Ferdinand II (aug 28, 1619 – feb 15, 1637)

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grandson of Ferdinand I; cousin of Rudolf and Matthias. Son of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria, and Maria of Bavaria. In 1590, his parents, who were devout Catholics, sent him to study at the Jesuits' college in Ingolstadt, because they wanted to isolate him from the Lutheran nobles. In the same year, he inherited Inner Austria—Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and smaller provinces—from his father. Emperor Rudolf II appointed regents to administer Inner Austria on behalf of the minor Ferdinand. As he reached his majority, he regarded the regulation of religious issues as a royal prerogative and introduced strict Counter-Reformation measures from 1598. During the first stage of the family feud known as the Brothers' Quarrel, Ferdinand initially supported Maximilian, who wanted to convince the melancholic Emperor to abdicate, but Matthias' concessions to the Protestants in Hungary, Austria and Bohemia outraged him.
After Matthias' death on 20 March 1619, Ferdinand was elected Holy Roman Emperor, but the Protestant Bohemian Estates dethroned him and offered the crown to the Calvinist Frederick V of the Palatinate. Led by Bavaria, the Catholic southern states formed the Catholic League to expel Frederick in support of the Emperor. The Empire crushed the perceived Protestant rebellion in the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, executing leading Bohemian aristocrats shortly after. Protestant rulers across Europe unanimously condemned the Emperor's action. Saxony and Sweden joined the Protestants in protest, transforming what had been simply the Emperor's attempt to curb the Protestant states into a full-scale war in Europe. Habsburg Spain, wishing to finally crush the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands and the Dutch Republic intervened under the pretext of helping its dynastic Habsburg ally, Austria. No longer able to tolerate the encirclement of two major Habsburg powers on its borders, Catholic France entered the coalition on the side of the Protestants in order to counter the Habsburgs.
Ferdinand died in 1637, leaving to his son Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, an empire still engulfed in a war and whose fortunes seemed to be increasingly chaotic.

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