November 13, 2013 • 26 mins
He was an art patron. He loved science. He spoke many languages. He was also known for a dark temper and instability, and his poor decisions as a ruler are credited with leading to the Thirty years War.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly fro and I'm Tracy we Wilson. Today we
are talking about a member of one of the royal
houses of Europe. We had lots of requests to talk
(00:21):
about royalty all the time. We do, and there's lots
of fascinating stories there. Uh. Today's subject was an art patron.
He was a lover of science, he spoke many languages,
who was also known for having a dark temper and
being a little bit unstable uh. And his poor decisions
are as a ruler are credited with leading to the
Thirty Years War. UH. So we're talking about Rudolph two,
(00:44):
who was from Austria and he ruled the Holy Roman
Empire from fifteen seventy six to sixteen twelve, although that
last year UH largely figurehead, not really ruling status. Uh.
And while he came to be known for his reclusive
and gloomy and really a melancholic behavior, this Habsburg ruler
was also really instrumental in starting an era of scientific
(01:06):
exploration and discovery, and his reign is considered by many
to be the Golden Age of Prague. Uh, and today
we're mostly focusing on will include historical events that were
happening around him, of course, but most of the focus
kind of has to do with just his personal goings
on throughout his life, because it's a very fascinating tail
(01:29):
as a character. He's a fascinating person. You can't help
but feel a little sad for him at times. I
feel like that we feel sad about lots of the royals. Yeah,
that has been something we haven't You and I haven't
talked a whole lot about royalty, but that has been
a favorite theme amongst some of the past hosts, and
a lot of times they are sad, sad royal stories. Yeah,
(01:52):
you almost can't help but feel sad for them. It's
one of those things where it's in many ways a
place of great privilege, but there is so much weird
baggage that often comes with it that the actual stories
behind the portraits are not particularly delightful. No, they are
unhappy very often. We can start, of course, at the beginning.
(02:13):
Rudolf was born on July eighteenth, fifty two in Vienna, Austria,
and he was the oldest male child of his family.
His father was Emperor Maximilian the Second, and his mother
was Maria of Spain. Maria really ended up kind of
having a big impression on his life through her beliefs
and actions. Uh, not because she was so involved, but
(02:35):
because of kind of the things that she catalyzed. She
had a total of sixteen children, but she was not
known to be an especially warm mother. Uh. And despite
her marriage to the Austrian ruler Maximilian the second, she
always really maintained her Spanish identity, and she pressured her
husband to send their children to Spain uh to study
under her brother Philip the second, And she felt strongly
(02:58):
that the children really needed a Catholic influence rather than
the Protestant ideology that they were largely exposed to in Vienna.
Religion is a big part of this whole story and
what was going on in the Holy Roman Empire at
the time. Rudolph and his brother Ernest traveled to Spain
in early fifteen sixty four, and there their uncle Philip
(03:19):
the Second, who was a really somber man compared to
their father, something on this really rigorous course of study.
First they went to the monastery at Montserrat and then
to the Summer Palace, and they studied fencing, language, dance,
and rhetoric, among all kinds of other scholarly subjects. And
during this time, Philip the Second, who uh is also
(03:39):
a fascinating story, was having problems with his own son,
Don Carlos, who was about seven years older than Rudolph,
and Rudolph had met him while they were there. Uh.
Don Carlos had a hunchback and several other physical deformities,
and historians suspect that he likely suffered brain damage during
his birth because it was an extremely difficult birth and
(04:00):
his mother only survived a few days after Don Carlos
was born, and Don Carlos would experience these fits of
rage and madness, and he exhibited extremely impulsive and violent behavior,
and that those sort of personality issues only grew worse
and worse after he experienced a head injury in the
early fifteen sixties. In January of fifteen sixty eight, which
(04:23):
was almost four years after Rudolph and his brother had
gotten into Spain, Don Carlos was locked away at his
father's coming in and it became forbidden to ever speak
of him. Don Carlos wound up dying six months into
his imprisonment UH. In just a few months after Don
Carlos died, Philip's third wife, who was Elizabeth of Valvois,
(04:45):
died after having a miscarriage. And as you can imagine,
these two events happening close together UH caused the Spanish Court,
where Rudolph and Ernest were still living and studying, to
become even more somber than ever. It had always been
sort of a serious place, but it really hit. There
was a gloom over the the whole thing, and it
would still be two more years that they would be
(05:05):
there before they could return home. In fifteen seventy Rudolph
and Earnest were joined in Spain by two of their
other brothers and their sister Anna, and she was to
become Philip the second's fourth and final wife, and by
all accounts, that was pretty happy marriage, just f y I.
So when Rudolph returned with his brother to Vienma in
(05:27):
early fifteen seventy one, their father, Maximilian the second, immediately
noticed a significant change in their demeanors. Rudolph had only
been UH twelve when he left for the Spanish Court,
and Maximilian was troubled by the darkness of now nineteen
year old Rudolph's mood and the depth of influence that
the boy's time was Philip the second had had on them.
(05:48):
He sort of felt like he sent, you know, young men,
bright boys away, and he got back really just dour,
overly serious adults. I'm reluctant to pass judgment on historical
figures when I really have no idea of of all
of their internal motivations. But part of me wants to say, Maximilian, honey,
(06:09):
if you wanted to have a hand in their upbringing,
maybe should have kept them at home. Yeah, but their
mom really wanted him to go. His disdain at his
son's demeanors then caused all kinds of strife with his wife.
So he really wanted a liberal ideology that was designed
to avoid religious conflict, and Maria felt strongly that an
(06:30):
entirely Catholic state was really the ideal, and the more
serious bearing that the young man had taken was in
line with this. Yeah, she sort of felt like she
got back exactly what she wanted, which was serious, very
um um, you know, catholically educated young men, whereas her
husband was like, but they're not very fun anymore. Uh,
(06:54):
And Maximilian was a humanist Christian, but really above all
he favored open minded compromise among different religious ideologies, and
his stance on religion, which was really quite liberal, had
allowed this sort of pocket of peace in the ongoing
struggle between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.
He was not so much about forcing dogma on anybody
(07:16):
in any way. Yeah, really unusual. Well, and while he
did try to help his sons move into a less
somber state of mind, the time in Spain really seemed
to have just left a permanent gloom on them. And
to make matters worse, Uh. You know, Maximilian was advancing
in age, and he was at this time suffering from
a number of different health issues. He had heart attacks,
(07:37):
he had gout, he had kidney issues, and there are
also rumors that he had syphilis at this time. And
as his health got worse and worse, Uh, he was
trying to position Rudolph, who was the heir, into a
position of authority before he died so he would know
everything was cool. Uh. And he had Rudolph crowned as
King of Hungary in fifteen seventy two and then King
of Bohemia in fifteen seventy five, so even there was
(08:00):
the Holy Roman Empire, there were all these smaller states
that you could have dominion over. While traveling to Regensburg
in the summer of fifteen seventy six, Maximilian got sick,
and once he arrived at his destination, he rallied briefly,
but then he got even sicker. It became apparent that
he wasn't going to survive this illness, and he died
on October twelfth of that year. Maria, his wife, his
(08:22):
sister Anna, and Rudolph were all at his bedside, and
just a few weeks later, Rudolph was crowned as the
Holy Roman Emperor. There was really no debate over whether
or not he was gonna take the throne. He was
in his mid twenties at this point. He was smart,
he was fluent in multiple languages, and you might think
that he would be kind of on top of the
world after being crowned emperor. But this gloom that he
(08:44):
had acquired in Spain just seemed to get worse once
he ascended to the throne, and the kingdom at this
time was marked by religious fighting between the Roman Catholics,
and Protestants. Uh, you know, with the death of Maximilian
and this very liberal approach to religion and trying to
everybody to cooperate. Uh, it kind of reignited some some
(09:05):
issues amongst the different factions, and all of this fighting
had a really disastrous effect on the empire. Rudolph up
ended his father's time of religious tolerance initially, and he
actually downgraded the role that the Protestant Estates could have
in politics. So a lot of this, while let's quote
religious ideology, it was really had to do with power
balance and uh, you know, political ownership of different aspects
(09:29):
of the government. Rudolph did eventually come around to his
father's way of thinking and favoring a more tolerant and
conciliatory approach to religion, but those early decisions really caused
some problems. In fifteen seventy seven, so just the next
year after he had ascended to the throne, he had
his first nervous breakdown. The stress of governing just had
(09:50):
this intense negative effect on him, both mentally and physically,
and in fifteen eighty he became extremely ill and lost
a lot of weight. He eventually he got better, but
his mood while ruling in Vienna was just always dour.
So in fifty three Rudolph, who had become obviously weary
(10:10):
of the pressures of the Court of Vienna both physically
and mentally, as we had said, decided that he was
going to move his residence and bust the seat of
power for the Holy Roman Empire to Prague, which is
part of Bohemia at this time. Uh and he also
became deeply interested at this point in astrology and magic
and alchemy. Rudolphine Prague became this epicenter of art and science. Architects, scientists,
(10:34):
and philosophers were all welcomed into the city famous Danish
astronomer ticobra Hay, who we have some stuff on in
our archive. He had made the most accurate pre telescope
observations of the heavens, and he advanced our knowledge of
the solar system significantly. He established an observatory in Prague,
so did Johannes Kepler, who was recognized as the first
(10:54):
person to correctly describe planetary motion. Ra Hay was named
as the Imperial Magnetisiue in a post that was eventually
assumed by Kepler, who had at one point ben brahe's assistant,
and Rudolph also wanted to redesign and expand the Palace
in Prague, as well as several other structures that were
owned UH by the government, all as part of his
(11:16):
desire to patronize and reinvigorate the architectural arts in the area. Really,
though his greatest patronage of artists within painting and sculpture.
The Imperial Court welcomed artists from all over, and Rudolph
was especially fond of foreign artists. He amassed this collection
of thousands of paintings, including works by Da Vinci, Correggio
(11:37):
and Broiled the Elder. There is also a beautiful painting
by Giuseppe arcam Bodeaux that listeners will probably recognize when
they see it if they don't recognize the name of
the painter of Rudolph as Ratumnus, who was the god
of seasons and plant growth in Roman mythology. And in
this painting, which I just love, Rudolph and his features
are rendered as sort of a mosaic of fruits and
(11:59):
vegetables where they all together to make his head and face. Uh.
And we'll hopefully linked to that in the show notes.
At some point because it's a gorgeous painting. During this time,
Rudolph also developed what would become quite an impressive coon's
commer cabinet of curiosities. He collected all these bronze statues
and stonework, books, drawings, paintings, scientific items. It's also rumored
(12:22):
that he purchased the Voyage Manuscript at one point as
part of this collection, although that's a little unclear. With
many things regarding the Voyage Manuscript, there's a lot of
question marks and uh, circumstantial evidence without actual solid data
on it. We have an episode on that in our archives,
have not heard it. And Rudolph is also rumored to
(12:45):
have become somewhat obsessed with the occults and as we
mentioned before, alchemy during this time, which, uh, you have
to remember that this is a period when the concepts
of science and magic had a certain fluidity between them.
So to that he was a man of science and
also was into the occult was not a particularly disparate concept.
They were all sort of flowing together because they were
(13:06):
learning about all of these things. Uh. And this is
also the period during which Rudolf is associated sort of
with Rabbi Lev and his goal on which is covered
in a previous episode with Candice and Katie. So there
was a lot of sort of uh, you know, scientific
exploration as we said, and magical investigation going on. Prague
(13:29):
was just really a hotbed of new ideas and you know,
freedom to explore and encourage new ways of looking at
the world. So all of this enthusiasm for art and science,
it seems to be sort of an attempted antidote that
Rudolph made to try to counteract the world outside, which
(13:50):
to him was this ceaseless stream of stressors. The first
two decades of his rule as emperor were troubled, to
say the least. There was plague, Turks invaded Vienna, suffered
a huge earthquake, and he really struggled to meet the
challenges of his leadership. The long war which Rudolf got
into with the Turks in would drag on for years
(14:12):
into the sid hence the name, and it exhausted the
people as well as Rudolph. When he was bothered to
be engaged in public affairs and not hiding in solitude
or having a depressive episode where he didn't want to
talk about things or to anyone, I ampathize who I
mean we've all had that, but as a ruler of
a nation and an empire, you can't really just go
(14:34):
I don't want to talk to anybody behind. Unfortunately, by
the late fifteen nineties, his mental state had gotten even
more unsteady. His melancholic episodes got longer and more intense,
and his moments of anxiety would lead him to this
extreme agitation and paranoia. He became really convinced that somebody
in his family was plotting to murder him. He also
(14:56):
became fearful that people were attempting to exploit his general
city and steal from him, so much so that he
insisted on keeping his gold underlocking key. And this guy
really crazy. It sounds not crazy, of course, you want
to protect your wealth, but he did this to the
point that he would sometimes not even release any money
for the purchase of needed goods and food stuff for
(15:18):
the castle, so there would literally be no food in
the palace for anyone to eat. Uh. Driven by this
fear and anxiety, he even started to completely decline audiences
with foreign ambassadors. He was really starting to withdraw from
his duties at a level that, even though he had
been sporadic before, it really got bad. Despite his immersion
(15:39):
and Catholicism while he was studying in Spain, it looks
like he was ultimately distrustful of the Catholic Church's power structure.
He also started to refuse to see papal ambassadors, and
he continued to see Protestant guests, though he really seemed
not to have any particular affinity for their religion. In
Rudolph's brother Ernest, who he had been close you and
(16:00):
studied with in Spain, died and that left their brother
Matthias as the heir to the throne. Rudolph had never married.
Despite several attempts to betrothe him to various houses of Europe,
he had always resisted, and there have been rumors and um,
you know, some evidences built up by historians throughout the
years that he was bisexual and had affairs with both
(16:21):
men and women that we will probably never know with certainty.
And he also was not particularly fond of his brother Matthias, which, uh,
it's a seed of some problems that develop. He's said
to have had six children with a woman named Katina Strata.
One of them, Julius Caesar was quite a terrifying character,
(16:42):
and it will probably be the subject of a future episode,
but generally he seemed pretty disinterested in his children. Yeah,
his illegitimate brood really had no appeal for him. He
wasn't very involved in their lives at all. Uh. But
as his ment continued to swing and he withdrew further
and further away from court life, his tea minister Wolfgang
von Lump began to take over more and more of
(17:04):
the Emperor's duties, and Wolfgang is one of the men
that Rudolph has been suspected of being romantically involved with
because the pair were so close, but Rudolph's paranoia eventually
soured the relationship. Whether it had been romantic or not,
they had been very good friends, and that fell away
in Rudolph actually forced von Rumph to resign and they
(17:25):
made up briefly, but it was a very short lived reunion.
And there were actually a few of those where they
would kind of, uh make peace with whatever was between them,
but then it would fall apart again, and at that
point Rudolph was just so suspicious I think there was
no repairing it. Also, in fift Rudolph fired many of
the palace servants and he retreated even further into isolation.
(17:46):
An outbreak of plague hit Prague and he fled to
pills And where he lived for a year. He had
shortness of breath during the self imposed exile. He was
likely suffering from undiagnosed panic attacks. Before we get to
his return to Prague, let's take a moment to talk
about our sponsor. That sounds grand, and now let's get
(18:08):
back to talk about what happened after he got back
to Prague. Yeah, so Rodolf returned to Prague in the
summer of sixteen d and briefly he seemed okay. People
really kind of were pleasantly surprised that his demeanor seemed
a little stable, normal. He was willing to engage with
people a little bit. But that was extremely short lived,
because soon his mental state really veered south and he
(18:31):
was having these frightening fits of hallucinations. His paranoia deepened
to a point even beyond what it had been at before.
He believed that he had been bewitched, and he would
tell people that he thought he had been poisoned, sometimes
that someone had put a curse on him. He really
just was not in a stable place mentally. In the
(18:52):
midst of a series of suicide attempts the government of
the empire just came to a complete standstill. The emperor
wouldn't speak with his counsel or delegate any of his duties,
so nothing could happen. Grid Luck completely one person, grid Luck, Yes,
unfortunately uh. And he had all of the passages of
the palace covered so that he could move around without
(19:15):
anyone seeing him, and he spent basically all of his
time alone. He would eat alone. He basically did not
not only did he not want to talk to anybody,
he didn't want anybody to look at him. He was
so fearful of all of these poisoning and bewitching suspicions
that um he even became terrified of the sacraments, so
he wouldn't have contact with any religious figures at all.
(19:37):
After years of progressively more unstable and reclusive behavior and
just terrible political decisions that were depleting the kingdom and
causing revolts, in sixteen o five, the Habsburg archdukes pressured
the emperor to just consider handing over power to a
leader more suited to the position. That, of course, was
his brother Matthias. In sixteen o six, the arch Duke's
(20:00):
officially backed Matthias as successor to Rudolph, although it took
several more years to get him to just acquiesced fully
and give into this plan. Yeah, once they had officially
backed Matthias, he kind of started taking over uh these
leadership roles, even though technically he was not in a
position to do so. But in June sixteen o eight,
(20:22):
and much like his ascension into various positions as you know,
king of Bohemia before he became Holy Roman Emperor, he
seeded a little at a time. So he seeded Austria
and Hungary in June eight to his brother, and then
in May of sixteen eleven, Matthias was finally crowned King
of Bohemia, although Rudolph did not officially seed until August
(20:45):
of that year, and Rudolph the Second maintained his emperor's
crown as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but it
was really in a powerless figurehead thing. It was kind
of like they were like, let the crazy man have
the crown, and I think he's still the emperor, but
really his brother was doing all the work. At that point.
Matthias moved his brother to Rogston Castle in Prague and
(21:06):
the basically deposed monarch lived on there with his menagerie
of exotic animals. When several of his favorite creatures died,
he developed a drinking problem which really rapidly deteriorated his health,
and Rudolph died very shortly, really after he had been
sent away to this castle. It was January twentieth, sixteen twelve,
(21:27):
and he was buried in the royal vault of St.
Vitus's Cathedral in Prague Castle. His incredible art collection was
just broken up and dispersed. There wasn't really much of
it left in Prague, and during a relatively short eleven
year reign, Matthias worked towards compromised between the Catholic and
Protestant states, although it was during that time that the
Thirty Years War began and so it was still going
(21:49):
on when he died. But really most people point to
Rudolph as the cause of it, because he was so
ineffectual towards the end of his reign that he really
wasn't addressing any of the problems that could have kept
things from getting really agitated and out of control. So
it started after his reign, correct, but he is usually
um people are happy to point the finger and say
(22:11):
like you contributed significantly to this thing happening f y.
I so that is the story of Rodolph the Second,
who once again has yet another tragic royal character. Yes, uh,
do you also have some preferably less tragic listener mais
I have such untragic listener mail? It's adorable to different pieces,
(22:33):
and they're both super cute. The first one is from
Kim and says, I've been trying to think of a
name for my new bird, who is an Indian ringnet parakeet,
and during the Haunted Mansion podcast you mentioned a guy
with the coolest name ever, ex Atensio. So I decided
I'm gonna call my parent Xavier extra short and XC
I think that's what she means inter pronunciation for not
quite so short. It's appropriate to since the other Xavier
(22:56):
I know of, Professor X is a mutant and my
part is blue, which is caused by mutation. And she
included photos of her parents as well as as they
are able. And I mostly wanted to read this because
I will out myself on my level of dorkatude. I
have a cat named after Exittencio, and I have another
cat named after roly gro Uh. They are litter mates. Yeah,
(23:20):
I have a cat named after a form of poetry. Yeah.
I used to have tea, but now I only have one.
She's very cute. She's a very speaking of cats. And
then we got this absolutely delightful and charming letter from
another listener. Uh. It's written by Sharon, but it is
(23:40):
on behalf of her daughter Rose. And Sharon says, I
listen to your podcast while cooking and doing housework, and
my four year old daughter Rose has become quite a fan.
She was amazed to hear that you are real, live
people and wanted to send you a letter. She writes this,
So this is Rose's letter. Dear history ladies, you must
be very kind ladies to tell us good history story.
My favorite one is the pirate one. My least favorite
(24:02):
one is the Hope Diamond. Do you like cats? I
like cats? Can you do some history stories about the ocean?
Your friend Rose? And then she said, it's a really
cool piece of art that is an askey wing dinghy
and crayon composition. That is beautiful and we will take
a picture of it and put it on Facebook. It
is beautiful. Had we not already gotten this fantastic letter
(24:25):
from a four year old. Uh. The the other male
that we got in the same week was a sack
full of anime and that would have won the prize
for the most awesome thing that came in the mail.
But it was pretty good. Male. We it's yeah, it's
it's edged out, I think. Even though the sack full
of anime is extremely cool. I'm very excited about it,
but we haven't we haven't watched it yet, and I'm
(24:46):
sorry I did not know the name of the person
who sent us the anime before I came in here,
but I'll do it. We will acknowledge that later after
we get the chance to actually watch it. So Rose,
I don't think it's any secret that we do like cats.
We do. I like all the animals and crazy Animal lady,
and I'm and we can find some history stories about
the ocean at some point that not to distent future.
Shipwreck stories are popular with everybody, so we always want
(25:07):
to find some new and cool ones of involving that.
So thank you so much for writing us. And I
love when we can inspire pet names. That always makes
it super fun. Uh. If you would like to write us,
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(25:28):
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(25:50):
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Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly fro and I'm Tracy we Wilson. Today we
are talking about a member of one of the royal
houses of Europe. We had lots of requests to talk
(00:21):
about royalty all the time. We do, and there's lots
of fascinating stories there. Uh. Today's subject was an art patron.
He was a lover of science, he spoke many languages,
who was also known for having a dark temper and
being a little bit unstable uh. And his poor decisions
are as a ruler are credited with leading to the
Thirty Years War. UH. So we're talking about Rudolph two,
(00:44):
who was from Austria and he ruled the Holy Roman
Empire from fifteen seventy six to sixteen twelve, although that
last year UH largely figurehead, not really ruling status. Uh.
And while he came to be known for his reclusive
and gloomy and really a melancholic behavior, this Habsburg ruler
was also really instrumental in starting an era of scientific
(01:06):
exploration and discovery, and his reign is considered by many
to be the Golden Age of Prague. Uh, and today
we're mostly focusing on will include historical events that were
happening around him, of course, but most of the focus
kind of has to do with just his personal goings
on throughout his life, because it's a very fascinating tail
(01:29):
as a character. He's a fascinating person. You can't help
but feel a little sad for him at times. I
feel like that we feel sad about lots of the royals. Yeah,
that has been something we haven't You and I haven't
talked a whole lot about royalty, but that has been
a favorite theme amongst some of the past hosts, and
a lot of times they are sad, sad royal stories. Yeah,
(01:52):
you almost can't help but feel sad for them. It's
one of those things where it's in many ways a
place of great privilege, but there is so much weird
baggage that often comes with it that the actual stories
behind the portraits are not particularly delightful. No, they are
unhappy very often. We can start, of course, at the beginning.
(02:13):
Rudolf was born on July eighteenth, fifty two in Vienna, Austria,
and he was the oldest male child of his family.
His father was Emperor Maximilian the Second, and his mother
was Maria of Spain. Maria really ended up kind of
having a big impression on his life through her beliefs
and actions. Uh, not because she was so involved, but
(02:35):
because of kind of the things that she catalyzed. She
had a total of sixteen children, but she was not
known to be an especially warm mother. Uh. And despite
her marriage to the Austrian ruler Maximilian the second, she
always really maintained her Spanish identity, and she pressured her
husband to send their children to Spain uh to study
under her brother Philip the second, And she felt strongly
(02:58):
that the children really needed a Catholic influence rather than
the Protestant ideology that they were largely exposed to in Vienna.
Religion is a big part of this whole story and
what was going on in the Holy Roman Empire at
the time. Rudolph and his brother Ernest traveled to Spain
in early fifteen sixty four, and there their uncle Philip
(03:19):
the Second, who was a really somber man compared to
their father, something on this really rigorous course of study.
First they went to the monastery at Montserrat and then
to the Summer Palace, and they studied fencing, language, dance,
and rhetoric, among all kinds of other scholarly subjects. And
during this time, Philip the Second, who uh is also
(03:39):
a fascinating story, was having problems with his own son,
Don Carlos, who was about seven years older than Rudolph,
and Rudolph had met him while they were there. Uh.
Don Carlos had a hunchback and several other physical deformities,
and historians suspect that he likely suffered brain damage during
his birth because it was an extremely difficult birth and
(04:00):
his mother only survived a few days after Don Carlos
was born, and Don Carlos would experience these fits of
rage and madness, and he exhibited extremely impulsive and violent behavior,
and that those sort of personality issues only grew worse
and worse after he experienced a head injury in the
early fifteen sixties. In January of fifteen sixty eight, which
(04:23):
was almost four years after Rudolph and his brother had
gotten into Spain, Don Carlos was locked away at his
father's coming in and it became forbidden to ever speak
of him. Don Carlos wound up dying six months into
his imprisonment UH. In just a few months after Don
Carlos died, Philip's third wife, who was Elizabeth of Valvois,
(04:45):
died after having a miscarriage. And as you can imagine,
these two events happening close together UH caused the Spanish Court,
where Rudolph and Ernest were still living and studying, to
become even more somber than ever. It had always been
sort of a serious place, but it really hit. There
was a gloom over the the whole thing, and it
would still be two more years that they would be
(05:05):
there before they could return home. In fifteen seventy Rudolph
and Earnest were joined in Spain by two of their
other brothers and their sister Anna, and she was to
become Philip the second's fourth and final wife, and by
all accounts, that was pretty happy marriage, just f y I.
So when Rudolph returned with his brother to Vienma in
(05:27):
early fifteen seventy one, their father, Maximilian the second, immediately
noticed a significant change in their demeanors. Rudolph had only
been UH twelve when he left for the Spanish Court,
and Maximilian was troubled by the darkness of now nineteen
year old Rudolph's mood and the depth of influence that
the boy's time was Philip the second had had on them.
(05:48):
He sort of felt like he sent, you know, young men,
bright boys away, and he got back really just dour,
overly serious adults. I'm reluctant to pass judgment on historical
figures when I really have no idea of of all
of their internal motivations. But part of me wants to say, Maximilian, honey,
(06:09):
if you wanted to have a hand in their upbringing,
maybe should have kept them at home. Yeah, but their
mom really wanted him to go. His disdain at his
son's demeanors then caused all kinds of strife with his wife.
So he really wanted a liberal ideology that was designed
to avoid religious conflict, and Maria felt strongly that an
(06:30):
entirely Catholic state was really the ideal, and the more
serious bearing that the young man had taken was in
line with this. Yeah, she sort of felt like she
got back exactly what she wanted, which was serious, very
um um, you know, catholically educated young men, whereas her
husband was like, but they're not very fun anymore. Uh,
(06:54):
And Maximilian was a humanist Christian, but really above all
he favored open minded compromise among different religious ideologies, and
his stance on religion, which was really quite liberal, had
allowed this sort of pocket of peace in the ongoing
struggle between Protestants and Catholics in the Holy Roman Empire.
He was not so much about forcing dogma on anybody
(07:16):
in any way. Yeah, really unusual. Well, and while he
did try to help his sons move into a less
somber state of mind, the time in Spain really seemed
to have just left a permanent gloom on them. And
to make matters worse, Uh. You know, Maximilian was advancing
in age, and he was at this time suffering from
a number of different health issues. He had heart attacks,
(07:37):
he had gout, he had kidney issues, and there are
also rumors that he had syphilis at this time. And
as his health got worse and worse, Uh, he was
trying to position Rudolph, who was the heir, into a
position of authority before he died so he would know
everything was cool. Uh. And he had Rudolph crowned as
King of Hungary in fifteen seventy two and then King
of Bohemia in fifteen seventy five, so even there was
(08:00):
the Holy Roman Empire, there were all these smaller states
that you could have dominion over. While traveling to Regensburg
in the summer of fifteen seventy six, Maximilian got sick,
and once he arrived at his destination, he rallied briefly,
but then he got even sicker. It became apparent that
he wasn't going to survive this illness, and he died
on October twelfth of that year. Maria, his wife, his
(08:22):
sister Anna, and Rudolph were all at his bedside, and
just a few weeks later, Rudolph was crowned as the
Holy Roman Emperor. There was really no debate over whether
or not he was gonna take the throne. He was
in his mid twenties at this point. He was smart,
he was fluent in multiple languages, and you might think
that he would be kind of on top of the
world after being crowned emperor. But this gloom that he
(08:44):
had acquired in Spain just seemed to get worse once
he ascended to the throne, and the kingdom at this
time was marked by religious fighting between the Roman Catholics,
and Protestants. Uh, you know, with the death of Maximilian
and this very liberal approach to religion and trying to
everybody to cooperate. Uh, it kind of reignited some some
(09:05):
issues amongst the different factions, and all of this fighting
had a really disastrous effect on the empire. Rudolph up
ended his father's time of religious tolerance initially, and he
actually downgraded the role that the Protestant Estates could have
in politics. So a lot of this, while let's quote
religious ideology, it was really had to do with power
balance and uh, you know, political ownership of different aspects
(09:29):
of the government. Rudolph did eventually come around to his
father's way of thinking and favoring a more tolerant and
conciliatory approach to religion, but those early decisions really caused
some problems. In fifteen seventy seven, so just the next
year after he had ascended to the throne, he had
his first nervous breakdown. The stress of governing just had
(09:50):
this intense negative effect on him, both mentally and physically,
and in fifteen eighty he became extremely ill and lost
a lot of weight. He eventually he got better, but
his mood while ruling in Vienna was just always dour.
So in fifty three Rudolph, who had become obviously weary
(10:10):
of the pressures of the Court of Vienna both physically
and mentally, as we had said, decided that he was
going to move his residence and bust the seat of
power for the Holy Roman Empire to Prague, which is
part of Bohemia at this time. Uh and he also
became deeply interested at this point in astrology and magic
and alchemy. Rudolphine Prague became this epicenter of art and science. Architects, scientists,
(10:34):
and philosophers were all welcomed into the city famous Danish
astronomer ticobra Hay, who we have some stuff on in
our archive. He had made the most accurate pre telescope
observations of the heavens, and he advanced our knowledge of
the solar system significantly. He established an observatory in Prague,
so did Johannes Kepler, who was recognized as the first
(10:54):
person to correctly describe planetary motion. Ra Hay was named
as the Imperial Magnetisiue in a post that was eventually
assumed by Kepler, who had at one point ben brahe's assistant,
and Rudolph also wanted to redesign and expand the Palace
in Prague, as well as several other structures that were
owned UH by the government, all as part of his
(11:16):
desire to patronize and reinvigorate the architectural arts in the area. Really,
though his greatest patronage of artists within painting and sculpture.
The Imperial Court welcomed artists from all over, and Rudolph
was especially fond of foreign artists. He amassed this collection
of thousands of paintings, including works by Da Vinci, Correggio
(11:37):
and Broiled the Elder. There is also a beautiful painting
by Giuseppe arcam Bodeaux that listeners will probably recognize when
they see it if they don't recognize the name of
the painter of Rudolph as Ratumnus, who was the god
of seasons and plant growth in Roman mythology. And in
this painting, which I just love, Rudolph and his features
are rendered as sort of a mosaic of fruits and
(11:59):
vegetables where they all together to make his head and face. Uh.
And we'll hopefully linked to that in the show notes.
At some point because it's a gorgeous painting. During this time,
Rudolph also developed what would become quite an impressive coon's
commer cabinet of curiosities. He collected all these bronze statues
and stonework, books, drawings, paintings, scientific items. It's also rumored
(12:22):
that he purchased the Voyage Manuscript at one point as
part of this collection, although that's a little unclear. With
many things regarding the Voyage Manuscript, there's a lot of
question marks and uh, circumstantial evidence without actual solid data
on it. We have an episode on that in our archives,
have not heard it. And Rudolph is also rumored to
(12:45):
have become somewhat obsessed with the occults and as we
mentioned before, alchemy during this time, which, uh, you have
to remember that this is a period when the concepts
of science and magic had a certain fluidity between them.
So to that he was a man of science and
also was into the occult was not a particularly disparate concept.
They were all sort of flowing together because they were
(13:06):
learning about all of these things. Uh. And this is
also the period during which Rudolf is associated sort of
with Rabbi Lev and his goal on which is covered
in a previous episode with Candice and Katie. So there
was a lot of sort of uh, you know, scientific
exploration as we said, and magical investigation going on. Prague
(13:29):
was just really a hotbed of new ideas and you know,
freedom to explore and encourage new ways of looking at
the world. So all of this enthusiasm for art and science,
it seems to be sort of an attempted antidote that
Rudolph made to try to counteract the world outside, which
(13:50):
to him was this ceaseless stream of stressors. The first
two decades of his rule as emperor were troubled, to
say the least. There was plague, Turks invaded Vienna, suffered
a huge earthquake, and he really struggled to meet the
challenges of his leadership. The long war which Rudolf got
into with the Turks in would drag on for years
(14:12):
into the sid hence the name, and it exhausted the
people as well as Rudolph. When he was bothered to
be engaged in public affairs and not hiding in solitude
or having a depressive episode where he didn't want to
talk about things or to anyone, I ampathize who I
mean we've all had that, but as a ruler of
a nation and an empire, you can't really just go
(14:34):
I don't want to talk to anybody behind. Unfortunately, by
the late fifteen nineties, his mental state had gotten even
more unsteady. His melancholic episodes got longer and more intense,
and his moments of anxiety would lead him to this
extreme agitation and paranoia. He became really convinced that somebody
in his family was plotting to murder him. He also
(14:56):
became fearful that people were attempting to exploit his general
city and steal from him, so much so that he
insisted on keeping his gold underlocking key. And this guy
really crazy. It sounds not crazy, of course, you want
to protect your wealth, but he did this to the
point that he would sometimes not even release any money
for the purchase of needed goods and food stuff for
(15:18):
the castle, so there would literally be no food in
the palace for anyone to eat. Uh. Driven by this
fear and anxiety, he even started to completely decline audiences
with foreign ambassadors. He was really starting to withdraw from
his duties at a level that, even though he had
been sporadic before, it really got bad. Despite his immersion
(15:39):
and Catholicism while he was studying in Spain, it looks
like he was ultimately distrustful of the Catholic Church's power structure.
He also started to refuse to see papal ambassadors, and
he continued to see Protestant guests, though he really seemed
not to have any particular affinity for their religion. In
Rudolph's brother Ernest, who he had been close you and
(16:00):
studied with in Spain, died and that left their brother
Matthias as the heir to the throne. Rudolph had never married.
Despite several attempts to betrothe him to various houses of Europe,
he had always resisted, and there have been rumors and um,
you know, some evidences built up by historians throughout the
years that he was bisexual and had affairs with both
(16:21):
men and women that we will probably never know with certainty.
And he also was not particularly fond of his brother Matthias, which, uh,
it's a seed of some problems that develop. He's said
to have had six children with a woman named Katina Strata.
One of them, Julius Caesar was quite a terrifying character,
(16:42):
and it will probably be the subject of a future episode,
but generally he seemed pretty disinterested in his children. Yeah,
his illegitimate brood really had no appeal for him. He
wasn't very involved in their lives at all. Uh. But
as his ment continued to swing and he withdrew further
and further away from court life, his tea minister Wolfgang
von Lump began to take over more and more of
(17:04):
the Emperor's duties, and Wolfgang is one of the men
that Rudolph has been suspected of being romantically involved with
because the pair were so close, but Rudolph's paranoia eventually
soured the relationship. Whether it had been romantic or not,
they had been very good friends, and that fell away
in Rudolph actually forced von Rumph to resign and they
(17:25):
made up briefly, but it was a very short lived reunion.
And there were actually a few of those where they
would kind of, uh make peace with whatever was between them,
but then it would fall apart again, and at that
point Rudolph was just so suspicious I think there was
no repairing it. Also, in fift Rudolph fired many of
the palace servants and he retreated even further into isolation.
(17:46):
An outbreak of plague hit Prague and he fled to
pills And where he lived for a year. He had
shortness of breath during the self imposed exile. He was
likely suffering from undiagnosed panic attacks. Before we get to
his return to Prague, let's take a moment to talk
about our sponsor. That sounds grand, and now let's get
(18:08):
back to talk about what happened after he got back
to Prague. Yeah, so Rodolf returned to Prague in the
summer of sixteen d and briefly he seemed okay. People
really kind of were pleasantly surprised that his demeanor seemed
a little stable, normal. He was willing to engage with
people a little bit. But that was extremely short lived,
because soon his mental state really veered south and he
(18:31):
was having these frightening fits of hallucinations. His paranoia deepened
to a point even beyond what it had been at before.
He believed that he had been bewitched, and he would
tell people that he thought he had been poisoned, sometimes
that someone had put a curse on him. He really
just was not in a stable place mentally. In the
(18:52):
midst of a series of suicide attempts the government of
the empire just came to a complete standstill. The emperor
wouldn't speak with his counsel or delegate any of his duties,
so nothing could happen. Grid Luck completely one person, grid Luck, Yes,
unfortunately uh. And he had all of the passages of
the palace covered so that he could move around without
(19:15):
anyone seeing him, and he spent basically all of his
time alone. He would eat alone. He basically did not
not only did he not want to talk to anybody,
he didn't want anybody to look at him. He was
so fearful of all of these poisoning and bewitching suspicions
that um he even became terrified of the sacraments, so
he wouldn't have contact with any religious figures at all.
(19:37):
After years of progressively more unstable and reclusive behavior and
just terrible political decisions that were depleting the kingdom and
causing revolts, in sixteen o five, the Habsburg archdukes pressured
the emperor to just consider handing over power to a
leader more suited to the position. That, of course, was
his brother Matthias. In sixteen o six, the arch Duke's
(20:00):
officially backed Matthias as successor to Rudolph, although it took
several more years to get him to just acquiesced fully
and give into this plan. Yeah, once they had officially
backed Matthias, he kind of started taking over uh these
leadership roles, even though technically he was not in a
position to do so. But in June sixteen o eight,
(20:22):
and much like his ascension into various positions as you know,
king of Bohemia before he became Holy Roman Emperor, he
seeded a little at a time. So he seeded Austria
and Hungary in June eight to his brother, and then
in May of sixteen eleven, Matthias was finally crowned King
of Bohemia, although Rudolph did not officially seed until August
(20:45):
of that year, and Rudolph the Second maintained his emperor's
crown as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but it
was really in a powerless figurehead thing. It was kind
of like they were like, let the crazy man have
the crown, and I think he's still the emperor, but
really his brother was doing all the work. At that point.
Matthias moved his brother to Rogston Castle in Prague and
(21:06):
the basically deposed monarch lived on there with his menagerie
of exotic animals. When several of his favorite creatures died,
he developed a drinking problem which really rapidly deteriorated his health,
and Rudolph died very shortly, really after he had been
sent away to this castle. It was January twentieth, sixteen twelve,
(21:27):
and he was buried in the royal vault of St.
Vitus's Cathedral in Prague Castle. His incredible art collection was
just broken up and dispersed. There wasn't really much of
it left in Prague, and during a relatively short eleven
year reign, Matthias worked towards compromised between the Catholic and
Protestant states, although it was during that time that the
Thirty Years War began and so it was still going
(21:49):
on when he died. But really most people point to
Rudolph as the cause of it, because he was so
ineffectual towards the end of his reign that he really
wasn't addressing any of the problems that could have kept
things from getting really agitated and out of control. So
it started after his reign, correct, but he is usually
um people are happy to point the finger and say
(22:11):
like you contributed significantly to this thing happening f y.
I so that is the story of Rodolph the Second,
who once again has yet another tragic royal character. Yes, uh,
do you also have some preferably less tragic listener mais
I have such untragic listener mail? It's adorable to different pieces,
(22:33):
and they're both super cute. The first one is from
Kim and says, I've been trying to think of a
name for my new bird, who is an Indian ringnet parakeet,
and during the Haunted Mansion podcast you mentioned a guy
with the coolest name ever, ex Atensio. So I decided
I'm gonna call my parent Xavier extra short and XC
I think that's what she means inter pronunciation for not
quite so short. It's appropriate to since the other Xavier
(22:56):
I know of, Professor X is a mutant and my
part is blue, which is caused by mutation. And she
included photos of her parents as well as as they
are able. And I mostly wanted to read this because
I will out myself on my level of dorkatude. I
have a cat named after Exittencio, and I have another
cat named after roly gro Uh. They are litter mates. Yeah,
(23:20):
I have a cat named after a form of poetry. Yeah.
I used to have tea, but now I only have one.
She's very cute. She's a very speaking of cats. And
then we got this absolutely delightful and charming letter from
another listener. Uh. It's written by Sharon, but it is
(23:40):
on behalf of her daughter Rose. And Sharon says, I
listen to your podcast while cooking and doing housework, and
my four year old daughter Rose has become quite a fan.
She was amazed to hear that you are real, live
people and wanted to send you a letter. She writes this,
So this is Rose's letter. Dear history ladies, you must
be very kind ladies to tell us good history story.
My favorite one is the pirate one. My least favorite
(24:02):
one is the Hope Diamond. Do you like cats? I
like cats? Can you do some history stories about the ocean?
Your friend Rose? And then she said, it's a really
cool piece of art that is an askey wing dinghy
and crayon composition. That is beautiful and we will take
a picture of it and put it on Facebook. It
is beautiful. Had we not already gotten this fantastic letter
(24:25):
from a four year old. Uh. The the other male
that we got in the same week was a sack
full of anime and that would have won the prize
for the most awesome thing that came in the mail.
But it was pretty good. Male. We it's yeah, it's
it's edged out, I think. Even though the sack full
of anime is extremely cool. I'm very excited about it,
but we haven't we haven't watched it yet, and I'm
(24:46):
sorry I did not know the name of the person
who sent us the anime before I came in here,
but I'll do it. We will acknowledge that later after
we get the chance to actually watch it. So Rose,
I don't think it's any secret that we do like cats.
We do. I like all the animals and crazy Animal lady,
and I'm and we can find some history stories about
the ocean at some point that not to distent future.
Shipwreck stories are popular with everybody, so we always want
(25:07):
to find some new and cool ones of involving that.
So thank you so much for writing us. And I
love when we can inspire pet names. That always makes
it super fun. Uh. If you would like to write us,
you can do so at history Podcasts at Discovery dot com.
You can also connect with us on Facebook dot com
slash history class stuff, on Twitter at missed in History,
(25:28):
and on Tumbler at missed in History dot tumbler dot com.
We're also on Pinterests very busily pinning things away of
historical significance or delight. And if you would like to
learn a little bit more about what we talked about today,
we can go to our website and type in the
words Holy Roman Empire in the search bar, and one
of the articles you'll get is the ten most long
lived Empires in History, of which the h R E
(25:50):
is one. It is so if you would like to
learn about that, or anything else your mind can think about,
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