estates rebelled against Ferdinand when he ordered the Bohemian army against the German Protestants. After suppressing Prague with the help of his brother's Spanish forces, he retaliated by limiting the privileges of Bohemian cities and inserting a new bureaucracy of royal officials to control urban authorities. Ferdinand was a supporter of the Counter-Reformation and helped lead the Catholic fight-back against what he saw as the heretical tide of Protestantism. For example, in 1551 he invited the Jesuits to Vienna and in 1556 to Prague; and in 1561 he revived the archbishopric of Prague.
Ferdinand died in Vienna and is buried in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague.
Names in other languages: German, Czech, Slovak, Croatian: Ferdinand I.; Hungarian: I. Ferdin·nd
Ferdinand married Anna Of Bohemia And HUNGARY in 1521. Anna (daughter of Vladislaus II Of Bohemia And HUNGARY and Anne DE FOIX) was born on 23 Jul 1503; died on 27 Jan 1547. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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| 11. | Anna Of Bohemia And HUNGARY was born on 23 Jul 1503 (daughter of Vladislaus II Of Bohemia And HUNGARY and Anne DE FOIX); died on 27 Jan 1547. Notes:
Excerpt from Wikipedia:
Anna, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary, also sometimes known as Anna Jagellonica (July 23, 1503 - January 27, 1547) was Queen-consort of the Romans and heiress of the kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia.
She was the elder child and only daughter of king Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary (1456-1516) and his fourth wife Anna of Foix-Candale. She was an older sister of Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia, and his eventual heiress.
Her paternal grandparents were King Casimir IV of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuania, of the Jagiellon dynasty, and Elisabeth of Austria, one of the heiresses of Bohemia, duchy of Luxembourg and duchy of Kujavia. Her maternal grandparents were Gaston de Foix, Count of Candale and Catherine de Foix, Infanta of the Kingdom of Navarre.
Life account
She was born in Prague and for the first three years of her life was the heiress presumptive to the thrones of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary. The birth of her younger brother Louis on July 1, 1506, demoted her to second-in-line. Her mother died on July 26 of the same year.
The death of Vladislaus II on March 13, 1516 left both siblings in the care of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. It was arranged that Anna marry his grandson Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, second son of Queen regnant Joanna of Castile and her late husband and co-ruler Philip I of Castile.
Anna married Ferdinand on May 25, 1521 in Linz, Austria. At the time Ferdinand was governing the Habsburg hereditary lands on behalf of his older brother Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Her brother Louis was killed in the Battle of Moh·cs against Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire on August 29, 1526. This left the thrones of both Bohemia and Hungary vacant, and Anna being the closest living relative of Louis, Ferdinand claimed both kingdoms in her right and was elected King of Bohemia on October 24 of the same year.
Hungary was a more difficult case. Suleiman had annexed much of its lands. Ferdinand was proclaimed King of Hungary by a group of nobles, but another faction of Hungarian nobles refused to allow a foreign ruler to hold that title and elected John Z·polya as an alternative king. The resulting conflict between the two rivals and their successors lasted until 1571.
In 1531 Ferdinand's older brother Charles V recognised Ferdinand as his successor as Holy Roman Emperor, and Ferdinand was elevated to the title King of the Romans.
Anna and Ferdinand had fifteen children, which was a boon to Bohemia and Hungary, both of which kingdoms had suffered for centuries from premature deaths among heirs and from a shortage of succession prospects.
Meanwhile Anna served as queen consort of Bohemia and as one of two rival queen consorts of Hungary until her death. She died in her native Prague.
In 1556 Charles V abdicated and Ferdinand succeeded as emperor, nine years after Anna's death.
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| 14. | , Christian II Of DENMARK was born on 02 Jul 1481 in Nyborg Castle; died on 25 Jan 1559 in Kalundborg Castle; was buried in Odense. Notes:
Christian II (July 2, 1481 ? January 25, 1559) was a Danish monarch and King of Denmark, Norway (1513 ? 1523) and Sweden (1520 ? 1521), under the Kalmar Union. Christian was born the son of King John of Denmark ("Kong Hans") and Christina of Saxony, at Nyborg Castle in 1481 and succeeded his father as king and regent in Denmark and Norway, where he later was to be succeeded by his uncle king Frederick I of Denmark. In Sweden, he was, as a result of his conquest of Sweden and his involvement in the Stockholm Bloodbath, to be remembered as Christian the Tyrant
Christian's reign concentrated around his attempts to maintain control of Sweden while attempting a concentration of power in the hands of the monarch, at the expense of both clergy and nobility. To further this attempt, he supported the creation of a strong class of burghers.[1]
Christian took part in his father's conquest of Sweden in 1497 and in the fighting of 1501 when Sweden revolted. He was appointed viceroy of Norway (1506 ? 1512), and succeeded in maintaining control of this country. During his harsh[1] administration in Norway, he attempted to deprive the Norwegian nobility of its traditional influence exercised through the rigsraad leading to controversy with the latter.
A peculiarity, more fatal to him in that aristocratic age than any other, was his fondness for the common people, which was increased by his passion for a pretty Norwegian girl of Dutch heritage, named Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, who became his mistress in 1507 or 1509.
Christian's succession to the throne was confirmed at the Herredag, or assembly of notables from the three northern kingdoms, which met at Copenhagen in 1513. The nobles and clergy of all three kingdoms regarded with grave misgivings a ruler who had already shown in Norway that he was not afraid of enforcing his authority to the uttermost.
The Privy Council of Denmark and the Privy Council of Norway, or Rigsraad of Denmark and Norway, insisted in the HaandfÊstning (i.e. the charter extorted from the king) that the crowns of both kingdoms were elective and not hereditary, providing explicitly against any transgression of the charter by the king, and expressly reserving to themselves a free choice of Christian's successor after his death. But the Swedish delegates could not be prevailed upon to accept Christian as king at all.
"We have", they said, "the choice between peace at home and strife here, or peace here and civil war at home, and we prefer the former." A decision as to the Swedish succession was therefore postponed. On August 12, 1515, Christian married Isabella of Burgundy, the granddaughter of the emperor Maximilian I. But he would not give up his liaison with Dyveke, and it was only the death of the unfortunate girl in 1517, under suspicious circumstances, that prevented serious complications with the emperor Charles V.
Christian avenged himself by executing the magnate Torben Oxe, who on very creditable evidence was supposed to have been Dyveke's murderer, despite the strenuous opposition of Oxe's fellow-peers; and henceforth the king lost no opportunity to suppress the nobility and raise commoners to power.
His chief counsellor was Dyveke's mother Sigbrit, a born administrator and a commercial genius of the first order. Christian first appointed her controller of the Sound tolls, and ultimately committed to her the whole charge of the finances. A bourgeoise herself, it was Sigbrit's constant policy to elevate and extend the influence of the middle classes. She soon became the soul of a middle-class inner council, which competed with the Rigsraad itself.
The patricians naturally resented their supersession and nearly every unpopular measure was attributed to the influence of "the foul-mouthed Dutch sorceress who hath bewitched the king." However Mogens G¯ye the leading man of the Council as long as possible supported the king.
[edit] Reconquest of Sweden
Meanwhile Christian was preparing for the inevitable war with Sweden, where the patriotic party, headed by the freely elected Viceroy Sten Sture the Younger, stood face to face with the pro-Danish party under Archbishop Gustav Trolle.
Christian, who had already taken measures to isolate Sweden politically, hastened to the relief of the archbishop, who was beleaguered in his fortress of St‰ket, but was defeated by Sture and his peasant levies at Vedila and forced to return to Denmark. A second attempt to subdue Sweden in 1518 was also frustrated by Sture's victory at Br‰nnkyrka. A third attempt made in 1520 with a large army of French, German and Scottish mercenaries proved successful.
Sture was mortally wounded at the battle of Bogesund, on January 19, and the Danish army, unopposed, was approaching Uppsala, where the members of the Swedish Privy Council, or RiksrÂd, had already assembled. The councillors consented to render homage to Christian on condition that he gave a full indemnity for the past and a guarantee that Sweden should be ruled according to Swedish laws and custom; and a convention to this effect was confirmed by the king and the Danish Privy Council on March 31.
Sture's widow, Dame Christina Gyllenstierna, still held out stoutly at Stockholm, and the peasantry of central Sweden, roused by her patriotism, flew to arms, defeated the Danish invaders at BalundsÂs on March 19, and were only with the utmost difficulty finally defeated at the bloody battle of Uppsala, on Good Friday, April 6, 1520.
In May the Danish fleet arrived, and Stockholm was invested by land and sea; but Dame Gyllenstierna, resisted valiantly for four months longer, and took care, when she surrendered on September 7, to exact beforehand an amnesty of the most explicit and absolute character. On November 1 the representatives of the nation swore fealty to Christian as hereditary king of Sweden, though the law of the land distinctly provided that the Swedish crown should be elective.
Christian descended, through both Valdemar I of Sweden and Magnus I of Sweden, from the Swedish Dynasty of Eric, and from Catherine, daughter of Inge I of Sweden, as well as from Ingrid Ylva, granddaughter of Sverker I of Sweden. His rival Gustav I of Sweden descended only from Sverker II of Sweden and the Dynasty of Sverker (who apparently did not descend from ancient Swedish kings). Christian's ancestry included almost all ancient Swedish kings.
[edit] The Stockholm Bloodbath
Christian II with coats of arms of Norway, Denmark and SwedenOn November 4, he was anointed by Gustavus Trolle in Stockholm Cathedral, and took the usual oath to rule the Realm through native-born Swedes alone, according to prescription. The next three days were given up to banqueting, but on November 7 "an entertainment of another sort began." On the evening of that day Christian summoned his captains to a private conference at the palace, the result of which was quickly apparent, for at dusk a band of Danish soldiers, with lanterns and torches, broke into the great hall and carried off several carefully selected persons.
By 10 o'clock the same evening the remainder of the king's guests were safely under lock and key. All these persons had previously been marked down on Archbishop Trolle's proscription list. On the following day a council, presided over by Trolle, solemnly pronounced judgment of death on the proscribed, as manifest heretics.
At 12 o'clock that night the patriotic bishops of Skara and Str‰ngn‰s were led out into the great square and beheaded. Fourteen noblemen, three burgomasters, fourteen town councillors and about twenty common citizens of Stockholm were then drowned or decapitated. The executions continued throughout the following day; in all, about eighty-two people are said to have been thus murdered.
Moreover, Christian revenged himself upon the dead as well as upon the living, for Sten Sture's body was dug up and burnt, as well as the body of his little child. Dame Christina and many other noble Swedish ladies were sent as prisoners to Denmark. It has well been said that the manner of this atrocious deed, the Stockholm Bloodbath as it is generally referred to, was even more detestable than the deed itself. The massacre and deeds in the Old Town of Stockholm is perhaps the primary reason why Christian is remembered in Sweden, as Christian the Tyrant.
Christian suppressed his political opponents under the pretense of defending an ecclesiastical system which in his heart he despised. Even when it became necessary to make excuses for his crime, we see the same double-standard. Thus, while in a proclamation to the Swedish people he represented the massacre as a measure necessary to avoid a papal interdict, in his apology to the Pope for the decapitation of the innocent bishops he described it as an unauthorized act of vengeance on the part of his own people.
[edit] Attempting reforms
It was with his brain teeming with great designs that Christian II returned to his native kingdom. That the welfare of his dominions was dear to him there can be no doubt. Inhuman as he could be in his wrath, in principle he was as much a humanist as any of his most enlightened contemporaries. But he would do things his own way; and deeply distrusting the Danish nobles with whom he shared his powers, he sought helpers from among the wealthy and practical middle classes of Flanders.
In June 1521 he paid a sudden visit to the Low Countries, and remained there for some months. He visited most of the large cities, took into his service many Flemish artisans, and made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht D¸rer; the latter painted his portrait. Christian also entertained Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Reformation, and let fall the characteristic expression: "Mild measures are of no use; the remedies that give the whole body a good shaking are the best and surest."
Never had King Christian seemed so powerful as upon his return to Denmark on September 5, 1521, and, with the confidence of strength, he at once proceeded recklessly to inaugurate the most sweeping reforms. Soon after his return he issued his great Landelove, or Code of Laws. For the most part this is founded on Dutch models, and testifies in a high degree to the king's progressive aims. Provision was made for the better education of the lower, and the restriction of the political influence of the higher clergy; there were stern prohibitions against wreckers and "the evil and unchristian practice of selling peasants as if they were brute beasts"; the old trade guilds were retained, but the rules of admittance thereto made easier, and trade combinations of the richer burghers, to the detriment of the smaller tradesmen, were sternly forbidden.
Unfortunately these reforms, excellent in themselves, suggested the standpoint not of an elected ruler, but of a monarch by right divine. Some of them were even in direct contravention of the charter; and the old Scandinavian spirit of independence was deeply wounded by the preference given to the Dutch.
[edit] Downfall
Sweden too was now in open revolt; and both Norway and Denmark were taxed to the uttermost to raise an army for the subjection of the sister kingdom. Foreign complications were now added to these domestic troubles. With the laudable objective of releasing Danish trade from the grinding yoke of the Hanseatic League, and making Copenhagen the great emporium of the north, Christian had arbitrarily raised the Sound tolls and seized a number of Dutch ships which presumed to evade the tax.
Thus his relations with the Netherlands were strained, while with L¸beck and her allies he was openly at war. Finally Jutland rose against him, renounced its allegiance and offered the Danish crown to Christian's uncle, Duke Frederick of Holstein, January 20, 1523. So overwhelming did Christian's difficulties appear that he took ship to seek help abroad, and on May 1 landed at Veere in Zeeland.
During his exile years the king led a relatively humble life in the city of Lier in the Netherlands waiting for the military help of his reluctant imperial brother-in-law. In the meantime he became regarded a social saviour in Denmark where both the peasants and the commoners began to wish his restoration. For some time he even became a protestant but had to re-convert in order to get the support of the Emperor.
Eight years later, October 24, 1531 he attempted to recover his kingdoms but a tempest scattered his fleet off the Norwegian coast, and on July 1, 1532, by the convention of Oslo, he surrendered to his rival, King Frederick, in exchange for a promise of safe conduct.
But King Frederick did not keep his promise, and for the next 27 years King Christian was kept prisoner, first in the Castle of Soenderborg until 1549, and afterwards at the castle of Kalundborg.
Stories of solitary confinement in small dark chambers are inaccurate; King Christian was treated like a nobleman, particularly in his old age, and he was allowed to host parties, go hunting, and wander freely as long as he did not go beyond the boundaries of the town of Kalundborg. But he was still a prisoner, albeit a royal one, and his 27-year captivity is a major blemish upon the reputation of king Frederick I and his son. Christian II was never convicted of any crime.
His cousin, King Christian III of Denmark, son of Frederick I, died in early 1559, and it was said that even then, with the old king nearing 80, did people in Copenhagen look warily towards Kalundborg. But king Christian II died peacefully just a few days later, and the new king, Frederick II, ordered that a royal funeral be held in memory of his unhappy kinsman, who lies buried in Odense next to his wife and his parents.
Among the six children of Christian II three must be mentioned. Prince Hans (John) died a boy in exile 1532. The two daughters Dorothea, Electress Palatine and Christina, Duchess of Lorraine both in turn for many years demanded in vain the Danish throne as their inheritance. Christian II's blood returned to the Swedish and Norwegian thrones in person of Charles XV of Sweden, descendant of Renata of Lorraine; and to the Danish throne in the person of Christian X of Denmark.
[edit] The Opinion of Posterity
Christian II is one of the most discussed of all Danish kings. He has been regarded as both a hypocritical tyrant and a progressive despot, who wanted to create an absolute monarchy based upon ?free citizens?. His psychological weaknesses have caught the interest of the historians, especially his frequently mentioned irresolution, which as years passed seemed to dominate his acts. Theories of manic-depression have been mentioned, but like many others they are impossible to prove. The reasons for his downfall were probably that he made too many enemies and that the Danish middle class was still not strong enough to make a base of the royal power. However some of his ambitions were fulfilled by the victory of absolutism in 1660.
The king?s almost ?Shakespearean? life and career ? the Dyveke affair, his acts concerning the Bloodbath, his behavior at the time of his downfall 1523, and his obscure existence as ?the prisoner of Soenderborg? ? has created many myths. One of the most famous is the story of the irresolute king crossing the Little Belt forwards and backwards during a whole night in February 1523 until he at last gave up. Another, probably just as unlikely, is the legend that the restless king wandered around a round table on Soenderborg making a groove in the table top with his finger. His life also inspired modern Danish poets and authors. The most famous literary result is probably the novel by Johannes Vilhelm Jensen: The Fall of the King (1900-1901) in which the king is regarded almost as a symbol of the Danish ?illness of hesitation?.
Christian married Isabella Of BURGUNDY in 1515. Isabella (daughter of Philip I The Handsome King Of CASTILE and Juana Queen Of CASTILE) was born on 18 Jul 1501; died on 19 Jan 1526. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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