But the majority, either won over by the arts
of Matthias, or dreading civil war, accepted Ferdinand. He was crowned
on the 10th of June, 1616, he promising not to interfere with the
government during the lifetime of Matthias. The emperor now turned to
Hungary, and, by the adoption of the same measures, secured the same
results. The nobles accepted Ferdinand, and he was solemnly crowned at
Presburg.
Ferdinand was Archduke of Styria, a province of Austria embracing a
little more than eight thousand square miles, being about the size of
the State of Massachusetts, and containing about a million of
inhabitants. He was educated by the Jesuits after the strictest manner
of their religion. He became so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his
monastic education, that he was anxious to assume the cowl of the monk,
and enter the order of the Jesuits. His devotion to the papal church
assumed the aspect of the most inflexible intolerance towards all
dissent. In the administration of the government of his own duchy, he
had given free swing to his bigotry. Marshaling his troops, he had
driven all the Protestant preachers from his domains. He had made a
pilgrimage to Rome, to receive the benediction of the pope, and another
to Loretto, where, prostrating himself before the miraculous image, he
vowed never to cease his exertions until he had extirpated all heresy
from his territories.
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