had left five stalwart sons, so that there had seemed little probability that the younger line, the sons of his brother, would succeed.

But all the five were childless, and now the son of Archduke Charles, who had died in 1590, had become the natural heir after the death of Matthias to the immense family honours--his cousins Maximilian and Albert having resigned their claims in his favour.
Ferdinand, twelve years old at his father's death, had been placed under the care of his maternal uncle, Duke William of Bavaria.

By him the boy was placed at the high school of Ingolstadt, to be brought up by the Jesuits, in company with Duke William's own son Maximilian, five years his senior.

Between these youths, besides the tie of cousinship, there grew up the most intimate union founded on perfect sympathy in religion and politics.
When Ferdinand entered upon the government of his paternal estates of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola, he found that the new religion, at which the Jesuits had taught him to shudder as at a curse and a crime, had been widely spreading.

His father had fought against heresy with all his might, and had died disappointed and broken-hearted at its progress.