Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor

Born in 1527 into the Austrian Habsburgs, Maximilian collected crowns in quick succession: Bohemia in Prague on 14 May 1562, Germany six months later on 24 November, Hungary and Croatia in Pressburg on 8 September 1563. He became Holy Roman Emperor on 25 July 1564 when his father Ferdinand I died. His reign unfolded in the wake of the 1555 Peace of Augsburg, and though Catholic himself, he reached toward the Lutheran estates hoping to close the denominational split — a strategy that failed. Meanwhile the Ottomans pressed from the east and friction with his Spanish Habsburg relatives mounted. H…