Ferdinand II or Ferdinand the Catholic, 1452-1516, king of Aragón (1479-1516), king of Castile and León (as Ferdinand V, 1474-1504), king of Sicily (1468-1516), and king of Naples (1504-16). His father, John II of Aragón, gave him Sicily during his lifetime and left him Aragón when he died. In 1469, Ferdinand married Isabella I of Castile, and in 1474 they assumed joint rule of Castile. Thus, all of Spain except for the Moorish kingdom of Granada became united. The royal couple, known as the Catholic kings, set out with energetic determination to complete the unification, and Granada fell to them at last in 1492.

In the same year Ferdinand and Isabella took the fateful step of expelling from their kingdoms all Jews who refused to accept Christianity. One of the effects of this measure was to deprive Spain of a valuable cultural and economic community. The expulsion of the Moors (1502) had less impact, for many more Moors than Jews chose to pretend to accept Christianity and remain in Spain. The Catholic kings also instituted the Inquisition in Spain to bolster religious and political unity.

Their reign was crucial in the history of the world as well as that of Spain. In 1492, Christopher Columbus , sailing under their auspices, discovered the New World, and in 1494, by the Treaty of Tordesillas (see Tordesillas, Treaty of ), Spain and Portugal divided the non-Christian world between them. Ferdinand personally was more interested in Mediterranean affairs. He began Spain's struggle with France for control of Italy in the Italian Wars . His general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba conquered Naples in 1504. Ferdinand joined the League of Cambrai (1508) against Venice and the Holy League (1511) against France. In 1512 he annexed most of Navarre, basing his claim on his marriage (1506) to Germaine de Foix.

After Isabella's death (1504) he retained control over Castile as regent for his daughter Joanna . Joanna's husband, Philip I , became king of Castile in 1506 but died the same year. For the rest of his life Ferdinand continued his regency over Castile, first in the name of Joanna, who became insane, and then for his grandson, later Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. When Ferdinand died, he left his grandson a united Spain, as well as Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and an overseas empire.

During the reign of the Catholic kings the power of the throne grew. The nobles and the Cortes (parliament) were curbed, and the church was used as an instrument of political policy. Many of Ferdinand's policies had long-lasting effects, especially the expulsion of the Jews and the Muslims, many of whom settled in N Africa, the search for American gold, and the conversion of large agricultural areas into grazing lands for the benefit of the wool industry. Spain became an Atlantic power and revolutionized the commerce of Europe.

Bibliography: See W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (4 vol., 1838; abridged and ed. by C. H. Gardiner, 1963); J. H. Mariéjol, The Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella (1892, tr. 1961); R. B. Merriman, The Rise of the Spanish Empire (Vol. II, The Catholic Kings, 1918); J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain: 1469-1716 (1963).

Ferdinand II

Ferdinand II (1578-1637) was Holy Roman emperor from 1619 to 1637. He attempted to revive imperial authority in Germany and to restore Catholicism in his domain.

Born in Graz in Styria on July 9, 1578, Ferdinand of Hapsburg was the son of Archduke Charles of inner Austria and Maria of Bavaria. His father, a devout Catholic, ruled a province which had been strongly influenced by the Protestant Reformation. To protect his heir from Lutheran influences, Charles in 1590 sent Ferdinand to school at Ingolstadt in Catholic Bavaria. Archduke Charles died shortly thereafter, and Ferdinand ruled Styria under a regency until he was declared of age in 1596.

His Jesuit teachers, militant missionaries of the Catholic restoration, were enormously influential in forming Ferdinand's conception of his duties as a Christian prince, and from the beginning he dedicated himself to restoring the Roman faith in his lands. In 1602 he expelled Protestant teachers and preachers from Styria, closed or destroyed their churches, and gave his nonnoble Protestant subjects the choice of conversion or exile.

When his cousins the emperors Rudolf II and Matthias died childless, Ferdinand fell heir to the Hapsburg dominions in Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary. In 1617 he was elected king of Bohemia and in 1618 king of Hungary, intimidating the noble assemblies in both instances. In 1619 he succeeded Matthias as Holy Roman emperor. His Protestant subjects, fearing an attack on their right to worship, refused the oath of homage, and in May 1618 the Bohemian nobility rose in revolt. With the support of Maximilian of Bavaria and the forces of the Catholic League under Count Tilly, he bloodily suppressed the Protestant rebels in Austria and Bohemia in 1620.

His efforts to restore Catholicism precipitated the Thirty Years War, a European conflict in which the religious issue ultimately became submerged in a conflict for domination of the Continent. In 1629 and again in 1635 Ferdinand II was in a position to dictate a favorable peace in Germany. But both times he refused to make reasonable compromises with the Protestant princes and their powerful foreign protectors, France and Sweden.

Ferdinand II has been judged harshly for his religious fanaticism and his lack of political realism. In an age of brutal power politics he persisted in subordinating his political goals to his religious convictions. He was easily outwitted in a bargain and naive about issues that went beyond the uplifting religious tracts that made up his only reading. By dynastic accident he reunited the main Hapsburg domains in central Europe, but in pursuing the chimera of Catholic restoration he widened the rift between imperial authority and the German princes. He died in Vienna on Feb. 15, 1637.

Further Reading

The only major source for the reign of Ferdinand II is in German. In English the best references are in general works on the period. The most important are C. V. Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War (1939); S. H. Steinberg, The "Thirty Years War" and the Conflict for European Hegemony, 1600-1660 (1966); and H. G. Koenigsberger, The Habsburgs and Europe, 1516-1660 (1971). □

Ferdinand II

Ferdinand II (1810-1859) was king of the Two Sicilies from 1830 to 1859. He stoutly resisted Italian liberalism and independence movements. His bombardment of Sicilian cities earned him the nickname of King Bomba.

Born in Palermo on Jan. 12, 1810, Ferdinand II was the son of the future Francis I and the grandson of the violently anti-revolutionary Ferdinand I, both of the Bourbon line of Naples. His mother was the Spanish Infanta Maria Isabel. When Ferdinand ascended the throne of the Southern Kingdom in 1830, it was hoped that he might head up an attack on reaction from within Italy and the domination of Austria from without Italy. His first marriage was to Christina of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel I of Piedmont, the only other Italian monarch capable of resisting Austrian pressure. His reign began with an amnesty of political prisoners. He refused to sign a treaty of alliance with Austria, and he worked out a foreign-policy orientation toward France. However, Christina died in 1836 (having given birth to the last of the Bourbon line, Francis II), and with his marriage to the Austrian archduchess Theresa, Ferdinand instituted a new policy of repression at home and of friendship with the Hapsburgs.

Ferdinand put down insurrections in Sicily and Calabria in 1844; but with the revolutionary movement of 1848 the former province declared its independence. In Naples, Ferdinand instituted a constitutional monarchy, patterned on that of the 1830 July Monarchy in France. According to the constitution of January 29, there was to be a bicameral legislature and civil liberties. The constitutional movement spread to the rest of Italy and, spearheaded by Piedmont, the Italians launched their First War of Independence against Austria.

Ferdinand had contributed troops to the war effort. They were recalled after further radical activity at Naples, which resulted in the revocation of the new constitution. On May 15 the new Parliament convened, only to be immediately dispersed. (The constitution was formally discontinued on March 13, 1849.) Sicily was reconquered, and Ferdinand contributed troops to the crushing of the last Roman Republic. The savage repression which followed the defeat of the liberals had by 1850 earned Ferdinand the condemnation of the British liberal statesman William Gladstone, who described Ferdinand's regime as "the negation of God erected into a system of government."

The restoration of the old regime in the south by no means put an end to conspiracies and uprisings against Ferdinand, and there was an assassination attempt on the King's life in 1856. However, by the time Ferdinand died at Caserta on May 22, 1859, the Risorgimento (Italian unification movement) was well under way.

Further Reading

Background on Ferdinand II is in Harold Acton, The Last Bourbons of Naples, 1825-1861 (1961), and Denis Mack Smith, A History of Sicily: Modern Sicily after 1713 (1968). □

Ignatius Loyola, St (probably 1491–1556), founder of the Jesuits. Of noble Spanish family, he embarked on a military career, but was wounded in 1521. He hung up his sword at Montserrat. During a year at Manresa (1522–3), he underwent a series of spiritual experiences from which he derived many of the insights contained in the Spiritual Exercises (q.v.). After a visit to Jerusalem, he studied in Spain and France (1524–35). In 1534 he and six companions made a vow of lifelong poverty and service to others, either in the Holy Land or, if that was not possible, wherever the Pope should send them. Turkish attacks prevented them from sailing for Jerusalem. Outside Rome Ignatius had a vision of himself being accepted as a servant by Christ, at the Father's request. In 1540 the group was constituted as the Society of Jesus, with Ignatius as its first General. His aim was to rekindle religious fervour and practice in the Church through a more efficacious ministry. He also gave priority to missionary work outside Europe and, after 1548, to education. Feast day, 31 July.

Ferdinand II 1810-59, king of the Two Sicilies (1830-59), son and successor of Francis I. Although initially he sought to improve the wretched conditions of his kingdom, he soon relapsed into the repressive policies of his predecessors and became an absolute despot. Fear of revolution made him grant a constitution in 1848, but when disorders broke out in Sicily he ordered the bombardment of Messina (1848) and Palermo (1849)—an act that earned him the nickname "King Bomba." He soon revoked the constitution, becoming even more reactionary. Great Britain and France, in protest against his inhuman treatment of at least 15,000 political prisoners, withdrew their envoys (1856). He was opposed by conservatives as well as liberals. The political isolation brought about by Ferdinand facilitated the fall of the dynasty under his son and successor, Francis II.

Bibliography: See H. M. Acton, The Last Bourbons of Naples (1961).

Ferdinand II (1578–1637), Holy Roman Emperor; one of the main upholders of the Counter-Reformation. He had already done much to re-establish Catholicism in Inner Austria when he became Emperor in 1619 and set about extirpating Protestantism from all the Habsburg domains. The attempt of the Protestants of Bohemia to replace him with the Calvinist Elector Palatine Frederick III was repressed, but Ferdinand's decision to punish Frederick broadened the conflict into the Thirty Years War. After Catholic military successes his ‘Edict of Restitution’ (1629) ordered Protestants to restore appropriated ecclesiastical property in their dominions; the Protestants rebelled and under Gustavus Adolphus nearly overthrew the Emperor. See also THIRTY YEARS WAR.

Ferdinand II 1816-85, king consort of Portugal (1837-53). The eldest son of Ferdinand, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, he married Maria II (Maria da Glória) of Portugal in 1836. After her death (1853), he was regent for his son, Peter V, until the latter's majority (1855). However, he left the actual government to ministers, while he occupied himself with his art collection. In 1862 he was offered and refused the Greek crown, and in 1869 he declined the Spanish crown because the Spanish leader Juan Prim could not guarantee future Portuguese independence.

Ferdinand II (1578–1637) Holy Roman Emperor (1619–37) and Habsburg King of Bohemia (1617–37) and Hungary (1621–37). Educated by Jesuits, he championed the Counter-Reformation. In 1619, the mainly Protestant diet of Bohemia chose Frederick V as their ruler, precipitating the Thirty Years' War. The entry of Gustavus II of Sweden into the war turned the tide against Ferdinand. His son succeeded him as Ferdinand III.

Ignatius Loyola, St (1491–1556), Spanish theologian and founder of the Society of Jesus, who after sustaining a leg wound as a soldier, renounced military life and turned to prayer and mortification. In 1534 he founded the Society of Jesus and became its first general. His Spiritual Exercises (1548), an ordered scheme of meditations, is still used in the training of Jesuits. His feast day is 31 July.

Ignatius Loyola, St (1491–1556), a page to Ferdinand II of Aragon, and subsequently an officer in the Spanish army, was wounded at the siege of Pampeluna (Pamplona) in 1521, and thereafter devoted himself to religion. In 1534 he founded in Paris the Society of Jesus (see Jesuits).

Ferdinand II d. 1188, Spanish king of León (1157-88), son and successor of Alfonso VII. He invaded Castile and set up a protectorate during the minority (1158-66) of his nephew Alfonso VIII . He also fought the Moors in Estremadura. His son Alfonso IX succeeded him.

Loyola, St Ignatius. See IGNATIUS LOYOLA.