Holy Roman Empire Association - HREA

 The Holy Roman Emperor (German: Römisch-deutscher Kaiser, Latin: Romanorum Imperator) was the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. The position evolved into an elected monarchy, but the emperor elect (imperator electus)  was until the 15th century required to be crowned by the Pope before  assuming the imperial title. The title was held in conjunction with the  rule of the Kingdom of Germany and the Kingdom of Italy (Imperial  Northern Italy). In theory, the Holy Roman Emperor was primus inter pares (first among equals) among the other Roman Catholic monarchs; in  practice, a Holy Roman Emperor was only as strong as his army and  alliances made him. 

Richard (5 January 1209 – 2 April 1272) was an English prince who was King of the Romans from 1257 until his death in 1272. He was the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême. Richard was nominal Count of Poitou from 1225 to 1243, and he also held the title Earl of Cornwall from 1225. He was one of the wealthiest men in Europe and joined the Barons' Crusade, where he achieved success as a negotiator for the release of prisoners and assisted with the building of the citadel in Ascalon.  He was born 5 January 1209 at Winchester Castle, the second son of John, King of England, and Isabella, Countess of Angoulême. 

Richard was elected in 1257 as King of Germany by four of the seven German Electoral Princes.  Pope Alexander IV and King Louis IX of France favoured Alfonso, but both were ultimately convinced by the powerful relatives of Richard's wife Sanchia, and his sister-in-law, Eleanor of Provence, to support Richard. Ottokar II of Bohemia, who at first voted for Richard but later elected Alfonso, eventually agreed to support the Earl of Cornwall, thus establishing the required simple majority. So Richard had to bribe only four of them, but this came at a huge cost of 28,000 marks. On 17 May 1257, Konrad von Hochstaden, Archbishop of Cologne, himself crowned Richard King of the Romans in Aachen; however, like his lordships in Gascony and Poitou, his title never held much significance, and he made only four brief visits to Germany between 1257 and 1269. On 2 April 1272, Richard died at Berkhamsted Castle in Hertfordshire. He was buried next to his second wife Sanchia of Provence and Henry of Almain, his son by his first wife, at Hailes Abbey, which he had founded. 

Rudolf I (1 May 1218 – 15 July 1291) was the first King of Germany of the Habsburg dynasty from 1273 until his death.

Rudolf's election marked the end of the Great Interregnum which had begun after the death of the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II in 1250. Originally a Swabian count, he was the first Habsburg to acquire the duchies of Austria and Styria in opposition to his mighty rival, the Přemyslid king Ottokar II of Bohemia, whom he defeated in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld. The territories remained under Habsburg rule for more than 600 years, forming the core of the Habsburg monarchy and the present-day country of Austria. Rudolf played a vital role in raising the comital House of Habsburg to the rank of Imperial princes. 

Rudolf was born on 1 May 1218 at Limburgh Castle near Sasbach am Kaiserstuhl in the Breisgau region of present-day southwestern Germany. He was the son of Count Albert IV of Habsburg and Hedwig, daughter of Count Ulrich of Kyburg. Around 1232, he was given as a squire to his uncle, Rudolf I, Count of Laufenburg, to train in knightly pursuits. 

On 1 October 1273, Rudolf was voted in unanimously as King of Germany by the electors who were present at Frankfurt. He was then crowned in Aachen Cathedral on 24 October 1273.

Rudolf died in Speyer on 15 July 1291 and was buried in Speyer Cathedral. Only one of his sons survived him: Albert I.

Albert I of Habsburg (German: Albrecht I.) (July 1255 – 1 May 1308) was a Duke of Austria and Styria from 1282 and King of Germany from 1298 until his assassination. He was the eldest son of King Rudolf I of Germany and his first wife Gertrude of Hohenberg. Sometimes referred to as 'Albert the One-eyed' because of a battle injury that left him with a hollow eye socket and a permanent snarl. From 1273 Albert ruled as a landgrave over his father's Swabian (Further Austrian) possessions in Alsace. In 1282 his father, the first German monarch from the House of Habsburg, invested him and his younger brother Rudolf II with the duchies of Austria and Styria, which he had seized from late King Ottokar II of Bohemia and defended in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld. By the 1283 Treaty of Rheinfelden his father entrusted Albert with their sole government, while Rudolf II ought to be compensated by the Further Austrian Habsburg home territories – which, however, never happened until his death in 1290.

Albert was Elected King of Germany at the Imperial City of Frankfurt on 27 July 1298, and crowned at Aachen Cathedral on 24 August.

Albert was on the way to suppress a revolt in Swabia when he was murdered on 1 May 1308, at Windisch on the Reuss, by his nephew Duke John, afterwards called "the Parricide" or "John Parricida". 

His full name and titles were: Albert, by the grace of God, King of the Romans, Duke of Austria and Styria, Lord of Carniola, over the Wendish Mark and of Port Naon, Count of Habsburg and Kyburg, Landgrave of Alsace. 

Louis IV (German: Ludwig; 1 April 1282 – 11 October 1347), called the Bavarian (Ludwig der Bayer, Latin: Ludovicus Bavarus), was King of the Romans from 1314, King of Italy from 1327, and Holy Roman Emperor from 1328 until his death in 1347.

Louis' election as king of Germany in 1314 was controversial, as his Habsburg cousin Frederick the Fair was simultaneously elected king by a separate set of electors. Louis defeated Frederick in the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322, and the two eventually reconciled. Louis was opposed and excommunicated by the French Pope John XXII; Louis in turn attempted to depose the pope and install an anti-pope.

Louis IV was Duke of Upper Bavaria from 1294 to 1301 together with his elder brother Rudolf I, was Margrave of Brandenburg until 1323, and Count Palatine of the Rhine until 1329, and became Duke of Lower Bavaria in 1340. He was the last Bavarian to be a king of Germany until 1742. He became Count of Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland in 1345 when his wife Margaret inherited those domains.

 Louis died in October 1347 from a stroke suffered during a bear-hunt in Puch near Fürstenfeldbruck. He is buried in the Frauenkirche in Munich. The sons of Louis supported Günther von Schwarzburg as new rival king to Charles but finally joined the Luxembourg party after Günther's early death in 1349 and divided the Wittelsbach possessions amongst themselves again.

Wenceslaus IV (also Wenceslas; Czech: Václav; German: Wenzel, nicknamed "the Idle"; 26 February 1361 – 16 August 1419), also known as Wenceslaus of Luxembourg, was King of Bohemia from 1378 until his death and King of Germany from 1376 until he was deposed in 1400. As he belonged to the House of Luxembourg, he was also Duke of Luxembourg from 1383 to 1388. 

Wenceslaus was born in the Imperial city of Nuremberg, the son of Emperor Charles IV by his third wife Anna Svídnická, a scion of the Silesian Piasts, and baptized at St. Sebaldus Church. He was raised by the Prague Archbishops Arnošt of Pardubice and Jan Očko of Vlašim. His father had the two-year-old crowned King of Bohemia in June 1363 and in 1373 also obtained for him the Electoral Margraviate of Brandenburg. When on 10 June 1376 Charles IV asserted Wenceslaus' election as King of the Romans by the prince-electors, two of seven votes, those of Brandenburg and Bohemia, were held by the emperor and his son themselves. Wenceslaus was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on 6 July.

Wenceslaus died in 1419 of a heart attack during a hunt in the woods surrounding his castle Nový Hrad at Kunratice (today a part of Prague), leaving the country in a deep political crisis. His death was followed by almost two decades of conflict called the Hussite Wars, which were centred on greater calls for religious reform by Jan Hus and spurred by popular outrage provoked by his execution. 

Sigismund of Luxembourg (15 February 1368 – 9 December 1437) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1433 until his death in 1437. He was elected King of Germany (King of the Romans) in 1410, and was also King of Bohemia from 1419, as well as prince-elector of Brandenburg (1378–1388 and 1411–1415). As the husband of Mary, Queen of Hungary, he was also King of Hungary and Croatia (jure uxoris) from 1387. He was the last male member of the House of Luxembourg.

Sigismund was the son of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor and his fourth wife Elizabeth of Pomerania. He married Mary, Queen of Hungary in 1385 and was crowned King of Hungary soon after. He fought to restore and maintain authority to the throne. Mary died in 1395, leaving Sigismund the sole ruler of Hungary.

In 1396, Sigismund led the Crusade of Nicopolis but was decisively defeated by the Ottoman Empire. Afterwards, he founded the Order of the Dragon to fight the Turks and secured the thrones of Croatia, Germany and Bohemia. Sigismund was one of the driving forces behind the Council of Constance (1414–1418) that ended the Papal Schism, but which also led to the Hussite Wars that dominated the later period of his life. In 1433, Sigismund was crowned Holy Roman Emperor and ruled until his death in 1437. 

Frederick III (German: Friedrich III, 21 September 1415 – 19 August 1493) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1452 until his death in 1493. He was the penultimate emperor to be crowned by the pope, and the last to be crowned in Rome. He was the fourth King of the Romans and the first Holy Roman Emperor from the House of Habsburg, which was to retain the title with one gap until it was declared at an end by Emperor Francis II, in 1806.

Prior to his imperial coronation, he was duke of the Inner Austrian lands of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola from 1424, and also acted as regent over the Duchy of Austria from 1439. He was elected and crowned King of Germany in 1440. His reign of 53 years is the longest in the history of the Holy Roman Empire or the German monarchy. Upon his death in 1493 he was succeeded by his son Maximilian. During his reign, Frederick concentrated on re-uniting the Habsburg "hereditary lands" of Austria and took a lesser interest in Imperial affairs. Nevertheless, by his dynastic entitlement to Hungary as well as by the Burgundian inheritance, he laid the foundations for the later Habsburg Empire. Despite being mocked as "Arch-Sleepyhead of the Holy Roman Empire" (German: Erzschlafmütze) during his lifetime, he is today increasingly seen as an effective ruler.

Historian Thomas A. Brady Jr. credited Frederick with leaving a credible claim on the imperial title and a secure grip on the Austrian lands, now organized as a single state, for his son. This imperial revival (as well as the rise of the territorial state) began under the reign of Frederick.

Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (as Charles I) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II) from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets". Crowned King of Germany in Aachen, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521. The same year, Francis I of France, surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, started a war in Italy that led to his capture in the Battle of Pavia (1525). In 1527, Rome was sacked by an army of Charles's mutinous soldiers. Charles then defended Vienna from the Turks and obtained coronations as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Clement VII. Charles conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain, and Austrian Habsburgs, headed by his brother Ferdinand. In 1557, Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura and died there a year later. 

Maximilian II (31 July 1527 – 12 October 1576) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 until his death in 1576. A member of the Austrian House of Habsburg, he was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on 14 May 1562 and elected King of Germany (King of the Romans) on 24 November 1562. On 8 September 1563, he was crowned King of Hungary and Croatia in the Hungarian capital Pressburg (Pozsony in Hungarian; now Bratislava, Slovakia). On 25 July 1564, he succeeded his father Ferdinand I as Holy Roman Emperor. Maximilian was born in Vienna, Austria, the second child and eldest son of the Habsburg King Ferdinand I, younger brother of Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and the Jagiellonian Princess Anne of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547). He was named after his great-grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I. At the time of his birth, his father Ferdinand succeeded his brother-in-law King Louis II in the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Kingdom of Hungary, greatly expanding the Habsburg monarchy. Maximilian's rule was shaped by the confessionalization process after the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Though a Habsburg and a Catholic, he approached the Lutheran Imperial estates with a view to overcome the denominational schism, which ultimately failed. He also was faced with the ongoing Ottoman–Habsburg wars and rising conflicts with his Spanish Habsburg cousins. According to Fichtner, Maximilian failed to achieve his three major aims: rationalizing the government structure, unifying Christianity, and evicting the Turks from Hungary. Peter Marshall opines that it is wrong to dismiss Maximilian as a failure. According to Marshall, through his religious tolerance as well as his encouragement of arts and sciences, he succeeded in maintaining a precarious peace.

Matthias (24 February 1557 – 20 March 1619) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1612 to 1619, Archduke of Austria from 1608 to 1619, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1608 to 1618 and King of Bohemia from 1611 to 1617. His personal motto was Concordia lumine maior ("Unity is stronger in the light"). Matthias was born in the Austrian capital of Vienna as the fourth son of Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor and of Maria of Spain. His brothers were Rudolf (who became Emperor Rudolf II), Ernest, Maximilian (from 1585 Grand Master of the Teutonic Order), Albert (archbishop of Toledo, later governor of the Netherlands), and Wenceslaus (Grand Prior of the Order of Malta in Castile). He also had six sisters. His sister Anna was married to King Philip II of Spain and his sister Elisabeth to King Charles IX of France. Almost nothing is known about his upbringing.

Matthias was crowned King of Bohemia on 23 May 1611 and was, after Rudolf's death on 20 January 1612, elected Holy Roman Emperor. On 4 December 1611, he married his cousin Archduchess Anna of Austria, but the union failed to produce children. Matthias allegedly fathered an illegitimate son, Matthias of Austria, by an unknown mother. Matthias played a significant role in the familial opposition of the Habsburgs against his brother Emperor Rudolf II. After gaining power, he showed little political initiative of his own. The course of his politics was determined by Cardinal Melchior Klesl until his fall in 1618. As a consequence of his failed religious and administrative policies, the Bohemian Revolt, the initial theatre of the Thirty Years' War, began during the final year of Matthias' reign.

Ferdinand III (Ferdinand Ernest; 13 July 1608 – 2 April 1657) was Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and Croatia from 1625, King of Bohemia from 1627 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1637 to his death.

Ferdinand was born in Graz as the third son of Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg and his first wife, Maria Anna of Bavaria, and was baptised as Ferdinand Ernst. He grew up in Carinthia with loving care from his parents and developed great affection for his siblings and his father with whom he always found a consensus in future disagreements. At his father's court, he received religious and scholarly training from Jesuits

Ferdinand ascended the throne at the beginning of the last decade of the Thirty Years' War and introduced lenient policies to depart from the old ideas of divine right held by his father, as he wished to end the war quickly. After military defeats and against a background of declining power, Ferdinand was compelled to abandon the political stances of his Habsburg predecessors in many respects to open the long road towards the much-delayed Peace of Westphalia. Although his authority as emperor was weakened after the war, his position in Bohemia, Hungary and Austria was stronger than that of his predecessors before 1618.

Ferdinand was the first Habsburg monarch to be recognised as a musical composer.

Joseph I (Joseph Jacob Ignaz Johann Anton Eustachius; 26 July 1678 – 17 April 1711) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 1705 until his death in 1711. He was the eldest son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor from his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. Joseph was crowned King of Hungary at the age of nine in 1687 and was elected King of the Romans at the age of eleven in 1690. He succeeded to the thrones of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire when his father died.

Born in Vienna, Joseph was educated strictly by Charles Theodore, Prince of Salm, and became a good linguist. Perhaps due to the influence of his formerly Protestant tutor he was a less devout Catholic than his parents and other relatives and developed into an adherent of the early Age of Enlightenment. He had two great enthusiasms: music and hunting.

Joseph continued the War of the Spanish Succession, begun by his father against Louis XIV of France, in an attempt to make his younger brother Charles (later Emperor Charles VI) King of Spain. In the process, however, owing to the victories won by his military commander, Prince Eugene of Savoy, he did succeed in establishing Austrian hegemony over Ital.y

 Joseph also had to contend with a protracted revolt in Hungary, fomented by Louis XIV. Neither conflict was resolved until the Treaty of Utrecht, after his death. His motto was Amore et Timore (Latin for "Through Love and Fear"). Like his father and grandfather, he was a composer.

Charles VII (6 August 1697 – 20 January 1745) was elector of Bavaria from 26 February 1726 and Holy Roman Emperor from 24 January 1742 to his death. He was also King of Bohemia (as Charles Albert) from 1741 to 1743. 

Charles was a member of the House of Wittelsbach, and his reign as Holy Roman Emperor thus marked the end of three centuries of uninterrupted Habsburg imperial rule, although he was related to the Habsburgs by both blood and marriage.

Charles (Albert) (German: Karl Albrecht) was born in Brussels and the son of Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, and Theresa Kunegunda Sobieska, daughter of King John III Sobieski of Poland.

Charles was the eldest son of Elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria and the Polish princess Theresa Kunegunda Sobieska. He became elector following the death of his father in 1726. In 1722, Charles married Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I and niece of Emperor Charles VI. 

The couple had seven children together. After Charles VI died in 1740, Elector Charles claimed the Archduchy of Austria and briefly gained hold of the Bohemian throne. In 1742, he was elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He ruled until his death three years later in 1745.

Joseph II (13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from 18 August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 29 November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor Francis I, and the brother of Marie Antoinette, Leopold II, Maria Carolina of Austria, and Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma. He was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the union of the Houses of Habsburg and Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine.

Joseph was a proponent of enlightened absolutism like his brother Leopold II; however, his commitment to secularizing, liberalizing and modernizing reforms resulted in significant opposition, which resulted in failure to fully implement his programs. Meanwhile, despite making some territorial gains, his reckless foreign policy badly isolated Austria. 

He has been ranked with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia as one of the three great Enlightenment monarchs. False but influential letters depict him as a somewhat more radical philosophe than he probably was. His policies are now known as Josephinism.

He was a supporter of the arts, particularly of composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. He died with no known surviving legitimate offspring and was succeeded by his younger brother Leopold II. 

Francis II (German: Franz II., Erwählter Römischer Kaiser)  (12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the Holy Roman Emperor, ruling  from 1792 until 6 August 1806, when he abdicated as Emperor (The Holy Roman Empire went into a state of Interregnum as the Emperor did not hold the power to dissolve the Empire) after the disastrous defeat of the Third Coalition by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. In 1804, he had founded the Austrian Empire and became Francis I (Franz I.), the first Emperor of Austria (Kaiser von Österreich), ruling from 1804 to 1835, so later he was named the one and only Doppelkaiser (double emperor) in history. For the two years between 1804 and 1806, Francis used the title and style by the grace of God elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both Germany and Austria. He was also Apostolic King of Hungary and Bohemia as Francis I. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815. Francis  I continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after Austerlitz.  The proxy marriage of state of his daughter Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon on 10 March 1810 was arguably his most severe personal defeat. After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis's chancellor Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich culminating in a new European map and the restoration of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis became viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.