[28] The division of the house of Austria into two branches, which alone prevented it from becoming supreme in Europe, and over much of the rest of the world, took place in 1521.  After the death of their grandfather, Charles and Ferdinand possessed the Austrian territories in common, but in 1521 they made a division thereof.  Ferdinand obtained Austria, Carinthia, Carniola, and Styria, and, in 1522, the Tyrol, and other provinces.  In 1531 he was chosen King of the Romans, which made him the successor of Charles as Emperor.  How Charles came, not merely to consent to his election, but to urge it, and to effect it in spite of opposition, when he had a son in his fourth year, is very strange.  The reasons commonly given for his course are by no means sufficient to account or it.  Many years later he tried to undo his work, in order to obtain the imperial dignity for his son; but Ferdinand held on to what he possessed, with true Austrian tenacity.  Had Charles kept the imperial crown for his son, as he might have done, Philip’s imperial position must have sufficed to give him control of the civilized world.  He would have made himself master of both France and England, and must have rendered the Reaction completely triumphant over the Reformation.  Fortunately, he failed to become Emperor, and during a portion of his time the imperial throne was occupied by the best of all the Hapsburg sovereigns,—­the wise, the tolerant, the humane, and the upright Maximillian II., who was the last man in Europe likely to give him any aid in the prosecution of his vast tyrannical schemes.  Besides, there was a sort of coolness between the two branches of the great family, that was not without its effect on the world’s politics.  Seldom has it happened that a more important event has occurred than the election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans.  We are not to measure what might have been done by Philip II. as Emperor, by what was done by Charles V.; for Charles was a statesman, a politician, and, down to his latter years, when his health was utterly gone, he was no fanatic; but Phillip was a fanatic only, and a fierce one too, with a power of concentration such as his father never possessed.  Then the contest between the Catholics and the Protestants was a far more serious one in Philip’s time than it had been in that of Charles, which alone would have sufficed to make his occupation of the imperial throne, had he occupied it, a matter of the last importance.

[29] The main line of the German Hapsburgs ended in 1619, with the death of the Emperor Matthias.  He was succeeded by Ferdinand II., grandson of Ferdinand I., and son of that Archduke Charles who was sometimes spoken of in connection with the possible marriage of Elizabeth of England.  Out of Ferdinand II.’s elevation grew a new union of the entire family of Hapsburg.  During the long ascendency of the Cardinal-Duke of Lerma in the Spanish councils, temp.  Philip III., the breach between the two branches,