Right, this started a short list and has gotten massively out of hand so...
The Fall of the House of Austria
Archdukes of Austria
Maximilian II (Habsburg) 1564-1576
Rudolf V (Habsburg) 1576-1608
Matthias (Habsburg) 1608-1619
Albrecht VII (Habsburg) 1619
Ferdinand III (Habsburg) 1619
Disputed:
Johann Karl (Habsburg) 1619
Ferdinand IV (Habsburg) 1619-1622
Heinrich Matthias Graf von Thurn-Valsassina (Bohemian Military) 1619
Johann Christoph II von Puchheim (Horner Bund) 1619-1620
Friedrich VI (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1620-22
Friedrich VI, (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1622-1643
Friedrich VII Heinrich, (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1643-1659
Friedrich II Heinrich, King of Bohemia-Pfalz (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1659-1681
Karl II Ruprecht, King of Bohemia-Pfalz (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1681-1724
The death of Archduke Ferdinand III of Austria, titular King of Bohemia and poised to assume the title of Holy Roman Emperor, at the hands of a confused Viennese Protestant during the height of the Bohemian War of Independence in 1619 sent shockwaves through the Empire and Europe as a whole. While it appears now it had never been the intention of the city elders to depose their monarch, let alone kill him, the die had been quite definitively cast and Count Thurn was let into the city as the only alternative to the likely revenge that would otherwise emerge from the Habsburgs and the Bavarians. Administration was soon handed over to the Horner Bund, comprised of the Lutheran nobility of the Archduchy, many of whom had come to despair at the efforts of Klesl and others to promote the Counter-Reformation and were, in any case, seeking guarantees of religious tolerance that seemed not to be forthcoming as the new regency in Graz became increasingly hard-line.
The following year, the Horner Bund voted to formally join the Bohemian Confederation, contributing to the political crisis that had resulted from the election of Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate as King of Bohemia. It would take two years of negotiations- largely assisted by the current weakness of the Habsburgs with their new Archduke being a mere boy of eleven- before Friedrich's rule over Bohemia and Austria was recognised. While the Habsburgs would continue to claim the rule of Austria- and at times Bohemia though their loss of that title through election was much more clear cut- as far as the rest of Europe was concerned the Archduchy had now permanently passed to the Bohemian Crown.
Kings of Bohemia
Maximilián I (Habsburg) 1564-1576
Rudolf II (Habsburg) 1576-1608
Matyáš II (Habsburg) 1608-1619
Ferdinand II (Habsburg) 1619
Fridrich I (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1619-1643
Fridrich II Jindřich (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1643-1659
Kings of the Royal Confederation of the Crown of Bohemia and the Electorate of Pfalz
Friedrich II Heinrich/Fridrich II Jindřich (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1659-1681
Karl II Ruprecht/Karel II Ruprecht (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1681-1724
Friedrich V may have found his role as King in Bohemia secured by Ferdinand's death, but that didn't mean it would be plain sailing from here on out. Filled with a sense of Messianic surety in his perceived role as God's Chosen Monarch, Friedrich clashed with those figures in court who just wanted to maintain the current situation, especially in the fields of religion and foreign relations. Friedrich might have promoted Calvinists at court- though he was at least astute enough not to try and push for it too aggressively in the Kingdom at large- but neither the Catholic minority nor the Hussite majority were enthused by his rule as a consequence of this. Abroad, his efforts at building an alliance for a final crushing of the Catholics in the Empire were dismissed, and he was unable to secure the backing of the estates for his efforts to join Dutch efforts in their war against the Spanish - though the troops he was able to raise from his ancestral territories together with volunteers from across the Empire were arguably the tipping point required to bring the war, and the Spanish Netherlands, to an end.
Friedrich V's son, Friedrich II Heinrich, was much more astute, having grown up in the multicultural court of Prague. He began by dropping many of his father's more controversial policies and was soon pursuing a policy of true religious toleration, followed after over 20 years of negotiation both before and after his ascension by a series of Government reforms. These formally integrated the Palatinate into the Crown of Bohemia, gave greater powers to the Estates of the various ancestral territories of the Bohemian Crown (the Palatinate lands were formally run as 'Crown territories', though in practice a weaker estate existed here) and guaranteed Religious toleration. In return, the Estates agreed to Elect Friedrich II's son as titular Duke of Moravia, effectively guaranteeing the hereditary rule of the new dynasty. Though it would be his grandson Karl II Ruprecht who would eventually benefit from this, Friedrich II's reforms, combined with the victory in the War of the Tyrolean Succession that saw Bavaria largely pushed south of the Danube, have seen him ranked among the greatest of Bohemia's monarchs. Karl himself would soon inherit Pfalz-Neuburg, his forty year reign firmly establishing the realm as the fulcrum of Europe.
Archdukes of Inner Austria
Karl II (Habsburg) 1564-1590
Ferdinand III (Habsburg) 1590-1619
Johann Karl (Habsburg) 1619
Archduke Leopold, Bishop of Passau and Strassburg (Habsburg) 1619-1621 as regent for Ferdinand IV
Archduke Karl, Titular Archbishop of Breslau (Habsburg) 1621-1626 as regent for Ferdinand IV
Ferdinand IV (Habsburg) 1619-1633
Maria of Mantua (Gonzaga) 1633-1648 as Regent for Ferdinand V
Ferdinand V (Habsburg) 1633-1655
Karl Ferdinand (Habsburg) 1655-1672
Disputed between Francisco I of Spain (Habsburg), Wilhelm VI Ferdinand of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) and Alfonso IV d’Este of Modena (Este) in War of the Tyrolean Succession (1672-1679)
Dukes of Styria, Carniola and Gorizia
Alfonso IV, Duke of Modena (Este) 1679-1680 - Comprising Styria, Carniola, Gorizia
Tedaldo I, Duke of Modena (Este) 1680-1704
Dukes of Carinthia
Karl II (Habsburg) 1564-1590
Ferdinand III (Habsburg) 1590-1619
Johann Karl (Habsburg) 1619
Ferdinand IV (Habsburg) 1619-1627
Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) 1627-1649 (Pawned by Inner Austria)
Wilhelm VI Ferdinand, Elector of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) 1649-1655 (Pawned by Inner Austria)
Wilhelm VI Ferdinand, Elector of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) 1655-1690
Whatever difficulties Friedrich V of the Palatinate may have faced with his new kingdom were dwarfed by those of the remnant Habsburg state. Mere months after the death of his father, the new Archduke - 14 year old Johann Karl- died of a fever leaving his 11 year old brother to take the throne. Initially serving under his uncle Leopold, the Bishop of Passau and Strassburg, as regent, the court was in practice riven between the factional interests of Madrid and Munich- Leopold leaning to the Spanish side. Having left the church to help perpetuate the dynasty, he was soon granted Tyrol- both to secure the Duchy with its rich silver mines and as part of Bavarian efforts to gain greater influence.
More concerning to the dynasty was the fact that the three Duchies of Inner Austria- Styria, Carinthia and Carniola- were as strongly Lutheran as Austria had been. Efforts to push the Counter-Reformation here begun earlier, and now were doubled down on by the new Regent Archduke Karl- who had been effectively exiled from his Bishopric in Silesia- only to lead to a widespread revolt as the Archduke Ferdinand IV came into his majority. Bavarian troops were brought in to help quell the rebels, but Maximilian's price was the revenue from the Duchy of Carinthia, effectively making him ruler of a full third of Ferdinand's remaining patrimony.
It was perhaps for this reason that Ferdinand made two decisions to try and expand once more. The first was to marry Maria of Mantua, potentially giving him a claim through marriage on the Duchies of Mantua and Montferrato in northern Italy. From this came two children- Maria Eleanora born in 1631, and Ferdinand 18 months later. It was Ferdinand IV's second decision that was to prove his undoing however, joining the revolt of the Catholic princes of Hungary in aftermath of Bethlen's death. While the House of Esterházy was forced into exile in Bavaria, Ferdinand IV would join the House of Forgach in the greater ignominy of falling on the battlefield. His wife would serve as regent for her young son for the next 18 years, in solid but dependable fashion, and would go on to see her daughter married to the heir of the Duchy of Modena, and her son end up in a long and ultimately childless marriage to Anne Marie of Loraine. It was only the re-Catholicisation of Inner Austria that the Archduke had any real success.
His death in 1655 had two consequences, firstly passing Inner Austria to his cousin in Tyrol, and secondly seeing Carinthia pass formally to the Bavarians. The reunion of the Austrian territories was short lived however, with the Peace of Dresden seeing them divided once more between the claimants of the War of the Tyrolean Succession. Carinthia was confirmed as part of Bavaria, but the rest of Inner Austria would pass to the Duke of Modena, who now combined this Alpine powerbase with his existing lands in Modena and Mantua to emerge as a strong rival to Savoy in the politics of northern Italy.
Archdukes of Austria-Tyrol
Ferdinand II (Habsburg) 1564-1595
Matthias (Habsburg) 1595-1619
Ferdinand III (Habsburg) 1619
Johann Karl (Habsburg) 1619
Ferdinand IV (Habsburg) 1619-1621
Leopold V (Habsburg) 1621-1637
Maria Anna of Spain (Habsburg) 1637-1644 as regent for Karl Ferdinand
Karl Ferdinand (Habsburg) 1637-1672
Disputed between Francisco I of Spain (Habsburg), Wilhelm VI Ferdinand of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) and Alfonso IV d’Este of Modena (Este) in War of the Tyrolean Succession (1672-1679)
Dukes of Tyrol, Margraves of Burgau
Wilhelm VI Ferdinand, Elector of Bavaria (Wittelsbach-Bayern) 1679-1690
Counts of Hohenburg
Ludwig IV Eberhard, Duke of Württemberg (Württemberg) 1679-1693
Landgraves of Nellenburg, Counts of Tettnang, Landvogts of Breisgau, Konstanz, Sundgau and Schwaben
Friedrich VII, Margrave of Baden (Zähringen) 1679-1714
The grant of Tyrol to Archduke Leopold V initially seemed to herald the start of a firm revival of Habsburg fortunes. A firm Catholic and able administrator, he soon secured a marriage with his niece Maria Anna of Spain as part of the efforts by Madrid to secure the Spanish Road to the Netherlands from Milan and increase their own influence in the Empire.
In this Spain eventually found themselves thwarted- Friedrich I of Bohemia-Pfalz led a rag-tag coalition to support the Dutch revolt, which soon received French backing as well, and by 1639 Madrid was forced to acknowledge the reality of their loss of Antwerp and Artois in addition to what had already been lost in the earlier phase of the war, and with the withdrawal of the Spanish garrisons in Jülich-Berg in 1627 the Count of Pfalz-Neuburg decided to join what appeared to be the winning side and join his royal cousin in Calvinism.
Domestically matters were even worse. Leopold V was an able administrator, his marriage was by all accounts happy, but it was not fruitful- with many suggesting that it was a punishment for leaving the church. Only one son- Karl Ferdinand- survived to adulthood, and even he was a weak and sickly child. The cause was almost certainly congenital defects from the close marriages in his ancestry- Karl Ferdinand's parents were Uncle and Niece, his mother's parents were first cousins, his maternal grandfather's parents were also uncle and niece, and his mother's parents were also first cousins, making the Emperor Ferdinand his paternal grandfather, his maternal great-grandfather, and also his maternal 3xgreat Grandfather. His marriage to Maria Magdalene of Bavaria- the daughter of Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria's marriage to his Austrian niece Maria Anna- demonstrated only that he was incapable of having children, and when he finally died in 1672 it was only a surprise to the crowned heads of Europe that he had lived as long as he had.
In the aftermath, three came forward to claim the Tyrolean inheritance- which also included the remnants of Inner Austria. Francisco I of Spain had the largest armies but by far the weakest claim to the throne, and though he was the first to occupy Innsbruck, he was soon expelled by a joint Franco-Bavarian force and would come to leave the war having lost several colonies and been forced to recognise the independence of Portugal and Catalonia at the end of their long wars of Independence. The two chief claimants, therefore, were Wilhelm VI Ferdinand of Bavaria, and Alfonso IV d'Este, the Duke of Modena. Alfonso's claim on behalf of his wife Maria Eleanora of Austria was the more senior, and backed by a coalition of the Stuart Triple Monarchy, Hungary and Bohemia-Pfalz. Wilhelm's was the more militarily powerful, being backed by France and Poland. After 6 years of fighting, eventually the lands were split- Wilhelm received Tyrol, for the cost of some of her ancestral lands between the Danube and the Bohemian Forest, while Alfonso received the remnants of Inner Austria. The scattered lands of Further Austria meanwhile were largely annexed to the Margraviate of Baden, save for smaller areas going to Bavaria and Württemberg, cementing that state's role as the Rhenish bulwark against French expansion.
Kings of Hungary and Croatia
I. Miksa (Habsburg) 1564-1576
I. Rudolf (Habsburg) 1576-1608
II. Mátyás (Habsburg) 1608-1619
II. Ferdinánd (Habsburg) 1618-1619
The Interregnum 1619-1620
I. Gábor (Bethlen) 1620-1632 (also Prince of Transylvania)
I. György (Rákóczi) 1632-1649 (also Prince of Transylvania)
II. György (Rákóczi) 1649-1651 (also Prince of Transylvania)
VI. István (Zichy) 1651-1652
II. György (Rákóczi) 1652-1653 (also Prince of Transylvania)
VI. István (Zichy) 1652
II. György (Rákóczi) 1652-1659 (also Prince of Transylvania)
I. Ferenc (Nádasdy) 1659-1684
II. Ferenc (Rákóczi) 1684-1694 (also Prince of Transylvania)
III. György (Rákóczi) 1694-1741 (also Prince of Transylvania)
In Hungary, the death of Ferdinand II- who had been crowned king of Hungary and Croatia the previous year as part of the complex power struggles of Habsburg family feuds in the 1610s- threw the Kingdom into a state of panic. Acutely aware of the threat that a divided or weak Kingdom represented should the Sublime Porte come knocking, the great magnates of the realm were split on whether they should elect Ferdinand's underage heir and perpetuate the alliance with Austria and the Habsburgs as a whole, or choose a new ruler of proven ability. The former were dealt a significant blow by the death of Johann Karl leaving their putative choice an even younger monarch of questionable health, while those supporting the latter were further divided between the proponents of raising one of their own to the throne, and those suggesting a monarch be bought in from outside, with Wladislaw of Poland being particularly noted.
It was into this that Gabriel Bethlen, Gábor in Magyar, the Calvinist Prince of Transylvania, stepped in to take the reigns. Having been ruler of Transylvania since 1613, he swiftly gathered the backing of those magnates geographically closest to the Principality, as well as the Lutheran and Calvinist plurality of the Hungarian nobility who favoured his vision of religious toleration.
While Gábor's reign was to go down as the start of a new Hungarian golden age, in his lifetime it was not without controversy, be it from the clashes between his vision of state-sanctioned tolerance for Christian faiths (though the Orthodox and Hussite churches would only officially be tolerated until the early 18th Century) and more hardline magnates within the Kingdom, to his lack of children- even his second marriage with Catherine of Brandenburg proving to ultimately be without success on this front.
Foreign policy was the biggest sticking point however, as Bethlen technically owed his position in Transylvania as a vassal to the Sublime Porte, and Constantinople now took his accession in Hungary to indicate that they had the same rights there as well- demanding that the border castle of Nádudvar.
During his lifetime Gábor managed to successfully navigate these difficulties, but on his death they came to the fore once more. While Gábor's will had indicated that his wife, Catherine, was to be elected Queen after his death, and he had intended for his nephew István to continue the dynasty, both were decisively outmanoeuvred. The Porte made a brief attempt to put Gábor's brother, the elder István on the throne in Transylvania, but the younger István backed Gábor's close ally György Rákóczi as King instead.
György was duly elected, but was opposed by a last-ditch effort to secure Catholic domination by Ferdinand IV of Austria and a collection of senior Catholic nobles including the powerful Esterházy Princes. With this being put down, György turned his attention abroad, allying with Poland as the Swedes began moves to claim the Polish-Lithuanian throne. His death in 1649 brought a sudden end to this, and his son György II soon found himself embroiled in a lengthy battle to keep his throne in the face of Ottoman opposition.
Over the next few years, György fought a running battle against the Porte-backed candidate István Zichy, and while he eventually emerged victorious from the campaign, it was something of a pyrrhic victory. His last few years revolved around an attempt to support the growing moves for independence from the neighbouring Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, eventually dying in battle south of Bucharest after the Sublime Porte moved to depose the three Princes.
The Hungarian magnates elected to choose one of their own for their next monarch, which given that Transylvania would see 6 Princes deposed by the more active Porte in the next decade was to prove a good idea. Ferenc Nádasdy had been an ally of György II, was one of the richest men in Hungary and militarily capable. He was to spend most of his reign either actively defending Hungary against the Porte, or in preparation for doing so, but the larger military might of the Porte and the distractions of first Sweden's attempts to claim the Polish throne, and then the War of the Tyrolean Succession internationally eventually took their toll. In 1675 the Porte overran Croatia and Upper Hungary. Two years later they were at the gates of Pozsony.
Salvation was to come from a direction at once familiar and unexpected. György II's son, also named Ferenc, had managed to take control over the Principality of Transylvania in 1671, in part due to his marriage to Ferenc I's daughter Elisabeth, but had almost immediately been forced to recognise the Porte's authority over his Principality. He had, however, spent the intervening years building his strength, and now raced across under-defended Upper Hungary. He arrived at Pozsony on July 28th, smashing into the rear of the army of the Sublime Porte at a crucial moment and forcing them to abandon a nearly successful assault on the city. The following day, the 'Transylvanian Miracle' as it came to be known was followed by the arrival of the army of Bohemia-Pfalz, which had raced north from its positions in Styria. The army of the Sublime Porte was comprehensively defeated and forced to retreat.
In the aftermath, Ferenc rallied, retaking Croatia and Upper Hungary, thus securing the route to Transylvania, before taking Esztergom in 1680 and then Buda in 1683 when he had been joined by Bohemia-Pfalz, Inner-Austria-Modena, Poland-Lithuania, Saxony and Brandenburg, together with a volunteer army largely led by the Bavarians. By this point he had formally named Ferenc Rákóczi his designated heir- his eldest son having been killed during the fighting and his younger sons being less inclined to push their own claims so long as they were offered sufficiently prestigious governorships. Ferenc II thus became the first Hungarian monarch since the early 16th Century to be crowned in Esztergom.
Under Ferenc II the liberation of Hungary proceeded apace, assisted by renewed rebellion in Moldavia and Wallachia that saw both principalities throw out their pro-Porte Princes after a strike from Transylvania, though the Romanian principalities would remain highly unstable politically until after the brief Hungarian conquest of 1737-1754. His death shortly after the final Peace of Beograd in 1691 was to cement both his reputation and the dynasty's reign in Hungary. His son György was to commence the rebuilding and repopulating of Hungary, extending formal religious freedom to all Christian denominations and granting a more limited form of Tolerance to the Jews as part of efforts to attract settlers to the largely depopulated areas of southern Hungary- a decision which has left its legacy in the complex web of ethnic groups that characterises the demographics of the Pannonian basin to this day.
Holy Roman Emperors
Maximilian II (Habsburg) 1564-1576
Rudolph II (Habsburg) 1576-1612
Matthias (Habsburg) 1612-1619
Interregnum 1619-1622
Johann I Georg (Wettin) 1622-1654
Wilhelm I Ferdinand (Wittelsbach-Bayern) 1654-1690
Friedrich IV Heinrich (Wittelsbach-Pfalz) 1690-1724
Electors of the Holy Roman Empire:
-1622
Archbishopric of Mainz (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Trier (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Cologne (Catholic)
Kingdom of Bohemia (nominally Catholic)
County Palatine of the Rhine (Calvinist)
Electorate of Saxony (Lutheran)
Electorate of Brandenburg (Calvinist)
1622-1659
Archbishopric of Mainz (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Trier (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Cologne (Catholic)
County Palatine of the Rhine (Calvinist)
Electorate of Saxony (Lutheran)
Electorate of Brandenburg (Calvinist)
Electorate of Bavaria (Catholic)
1659-1702
Archbishopric of Mainz (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Trier (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Cologne (Catholic)
Royal Confederation of the Kingdom of Bohemia and Electoral Palatinate of the Rhine (Bohemia-Pfalz) (Calvinist-Hussite)
Electorate of Saxony (Lutheran)
Electorate of Brandenburg (Calvinist)
Electorate of Bavaria (Catholic)
1702-
Archbishopric of Mainz (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Trier (Catholic)
Archbishopric of Cologne (Catholic)
Royal Confederation of the Kingdom of Bohemia and Electoral Palatinate of the Rhine (Bohemia-Pfalz) (Calvinist-Hussite)
Electorate of Saxony (Lutheran)
Electorate of Brandenburg (Calvinist)
Electorate of Bavaria (Catholic)
Electorate of Baden (Lutheran)
Undoubtedly the biggest crisis in the short term to result from the death of Ferdinand III of Austria was the question of who was to become the new Emperor. While the title had been an essentially dynastic inheritance of the Habsburgs since 1452, but this had relied on carefully cultivated relations with the other electors to ensure that each heir was recognised as a the next King of the Romans, and thus ease their succession. Now the chain had been broken, and with the years since the death of Rudolf II having already seen a rise in dynastic tensions within the house of Habsburg, there was little appetite to select a new monarch from the family, even accounting for the possibility of Leopold V or the Archduke Karl being chosen in lieu of their underage nephew.
The election of Friedrich V of the Palatinate as King of Bohemia further complicated matters. While only the most hardline Catholics disputed the legitimacy of his rule in Bohemia- which was in a similar situation of being an elective monarchy that had been a de facto hereditary Habsburg possession- the twin questions of whether his rule over the Archduchy of Austria was legitimate and, more importantly, how many votes he now had among the Electors were fiercely debated. Friedrich's view that being in possession of both the Palatinate and Bohemia gave him two votes- effectively creating a protestant majority against the three Archbishop-Electors- was viewed as anathema by Catholics within the Empire and with distrust by both Johann Georg in Saxony and Georg Wilhelm in Brandenburg, but the equally radical suggestion of stripping either Bohemia or the Palatinate or their vote was also dismissed.
The candidates for the Imperial title were equally divisive. Friedrich put his name forward, but even with all his ambition he recognised this was effectively only a gesture of interest. Maximilian of Bavaria soon assumed the role of the main Catholic candidate, but Arcbishop-Elector Johann von Kronberg of Mainz viewed anything other than a unanimous decision as spelling doom for the careful religious balance of the Empire that had existed since the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. In this he failed to forsee that the mere presence of Friedrich in Bohemia necessitated a renegotiation of the Augsburg peace to take the Calvinists into account, but for the moment he was able to shepherd a peace agreement through.
Friedrich's rule in Bohemia and the Archduchy of Austria was officially recognised, but it was ruled that while unified in one person the two electorates of Bohemia and the Palatinate would only contribute one vote in regular elections. The Electoral Palatinate was to be treated as Friedrich's primary title, though assuming the standing and dignity of the more senior Electorate of Bohemia, and Bohemia was to be treated as a 'Shadow Electorate', which Friedrich could utilise as a casting vote in the event that the College had been deadlocked in the vote three times.
This was unlikely however, as Maximilian of Bavaria was now awarded a new Electoral title thus ensuring both the Catholic majority of the college and that there would remain an odd-number of electors. Finally Johann Georg of Saxony was elected Emperor.
Johann Georg spent most of his reign keeping a lid on the simmering religious tensions of the Empire, with the existing system stumbling from crisis to crisis. The potential flash-points, ranging from the Count of Pfalz-Neuburg converting back from Catholicism- which had won him the Duchies of Jülich-Berg, to Calvinism to secure favour with Friedrich in Prague, to Spain's wars in the low countries, the interventions of Denmark and Sweden in the north, and the inheritance of Pomerania- were varied and near-unending, but Johann Georg was able to navigate these with a combination of steadfast commitment to negotiation and strict legalism. Agreement to include Calvinists in the terms of the Peace of Augsburg was secured in 1633, but this simply left the wider inadequacies of an agreement that failed to take into account the secularisation of church property since or the way in which internal tensions within territories were increasingly becoming Empire-wide issues. Running legal battles and minor armed clashes were to become a feature of the mid 17th Century, with Catholic Mainz's rule over Erfurt, the position of the claimant Catholic Margraves of Baden-Baden, Württemberg's extensive secularisation of church property (totalling as much as 60% of the Duke's estates) and the disposition of the Prince-Archbishopric of Magdeburg all flaring up as minor conflicts in this period. Only the French ambitions to annex Lorraine and Luxembourg were seen as significant enough threats to bring a sense of firm unity- though even there the Archbishopric-Electorate of Trier increasingly slipped into Paris's orbit.
It was probably fortunate that Friedrich I of Bohemia was to pre-decease Johann Georg by a significant margin. By the time the next Emperor was chosen in 1654, Friedrich II Heinrich was embroiled in the lengthy negotiations for the start of the formal settlement that would come to be seen as the founding of the new Royal Confederation of Bohemia-Pfalz and so did not push significantly against the election of Wilhelm Ferdinand of Bavaria as the next Emperor- though the view expressed by both himself and Friedrich Wilhelm in Brandenburg that it should be a Calvinist next caused some minor tensions.
Wilhelm I Ferdinand was not the careful diplomat his predecessor had been however, and took a much firmer Catholic line on policy. His negotiations for a restitution of Church property secularised since 1633 were controversial, though largely accepted- even in Bohemia-Pfalz where such secularisation had largely been accomplished long before the date in question. The twin crises of Prague and Hildesheim were a different matter. In the former, Friedrich II Heinrich's new constitution in Bohemia-Pfalz threatened to re-open the question of the second electorate, and his explicit efforts to get Hussites recognised Empire wide, rather than simply in his own acts of tolerance, were a step too far for the Emperor. In that case open fighting was narrowly avoided, not least because it became clear that even most Catholics viewed it as an internal Bohemian matter. His support for the efforts of the his cousin Sigismund Albrecht the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne to extend the Counter-Reformation to the Bishopric of Hildesheim in 1661 were another matter however, particularly as a recent victory over Brünswick-Wolfenbüttel there had restored the territories lost by the Prince-Bishopric in the previous century. The resultant war lasted 7 years, spilling over into a brief attempt to oust the Swedes from Bremen and Verden and impose new Catholic prelates there after the defeat of the Danes and Swedish annexation of Holstein. Thanks in large part to Bohemia-Pfalz's successful campaigns in the Rhineland, the war was to be a decisive defeat for the Catholic League. Hildesheim was to lose the territory it had regained one more, much to the delight of the 4 Brünswick Duchies, and Georg Wilhelm the second son of the Duke of Brünswick-Calenberg was named the new Administrator of the remnant Prince-Bishopric. In a fig-leaf of compromise, both longstanding confessional alliances- the Protestant Union and the Catholic League- were dissolved, but the new League of Halberstadt that emerged after the war was effectively a continuation of the former.
Almost as soon as that war ended, the War of the Tyrolean Sucession broke out, once more pitching the two rival branches of the House of Wittelsbach against eachother. In that conflict, Wilhelm Ferdinand was significantly more successful in that war- the Silver mines of the Duchy of Tyrol being ample recompense for minor territorial losses north of the Danube, even if the inheritance of Pfalz-Neuburg by Bohemia-Pfalz a few years later did leave Ingolstadt near surrounded. The mood in the Empire had decisvely soured however- a new comprehensive religious Peace had been under negotiation ever since the Peace of Würzberg had brought the Hildesheim War to a close, but Wilhelm Ferdinand blocked any suggestion of extending tolerance to religious minorities in his own realm.
The culmination of Friedrich V's goals in the form of the election of his great-grandson to the Imperial throne in 1694 was propelled in large part by his commitment to those negotiations. The terms of cuius regio, eius religio - the view that the religion of the monarch determined the religion of the state- was now moderated. The appointment of secular officials was to remain an area in which a ruler had the right to implement a confessional requirement, but freedom of private worship for the Empire's three chief faiths- Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism- as well as the Hussite church within the ancestral lands of the Kingdom of Bohemia were now guaranteed. While in practice pressure to convert through discriminatory practice was still a constant matter- especially in areas such as Bavaria and Cologne where the Counter-reformation had taken hold, or in Swedish Holstein or the Lower Palatinate- the threat of legal action largely ended the confiscation of Church property or the suppression of minority congregations.
Friedrich IV Heinrich's reforms would not end there however, successfully negotiating to have Baden added as an Electorate in 1702 (though he had to sacrifice the never-used casting vote to do so) and redefining the Kreis boundaries to better reflect the new situation in the Empire- a move which saw his own lands now incorporated as a new Bohemian Kreis, Baden transferred to the Electoral Rhenish Kreis, and both the Burgundian and Austrian Kreise abolished- Inner Austria and the Dutch territories were now made Kreisfrei in recognition of their de facto independence, the remainder of the Burgundian Kreis incorporated into the Lower Rhenish circle; and Tyrol and Carinthia moved to the Bavarian Kreis. It would take until his successor to formally recognise that the Dutch, Swiss and Italians were no longer part of the Empire, though even then Savoy and the scattered territories of the Duke of Modena were exempt from that.
The final achievements of Friedrich IV's reign were abroad- as the Third Northern War saw the Swedes expelled from both Holstein and Prussia, as well as finally giving up on their claims to Poland-Lithuania, a war which also saw the first inklings of the rising power of Muscovy.