Maximilian II

Holy Roman Emperor (r. 1564-1576)

• Born: July 31, 1527
• Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
• Died: October 12, 1576
• Place of death: Regensburg, Bavaria (now in Germany)

Maximilian II’s defense of the Peace of Augsburg, a religious compromise between Lutheran and Catholic rulers, contributed to a period of relative internal peace in most of the Roman Empire and in the Habsburg lands during his reign.

Early Life

Maximilian II was born to Ferdinand I and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. Six years before Maximilian II’s birth, Ferdinand I, the brother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, inherited the Habsburg lands, and in 1556, he succeeded his brother as emperor.

In 1529, Ferdinand I moved his family to Innsbruck, in part because the Ottoman Turks threatened Vienna and because it was free of the plague. Maximilian grew up in Innsbruck and learned the local Tirolian German dialect, which he used in adult life. He received a solid education from his tutors, young nobles from the Habsburg lands who were brought to the court to teach Maximilian. As Maximilian matured, he also became an enthusiastic hunter and horseman.

The Protestant Reformation’s impact on Germany, and Europe in general, made religion a contentious issue. In 1536, Maximilian’s tutor was Wolfgang Schiefer, who had been at Wittenberg with Martin Luther . Two years later, Ferdinand I issued an order that there would be no discussion of Luther’s religious teachings. In 1539, Schiefer was replaced by an orthodox Catholic tutor and Maximilian was confirmed in the Catholic faith.

Life’s Work

Beginning in 1538, Ferdinand I introduced Maximilian and his brothers to their future tasks. In Linz, Maximilian became acquainted with foreign diplomats, and in Vienna he met other officials. At age sixteen, Maximilian accompanied his father to the Reichstag. In 1544, his uncle, Charles V, summoned him to his court in Brussels. Maximilian supported his uncle in his war against the Protestant Schmalkaldic League and fought at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. Charles also arranged his daughter’s 1548 marriage to Maximilian in Spain. Maria and Maximilian had sixteen children, ten surviving childhood. Devoutly Catholic, Maria outlived Maximilian and died in a cloister in Spain in 1603.

In Spain, Maximilian became Charles’s regent for two years (1548-1550) and learned much about administration and government. In October, 1551, he returned to Germany and was later joined by his wife. From 1552, Maximilian lived in Vienna and administered his father’s Habsburg lands as regent of Austria, where he became the center of anti-Spanish opposition. He grew to dislike Charles V because Charles attempted to have his own son, Philip II, succeed Ferdinand as emperor of Germany. Naturally, Maximilian urged his father to reject Charles’s dynastic plans. In 1554, Ferdinand I divided his Habsburg possessions among his three sons, granting Maximilian Upper and Lower Austria and Hungary and Bohemia.

Because of Maximilian’s ambivalent attitude toward Catholicism, his dynastic future was first uncertain. Ferdinand had negotiated the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which recognized Lutheranism along with Catholicism in the empire. As German king in 1557, however, Ferdinand was confronted with Pope Paul IV’s threat to refuse to recognize him as emperor unless he gave assurances that no Protestant would succeed him to the throne in Germany. The Spanish Habsburg relatives were also concerned about Maximilian’s friendly relations with Protestant princes in the empire. By 1560, solutions were found.

With the religious issue seemingly solved, Maximilian became king of Bohemia on September 20, 1562. In November, 1562, he was crowned German king, and in September, 1563, he was named king of Hungary, even though much of that country was occupied by the Turks. Also, after having satisfied Pope Pius IV that he was committed to Catholicism, Maximilian succeeded his father as emperor on July 25, 1564.

As German emperor, Maximilian was confronted by a series of problems, ranging from religious issues in the empire and in his Austrian lands, to the Turkish threat on his eastern borders and the need for imperial reforms in the empire. The Turks had occupied large parts of Hungary after 1526, and because of Maximilian’s conflict with the prince of Transylvania, John Zápolya (later King John of Hungary), a new Turkish war broke out. In November, 1565, Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent attacked and defeated Maximilian in 1566, forcing him to agree to the Peace of Adrianople in 1568. Both parties accepted the status quo, and Maximilian was forced to recognize Zápolya as prince of Transylvania. In 1574, Maximilian again agreed to renew the peace treaty with the Turks.

Maximilian’s religious policy was contentious as far as the Papacy and his Spanish relatives were concerned. Maximilian wanted reconciliation between Lutheranism and Catholicism. Personally, he was willing to receive both bread and wine during Mass. Maximilian was horrified by the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre in Paris on August 24, 1572, which resulted in the mass murder of Protestant French Huguenots by Catholic leaders; he disagreed with the pope’s excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1570; and he initially thought Spanish repressive policy in the Netherlands in 1567 a mistake. All he could do, however, was to forbid the recruiting of troops in the Reich for the Dutch and the Huguenots. In the end, he was not successful in moderating Spanish policies in the Netherlands, nor could he contain Spanish expansion in Italy, an area of special interest because five of Maximilian’s sisters were married to Italian princes. His inability to control his Spanish cousin undermined his position with the German Protestant princes.

The need for finances to meet the constant Turkish threats allowed the Austrian estates to win concessions from Maximilian. To the disgust of his Spanish relatives and the pope, in 1568, he allowed Austrian and Bohemian nobles to practice the Augsburg Confession on their estates. At the Reichstag in 1566, he had to accept Calvinism in addition to Lutheranism and Catholicism. Maximilian became increasingly skeptical about the Hussite tradition and Calvinism, and, by 1572, he seems to have moved closer to equating Calvinism with treason.

Maximilian also faced frustrations with his dynastic policies. In the election for king of Poland in 1575, Maximilian was defeated by Stephen Báthory, prince of Transylvania. In Hungary, he had to acknowledge the principality of Transylvania under Zápolya, which was a dependency of the Ottoman Empire. Maximilian also failed to achieve major reforms in the empire. In 1567, he allowed Augustus I of Saxony to execute Wilhelm von Grumbach, a knight who had hoped to work with the emperor against the princes. This strengthened territorial power in the empire even more. He also failed to convince the Reichstag in 1570 to agree to military reforms, which would have increased the powers of the emperor. All he was able to do in that year was to ban German service in foreign military forces.

Throughout his adult life, Maximilian suffered from a variety of ailments, ranging from gout and urinary difficulties to heart problems. In 1571, he had a seizure. On October 12, 1576, he died in Regensburg, having refused the Catholic holy sacraments before his death.

Significance

Given the short period of Maximilian’s reign, the increasingly divisive role of religion, and the empire’s political realities, he found it impossible to accomplish major administrative reforms in the empire. Nevertheless, his acceptance of the Peace of Augsburg between Lutherans and Catholics helped keep peace in much of the empire and in the Habsburg domains. Compared to the bloody religious strife in France and in the Netherlands, this was no mean accomplishment. Maximilian could control neither the expansion of the Reformed Church (Calvinism) nor the growth of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in Germany. His successors, however, were no more successful, and they witnessed a bloody religious war in the empire in the early seventeenth century.

Maximilian’s policy of religious compromise increased the power of the regional estates in the empire and in Austria. His attempts to heal the split between the Catholics and Lutherans also brought him into conflict with his Spanish Habsburg relatives. Maximilian’s pressures on his father to reject Charles V’s plans to rotate the Crown between the Spanish and Austrian families, however, played a major role in ensuring that the Austrian Habsburgs would retain control of the imperial title. Furthermore, on October 9, 1576, he was able to get his son, Rudolf II , elected king of Germany, designating him as his successor and ensuring dynastic continuity.

Bibliography

Fichter, Paula Sutter. Emperor Maximilian II. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001. The only comprehensive, although very critical, biography of Maximilian II in English.

Kaufmann, Thomas da Costa. Variations on the Imperial Theme: Studies in Ceremonial Art and Collecting in the Age of Maximilian II and Rudolf II. New York: Garland, 1978. Discusses ceremonies and rituals as acts of state.

Lindell, Robert. “New Findings on Music at the Court of Maximilian II.” In Kaiser Maximilian II: Kultur und Politik im 16. Jahrhundert, edited by Friedrich Edelmayer and Alfred Kohler. Vienna, Austria: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1992. Evaluates Maximilian’s patronage of music.

Louthan, Howard. The Quest for Compromise: Peacemaking in Counter-Reformation Vienna. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Examines Maximilian’s tolerant religious views and policies.