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With his policies of war and marriage, Emperor Maximilian I laid the foundations upon which the Habsburgs rose to become a great power. 3/22/1459 to 1/12/1519
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Philip was the son of Emperor Maximilian I. He was married to the Spanish infanta Juana, helping form the alliance against France. Philip, became King of Castile. Spain and its associated territories passed to the Habsburgs, and his son Charles V became the ruler. 6/22/1478 - 9/25/1506
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The daughter of Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy. In 1507 her father appointed her regent of the Netherlands. 1/10/1480 - 11/30/1530
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Charles V was one of the most powerful European. Reigning over territories in Europe and the Americas. In his Europe he had to deal with the challenges of the religious conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism. He also waged numerous wars against France and the Ottoman Empire. When he finally abdicated as emperor, the title passed to the Austrian Habsburgs. 2/24/1500 - 9/21/1558
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The third child of Philip. In 1515 she was married to King Christian II of Denmark. In 1523 the Danish royal couple had to flee into exile in the Netherlands, as King Christian had shortly before ordered a massacre of Swedish nobility. 7/18/1501 - 1/19/1526
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On the basis of agreements concluded with his powerful brother Emperor Charles V, Ferdinand I was assigned the patrimonial lands of the Habsburgs in Central Europe, thus founding the Austrian line of the family. In his will he divided the Habsburg patrimonial lands among his three sons. 3/10/1503 - 7/25/1564
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The Battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526 marked the beginning of the Habsburgs’ Turkish Wars
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Maximilian II stands out among the otherwise strictly Catholic Habsburgs, he was sympathetic to Protestantism In 1562 he finally yielded to public pressure and pledged to remain a Catholic. 7/31/1527 - 10/12/1556
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This first Turkish siege of Vienna was part of the Turkish Wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
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Appointed regent of Bohemia by his father, Ferdinand I, after the latter’s death in 1564 he ruled over Tyrol. Ferdinand married a commoner. 6/14/1529 - 1/24/1595
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Emperor Ferdinand I gave his youngest son Charles the group of lands making up Inner Austria. 6/6/1540 - 7/10/1590
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Rudolf II had grown up in Spain. After his accession to the throne he moved his residence from Vienna to Prague 7/18/1552 - 1/20/1612
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Matthias had high political ambitions which brought him into conflict with his brother, Emperor Rudolf II. Matthias overthrew his brother, war, which finally broke out in Bohemia in 1618. Matthias died shortly afterwards. As he had no children he was succeeded by his cousin, Ferdinand II. 2/24/1557 - 3/20/1690
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Ferdinand as ruler over Inner Austria he relentlessly implemented the re-Catholicization. He was elected emperor in the midst of rebellions by the Estates at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. 7/9/1577 - 2/15/1637
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During his reign Spain was still one of the dominant powers in Europe, he favored a policy of peace in the Netherlands, as also with France and England. 4/14/1578 - 3/31/1621
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The second son of Charles II of Inner Austria, In 1630 his brother Emperor Ferdinand II finally assigned him the regency of Tyrol and the Vorlande (the western regions), where he founded a collateral line of the Habsburgs. 10/9/1586 - 9/13/1632
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Eleonora of Mantua married Emperor Ferdinand II in 1622. 1598 - 1655
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His reign represented a period of cultural brilliance for Spain in the latter years of the ‘Golden Age’, but also marked the political decline and fall of this great power 4/8/1605 - 9/17/1665
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Ferdinand was elected Roman King shortly before the death of his father, Ferdinand II. 7/13/1608 - 4/2/1657
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The second son of Emperor Ferdinand II, he successfully commanded imperial armies against the Swedes in the Thirty Years’ War. 1614-1662
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Thirty Years’ War. The causes were conflicts between religions as well as between states and social classes. There was enormous suffering among ordinary people, who were trapped between the lines of the various armies involved. After many years of negotiations the war was ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.
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In 1618 Protestant nobles in Bohemia began a revolt against Habsburg rule; it marked the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. Two years later the Battle of the White Mountain, a hill to the west of Prague, lasted just two hours but ended with the crushing defeat of the troops of the Bohemian Estates by Emperor Ferdinand II and his allies. This led to the execution of twenty-seven of the leaders of the revolt and the Bohemian Estates being deprived of power.
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Ferdinand Karl died without an heir, and the regency in Tyrol passed to his brother Sigismund Franz. 5/17/1628 - 12/30/1662
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A member of the ducal family of Mantua, Eleonore Gonzaga became the third wife of Emperor Ferdinand III in 1651. 1630 - 1686
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Sigismund Franz was originally intended for the Church. However, he was able to assert himself after his brother’s death as his successor in Tyrol, The Tyrolean male line of the Habsburgs died out with Sigismund Franz, and Tyrol reverted to the main line of the dynasty. 11/27/1630 - 6/25/1665
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Archduke Ferdinand was groomed from an early age by his father Emperor Ferdinand III as his successor on the throne. While still a youth he was crowned King of Bohemia (1646) and King of Hungary (1647), and at the age of nineteen elected Roman-German King. However, he never acceded as he died of smallpox when still a young man, prior to his father. He was succeeded as heir by his brother Leopold. 9/8/1633 - 7/9/1654
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Leopold I became emperor after the sudden death of his brother Ferdinand IV. During his long reign the Habsburg Monarchy waged numerous wars. As a Baroque ruler, Leopold promoted the arts and had an especially keen interest in music. 6/9/1640 - 5/5/1705
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Margarita Teresa, from the Spanish Habsburg line, was the first wife of her uncle, Leopold I. Margarita Teresa died at the age of only 21, shortly after the birth of her sixth child. 1651-1673
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He succeeded his father Philip IV at the age of four. He was neither physically nor mentally capable of ruling, and was dominated by his mother Archduchess Mariana for almost the whole of his life. Speculations about the distribution of the Spanish patrimony were already rife while he was still alive. He died childless, triggering the Spanish War of Succession. 11/6/1661 - 11/1/1700
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Joseph I, in his short reign was dominated by the war. His sudden death completely changed the war situation and led to the Habsburgs having to relinquish their claim to the Spanish throne. 7/26/1678 - 4/17/1711
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In 1683 the Ottoman army laid siege to Vienna, the Emperor’s official residence and capital city.
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After the death of Charles II, the last Spanish Habsburg, a war broke out between France and the Austrian Habsburgs over the vacant Spanish throne. It was waged in many parts of Europe with various alliances. It resulted in the division of the Spanish inheritance: while Philip V retained Spain and the overseas colonies, the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples with Sicily as well as Milan, Mantua and Sardinia were granted to the Habsburgs 1710-1714
