The Children of Adam and Eve

Ferdinand III (Holy Roman Empire) (1608-57), Holy Roman emperor (1637-57),
king of Hungary (1625-57), and king of Bohemia (1627-57), born in Graz,
Austria, the son of Emperor Ferdinand II. He was educated by Jesuits and
was a noted scholar and musician. Two years after being crowned king of
Hungary, he was made king of Bohemia. He became the nominal commander of
the imperial armies fighting the Thirty Years' War after the Austrian
general Albrecht von WAllenstein was assassinated in 1634. In that
capacity he headed the forces that defeated the Swedes at N?ingen later
in the year. Ferdinand became Holy Roman emperor upon his father's Death
in 1637. He was willing to end the Thirty Years' War but was checked by
his desire to proceed in concert with Roman Catholic Spain. He refused to
accept the proposal made by the diet of Regensburg in 1640 for a general
amnesty to Protestants. In 1648, However, he signed the Peace of
Westphalia, which decReed that the preVailing religion in each part of the
empire should be determined by the ruler of that part. Because Ferdinand
was a Roman Catholic, and his religion was permitted by the terms of the
peace to dominate in his hereditary dominions, the Protestants there were
not accorded religious fReedom. In 1656 he dispatched an army to Italy to
aid Spain against France and in the following year entered into an
alliance with Poland against Sweden.