rkish yoke. It was left for his
brother Ferdinand, a ruler of consummate wisdom (1556-1564) "to establish
the modern Habsburg-Austrian empire with its exclusive territorial
interests, its administrative experiments, its intricacies of religion and
of race."

[Sidenote: The policy of Ferdinand and Maximillian II.]

Before his death Ferdinand divided the inheritance of the German Habsburgs
between his three sons. Austria proper was left to his eldest son
Maximilian, Tirol to the archduke Ferdinand; and Styria with Carinthia and
Carniola to the archduke Charles. Under the emperor Maximilian II.
(1564-1576), who was also king of Bohemia and Hungary, a liberal policy
preserved peace, but he was unable to free his government from its
humiliating position of a tributary to the Turk, and he could do nothing to
found religious liberty within his dominions on a permanent basis. The
whole of Austria and nearly the whole of Styria were mainly Lutheran; in
Bohemia, Silesia and Moravia, various forms of Christian belief struggled
for mastery; and Catholicism was almost confined to the mountains of Tirol.
[Sidenote: The reign of Rudolph II.] The accession of Rudolph II.[1]
(1576-1612), a fanatical Spanish Catholic, changed the situation entirely.
Under him the Jesuits were encouraged to press on the counter-Reformation.
In the early part of his reign there was hardly any government at all. In
Bohemia a state of semi-independence existed, while Hungary preferred
[Sidenote: The family compact, 1606.] the Turk to the emperor. In both
kingdoms Rudolph had failed to assert his sovereign power except in fitful
attempts to extirpate heresy. With anarchy prevalent within the Austrian
dominions some action became necessary. Accordingly in 1606 the archdukes
made a compact agreeing to acknowledge the archduke Matthias as head of the
family. This arrangement proved far from successful. Matthias, who was
emperor from 1612 to 1619, proved unable to restore order, and when he died
Bohemia was practically independent. His successor Ferdinand II.
(1619-1637) was strong of will; and resolved to win back Germany to the
Catholic faith. As archduke of Styria he had crushed out Protestantism
[Sidenote: The Thirty Years' War.] in that duchy, and having been elected
king of Bohemia in 1618 was resolved to establish there the rule of the
Jesuits. His attempt to do so led to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War
(see BOHEMIA; THIRTY YEARS' WAR). Till 1630 the